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Fisker Hybrids Get Bad Karma From Superstorm Sandy
New submitter slas6654 writes with this excerpt from Jalopnik: "Approximately 16 of the $100,000+ Fisker Karma extended-range luxury hybrids were parked in Port Newark, New Jersey last night when water from Hurricane Sandy's storm surge apparently breached the port and submerged the vehicles. As Jalopnik has exclusively learned, the cars then caught fire and burned to the ground.' Apparently Fiskar super-duty lithium ion batteries are neither water-proof or water soluble."
the 'submerged in water' use case?
Come on, editors, get your act together already.
You can drive them if you want, I will not be.
A flooded car is a totaled car. No cars on the market are built for that.
I am not going to be buying a flooded car or any other R title.
Pretty basic chemistry going on here....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxhW7TtXIAM
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It looks like several were close together, while others parked a little bit away were unscathed. Perhaps one caught fire and that burnt adjacent cars? They were parked pretty close, and there's a Karma in one of the photos that didn't suffer the same fate.
We have flash floods every summer in Texas. Most cars that run into a few feet of water simply stall. If instead, your car explodes and kills all the occupants, then you've got a potential death trap.
Because most cars don't burst into flame when submerged.
The party's over
It's a witch!
Because they could have been parked in someone's garage and gotten flooded. And that would be the difference between some clean up work and a house burned to the ground (or water line).
Have gnu, will travel.
Actually lots of houses burn down due to floods. A gas line ruptures or electric power issues light the house up and then the fire Dept can't make it there due to the water.
Let me explain it simply. On Earth, water falls from the sky, very frequently, sometimes with great force. Having a consumer level bomb that is activated by water is a bad idea whilst operating on Earth. It is a very volatile condition. These cars BURNED by being put in water and you dont think that is cause for alarm? Not one or two but over a DOZEN.
Good-bye
DO NOT DRIVE in a foot of water.
A single foot of water moving sideways is more than enough to take your car off the road. If you cannot see the bottom do not drive through it.
I'd be less worried about the lithium-water reaction(Li-ion batteries tend to be sealed, if only so the internals don't degrade even faster than usual, they are touchy things) and more worried about a short circuit anywhere near a battery pack punchy enough to run a car. At 330 volts, you don't need an ultra-low resistance path to get some serious current flowing, and serious current is something that large battery packs are more than happy to supply.
Now, once the electrical heating breaches the seals and touches off a merry metal fire, you have additional problems...
Hey, large swaths of New York City are without power. That means no heat either, and it's pretty cold - so a nice car fire might be welcomed!
#DeleteChrome
That's the point of "flash" flooding. It's unexpected. Perfectly good drivers turn a bend in the road on a rainy night and run straight into a gulley with 4 feet of water. We've got a lot of country roads with no lighting and poor visibility. Happens every summer around here - except deaths are extremely rare. But - if your car exploded before you could get out? Very bad.
"How do you 'hide' the damage these cars have? ;-)"
Easy, pop a kick panel and inspect any ground cables, and exposed metal above the floor level. These cars start rusting within days of exposure, and you can usually see a waterline once the carpet and/or kick panels have been exposed. I've had the not-so-pleasure of informing numerous people that their cars were submersed at some point in their history, and not a single person has responded with anything similar to "oh yea, I already know that".
why does that matter?
There is an important difference between "totalled" and "erupt into a 1350 deg. C toxic lithium fire." Traditional gas/diesel cars don't usually do that when flooded, so a new and dramatic failure mode has been revealed. Something to note if you live in New Orleans or parts of Texas that see frequent flash floods and perhaps not the best thing to park in your integral garage.
You didn't really fail to understand this did you? You'd just rather people not discuss concerns that emerge with the things you prefer.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
As someone who also lives in Florida, I can explain.
1. Very little preparation for the type of weather that a hurricane can cause. In Florida, we have storm drains that take away most of the water that a hurricane causes. Add in building codes that require buildings to be designed for hurricanes (typically category 3) and utilities that are designed specifically for hurricanes, and you'll find that down here, things are pretty robust by design. New Jersey and New York didn't have that type of preparation and you had buildings collapse.
2. Record storm surges. In some places, the storm surge was over 13 feet where the harbor was only designed to handle the (then historic record) 12 feet, causing massive flooding.
3. Fires. Gas lines caught fire, causing over 100 homes to burn to the ground.
4. In New Jersey specifically, they had a berm go under water due to the storm surges, causing even more damage.
Ultimately, take a look at the damage predictions and you'll see why its called a superstorm. Wind was only part of the issue.
The batteries used in the Tesla don't suffer from this problem. Each individual battery has independent internal circuitry to disconnect the battery if a short is detected or if the voltage goes too high or too low. Additionally, the battery carrier is designed to direct the gases safely away from the car in the event that runaway battery failure does occur to protect the vehicle and any occupants.
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