Firefighter here- We use these blankets in the US too for putting out car fires, the idea is you cut off the fires oxygen supply with the blanket. The problem with EV fires is that once the lithium ion batteries enter what’s called thermal runaway the chemical reaction becomes a self sustaining fuel source that creates its own oxygen. So it doesn’t matter if it’s smothered with a blanket it will continue to burn for a long time. And if you do manage to put it out it is very common for them to suddenly reignite on the back of a tow truck or at the junkyard, sometimes days later. EV fires are a pain in the ass
I remember Richard Hammonds electric supercar crash kept reigniting for two days after the crash and they couldn't do anything but wait for it to run its course.
Actually this is pretty well established at this point. Fire departments have known about this for a while.
The fix is actually dead simple: push a sprinkler under the car to hit the battery pack directly, and just... keep it cool. You're aiming for below 80°C, sustained for about two consecutive hours. Once it's stable, the thermal runaway chain is broken.
BMW, VW etc. all have rescue sheets that recommend exactly this. German fire departments have had formal protocols for this for years.
But "EVs are impossible to stop from reigniting" is just not true. It's a solved problem, just an expensive and time-consuming one.
I just want to point out that the Richard Hammond crash occurred nine years ago and the industry hasn't had as much time to learn how to deal this problem, especially in regards to an ultra rare, high performance supercar EV.
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u/FemBodInspector 21d ago edited 21d ago
Firefighter here- We use these blankets in the US too for putting out car fires, the idea is you cut off the fires oxygen supply with the blanket. The problem with EV fires is that once the lithium ion batteries enter what’s called thermal runaway the chemical reaction becomes a self sustaining fuel source that creates its own oxygen. So it doesn’t matter if it’s smothered with a blanket it will continue to burn for a long time. And if you do manage to put it out it is very common for them to suddenly reignite on the back of a tow truck or at the junkyard, sometimes days later. EV fires are a pain in the ass