I’m more interested in what a stress busting pullout is.

Shouldn’t that headline be:

BloJo stuffs Maybot

I’m more interested in what a stress busting pullout is.

Something to do with the head massage I guess.

Ming the Merciless
Lots of people on FB querying why an electric car should catch fire, one even thinking it had a hidden petrol engine in it!

Batteries have horrendous amounts of stored energy in them. We use 12V180 Ampere Hour batts for standby power at work. Manufacturers warning labels state currents in excess of 1000A can be liberated in the event of a direct short. This is more than enough to make the end of a screwdriver or spanner disappear in a bright blue flash and spray of hot steel and lead.

I’m guessing that car has a top speed of over 200, maybe a range of 200 miles and weighs 1-2 tonnes. That’ll be a BIG battery. The car was subjected to a beyond manufactures warranty shock/load so some wiring could’ve failed leading to a large short circuit or the battery itself could’ve failed mechanically inside leading to short circuit. Or a combination of both.

Either way horrific amounts of electricity would’ve flowed possible battery thermal runaway as well, leading to massive temperature rises and fire.

Might take a bit of time to get going but really doesn’t like stopping until the electricity has discharged and don’t try pouring water on it!

We had a 270V 150Ah bank (40 big 12V batts in series and parallel) catch fire, due to old age and poor maintenance. Hobby Fire Brigade turned up crow barred the cabinet open and had hose in hole they had made when our Rapid Response guy turned up and shouted at them. They pointed to the circuit breakers on the local AC distribution panel in the room which they’d switched off stating it was all off and safe so they could apply water. RR had blazing argument with them at this point advising that you cannot turn batteries off and do you really want to be putting water on 270V DC! Luckily they relented and used powder to suppress the flames till the electricity discharged.

It’s too early to say if the fire was caused by a primary HV system loss of integrity from impact forces. Remember, a car driven at racing speeds has heat in a lot of components (like the brakes!) and after an impact, fires can start from a lot of sources (for example, those hot brake discs setting fire to the composite inner wheel arch liners for example…..)

It’s fairly clear from the photos that the main structure of the car is intact, and the actual impact wasn’t too extreme, just a typical “taking off the corners” kinda shunt. The issue with coming to a rest upside down is driver egress, although in this case it seems RH was able to extract himself from the car. (the merc SLS with gull wing doors has pyrotechnically deploy-able doors for this very reason!)

for example, those hot brake discs setting fire to the composite inner wheel arch liners for example…..)

Yup and as mentioned earlier in the thread good old brake fluid.

I’m more interested in what a stress busting pullout is.

Probably a DUP policy launch.