Batteries starting fires are a top safety concern
Carmakers have recalled close to one-fifth of all electric vehicles sold in the U.S. over the last 10 years because of battery or charging issues, including risks of explosive fires, showing the safety challenges the industry faces in the shift away from gas power.
As of the end of July 2024, battery or charging problems have caused automakers to recall roughly 17% of EVs and 11% of plug-in hybrid EVs sold since 2015, according to a ConsumerAffairs analysis of data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and sales estimates from Edmunds.
In total, nearly 645,000 EVs and more than 81,000 plug-in EVs have been recalled.
Battery fires are the most serious issue among the EV recalls, automotive experts say.
A warning to park outside, due to a risk of sparking a fire, was placed on 28% of EV recalls and 69% of plug-in EV recalls related to battery or charging issues.
No matter who is making the batteries, we need a good record, Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars.com, told ConsumerAffairs. Until that happens, people will be rightfully thinking, I dont want to be that far on the bleeding edge of technological development.
The findings add to concerns about EVs when state governments are requiring their sale to combat air pollution and global warming.
California and New York have mandated that all new sales or leases of light-duty passenger vehicles must be EVs by 2035.
But some early adopters switching from gasoline to electric power have bought cars with batteries that can short-circuit and start fires.
Around 69% of recalled EVs with battery or charging issues had a risk of starting a fire, ConsumerAffairs found, and 31% had an increased risk of crashing.
Their fires burn intensely hot and are hard to put out by a fire department, Brauer said. Thats about as scary as you can get.
By comparison, only 0.2% of all recalled vehicles, of which the vast majority are combustion, had an issue that risked starting a fire as of Aug. 27.
Battery fires
In 2021, a Chevrolet Bolt sparked a blaze in a garage in Ashburn, Virginia, that resulted in around $235,000 of property damage, NBC Washington reported.
Fires arising when the battery was charged at full or almost full caused General Motors to issue a rare park outside warning for various models of the Bolt manufactured from 2017 to 2022.
The Bolt recall covered around 76% of all the EVs GM has sold since 2015, based on sales estimates provided by Edmunds.
General Motors and the Bolt reflect badly on all EVs, because its a serious recall on such a large number of EVs and a large percentage of all the EVs out there at a time, Brauer said. I think GM is discovering, Oh, making batteries is kind of hard.
GM recalled 160,000 Chevrolet Bolts in 2020 and 2021, by far the biggest EV recalls for battery or charging issues to date.
Tesla has the best record on battery or charging issues, recalling only 26 Model 3s and Model Ys in June 2023 because of the risk of an electrical shock due to a misassembled battery.
All they do is EVs and guess what? They seem to do EVs better, Brauer said.
But all EV batteries pose a serious fire danger: Burning lithium can reach 3,632 degrees Fahrenheit, and attempting to douse the fire with water can create a hydrogen explosion.
If theres ever a situation where there was a high density of Teslas parked in a parking structure and one of them went and it got another one and another one, you could have an inferno, Brauer said.
A string of Tesla fires has raised alarms in recent years, including in 2021 when a Tesla likely in self-driving mode crashed, killing two men inside and starting a blaze that took four hours and more than 30,000 gallons of water to extinguish, The New York Times reported.
EV 'growing pains'
As sales rise, EVs are also expected to have more recalls than gas-powered cars based on prior recalls and automaker behavior, according to an iSeeCars.com study released in May. Thats largely because of technology used by Tesla, Porsche and Lucid.
This use of advanced drivetrains and technology can lead to more recalls as automakers learn how these cars are used and which components are the most likely to wear out and fail, Brauer said.
Still, EVs offer mechanical advantages over combustion cars, including fewer parts and less maintenance on fuel and cooling systems, said Joseph Yoon, consumer insights analyst at Edmunds.
These are all components and systems that can be subject to recalls through the vehicles life span as well issues that simply don't exist in EVs, he said.
The battery problems are a sign of growing pains among legacy automakers who have only recently started manufacturing EVs, Yoon said. He said that technological advancements should hopefully address the current safety issues.
In the next couple of years, we are going to see an onslaught of update after update in the technology, whether that is in the motors or battery packs, he said.
Even so, Yoon said more time is needed to see if dangerous battery issues will persist.
We are at a place where we cant really correctly judge if this is going to be an ongoing problem, he said. There is no amount of testing and projecting that these manufacturers can do that can replicate real-world usage.
Photo Credit: Consumer Affairs News Department Images
Posted: 2024-09-03 13:32:29
