By BARBARA SIMPSON
Americans have seen the headlines and the terrible pictures from Florida and the other states battered by Hurricane Ian. It was beyond awful. Complete destruction of towns and cities and homes and businesses to say nothing of the destruction of the beautiful nature of the area.
For those who remember it as it was, they will never adjust to how it will look when repairs and reconstruction are completed. The memories will remain, and the past cannot be replaced.
While officials are dealing with the reality of the damage and death, a new and dangerous threat has surfaced, one which most people never considered. Just what they needed: battery fires in electric cars that are not only dangerous in themselves, but which are almost impossible to extinguish.
There are reports that after the lithium batteries in the cars are inundated by salt water, they burst into flames, which can often take more than six hours and thousands of gallons of water to put out. This not only puts pressure on fire departments to deal with, it but takes their attention away from dealing with actual storm damage. There are reports of at least two houses which have burned down from this problem along with the damage to the vehicles themselves.
Florida officials have contacted the Department of Transportation for assistance in handling this problem and indeed, Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott has stepped up and is demanding action. Letters have gone out to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as well as the State Fire Marshal’s Office and indeed to the manufacturers of the cars themselves — Tesla, General Motors, Ford, and others. Reports are that Tesla did not immediately respond to queries.
While this is a severe problem for those dealing with hurricane damage, the real electric car battery fire issue is more widespread than that. There are reports from across the country of electric cars bursting into flame even without being inundated by water, cars burning while parked in driveways, in garages, and just anywhere.
Lest you think this is just a hurricane problem, I know of a parking garage in a major Southern California city which has a sign on its entrance that says some electric cars are not permitted to be parked in that building because of possible fire danger — and they list the names of the specific cars.
Apparently, those building owners think the problem is serious and the danger is real.
They’re right. It is.
There is a growing number of incidents of cars bursting into flame just while parked in a residential garage — something which should give the owners of those vehicles second thoughts about using their garage for their electric vehicle.
If it were me, I wouldn’t.
Another bizarre aspect of the battery problem is that there are reports of fires being extinguished and then bursting into flame again, days or weeks after the original incident. There have been instances of cars towed to mechanics’ yards and bursting into flame again, long after the original blaze was extinguished.
As far as I have been able to determine, the car manufacturers have not responded to the inquiries and complaints about this problem.
While firefighters and car owners are dealing with this problem, governments — both federal and varied state governments — are moving ahead with their determination to phase out gasoline-powered vehicles and replace them with electric ones.
President Biden and his administration have a goal of having 50 percent of all new cars sold in this country to be electric by 2030.
Varied states are setting their own deadlines — California, for instance, has declared that all new cars sold in the state must be zero-emission by 2035.
At least for now, California has not put any restrictions on ownership or sale of used gasoline-powered vehicles, but who knows what might transpire as we get closer to that 2035 deadline.
What is happening in California is that a number of communities and cities are putting restrictions on the number of gas stations they allow in their jurisdictions. Some are disallowing any new ones and others are restricting improvement to existing facilities. The end result of this is the goal is to make it impossible for people to buy gasoline for their existing vehicles. It’s their way of forcing people to change to electric. They’ll get us, one way or another.
As time passes, and more of these fire problems presumably occur, it will be interesting to see how people and governments react. Will Americans allow themselves to be forced into using new — and very expensive — transportation methods that are dangerous, or will they insist that they want to keep the cars and trucks we’ve used for decades, which are the best we can hope for.
Time will tell.
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