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Rescuers Prep for Hybrid Car Accidents
mykepredko writes "I've driven a Toyota Prius for two years now and found this CNN article regarding the training required to rescue people trapped in hybrid cars to be slightly alarming. As an EE, I would expect that the electrical system is designed to be as well protected and fail-safe as possible in an accident, but if I'm ever in an accident, I'll make sure that any responders are wearing rubber gloves and boots and if any cutting is done, the roof is the only area they touch." Toyota has an accident guide indicating that if the airbags deploy, the hybrid battery pack should be automatically isolated.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
Is that this news is shocking.
Never mind you electric car drivers, what about we poor bicyclists and pedestrians who can't hear you coming?
I'd like to suggest new electric cars be equipped with Jetsons-style "whuwuwuwuwuuwu" sounds as a safety feature. Actually, this might very well be an untapped commercial opportunity: custom car sound effects. Drive a wagon train! Drive a steam train! Drive the U.S.S. Enterprise! Be ironic and drive a Hummer!
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
As an EMT, I pulled a great many conscious people out of cars. Now, sometimes I wished they had been knocked out ... "Yes, damn it, we're going to get you out of the car, and you're going to be okay, now would you please hold still and shut up!"
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
vs. dumb-asses.
500 volts? 45 volts is enough to kill you... at 10 amperes!
Seriously, aren't we nerds, or something?!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I have a lot of resistance to that sort of humor.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Racing cars have a standard placed cut off for the motor/fuel line inside the drivers door for rescuers, why not something like that for the hybrids?
Trolling is a art,
But the big question remains: will the radio still work after an accident? Anyone ever notice in those shows you see about car accident rescues (Rescue 911, cops, etc.), everytime they arrive at the scene of an accident, the radio is NEVER on?
My dad has a Civic Hybrid. All the necessary cabling runs under the car next to the frame rails. If rescuers are haveing to cut that deep, you're SOL anyways. Normally rescuers have to use the jaws of life on doors, and the associated A,B,C pillars. No electricals go thru there, other than side airbag sensors.
Sounds like another internet scare article put out by a 'reputible' source...
From the article:
The battery powering the electric motor carries as much as 500 volts, more than 40 times the strength of a standard battery.
Karma: Can there be a void?
.. -. - . .-. .-. --- -...
Extended comments at Gizmodo makes it clear that this is 99% rumor/FUD. Does anyone bother chacking the facts on these things before they're posted?
OK,
- B
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
As the owner of a 2004 Prius, and being an engineer, I have never felt in danger.
First, the High Voltage system is isolated from the car body completely. Not even "ground" is shared. The cables and parts are shrouded in tough orange plastic.
Second, the article is incorrect on two points: the battery is only 200+ Volts, not 500V. The 500V is only between the inverter and motors.
Also, there are no high voltage components in the doors.
Because the airbag accelerometers are used to monitor whether the car is in an accident, the main battery relay shuts off right next to the battery long before any metal starts twisting its way into high voltage areas. The bigger danger is the battery (several NiMH cells) being split open, but it is protected by its location and special shrouds.
My biggest fear in an accident is that the E-personnel are scared into paralysis by rumors, and don't rescue me.
BTW, you can see the Toyota Emergency Responder guide at http://techinfo.toyota.com/
Another load of premium male bovine excrement from out friends in Texas and Munich/Detroit.
My THIRD Prius, an 04 (I've owned an 01 and 03 - both completely problem-free), is currently sitting in Port Newark. I am also a retired rescue captain so I can state with some authority that Prius fundamental design is such that it would take a deliberate act of stupidity for a rescue technician to manage to make contact with both the positive AND negative high voltage leads at the same time since both are ground-isolated and separately encased in conduit.
In real-fife rear-end accidents, only ONE Prius battery was damaged and it's safety issue was some minimal leakage of electrolyte; NOT "Deadly High Voltage"!
In fact, the Japanese national fire safety bureau (the official name escapes me at the moment) insisted that Toyota place the HV conduit inboard far enough that the "Jaws Of Life" can't possibly make contact in one or two "bites".
Sigh...
"I don't understand it???
I'm afraid of it!
KILL IT!!!"
T_O_M
I'm a volunteer FF, and we get LOTS of training on how to properly cut up cars, especially the new ones that are more deadly to us trying to rescue you, than they are to you and your 60mph argument with a tree.
Insane numbers of airbags, compressed gas cylinders strategicly located in our best cutting points, airbags that don't always go off, and therefore might go off at any point in time while we're cutting the car apart.
And now they're adding several hundred volts to the mix.
Luckily we don't need to cut through the center of the floor boards very often (common wiring route for the big linces).
But then, the automotive companies don't seem to have concern for making a car that's easy to cut apart. They main focus on not killing you in the first place.
The Mini's are the most impressive I've seen. 60mph into a telephone pole (annihalated the pole), and then into a redwood tree. No broken glass, but the engine compartment was demolished. Incredible how much energy it soaked up, without harming anything past the firewall. Too bad it caught fire as the gas tank was torn open by the bottom of the telephone poll...