this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2025
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Questionable implementation but sound logic. Part of the reason EV fires are so hard to fight is you can't just dump water on them, they actually have to be buried and smothered in sand/dirt or something that will insulate it from air and control heat. And if the fire starts inside the vehicle, ejecting the battery away from the fire can keep the fire from getting 100x worse.
I don't know why you'd fire it sideways, directly at a sidewalk, at a few meters a second though. And not like, down and out the back. Make the rear bumper a pop-free folds down ramp lol
Just a quick clarification (I have run into my fair share of lithium battery fires and been doing a lot of research)
Insulating it from air doesn't stop air from getting to it. The battery has all the oxygen (air) it needs whether buried in sand, deep under water or out in space to continue it's catastrophic failure. The goal for being in sand, or having it suspended in an apparatus like one of those pouches or bags is to hopefully reduce the damage it does to the environment around it.
The more people understand how we really have no control once that thermal runaway starts the more people can protect themselves and hopefully find ourselves further away from these shitty ass designs.
All EVs should have plumbing and an external water access point for firefighters. The current sealed designs are impossible to extinguish.
Switching to LiFePo and making the batteries easy to swap along a trip, is a better way to reduce fires.
Or solid state maybe? Not sure how flammable they are, but I know LiFePo are much lower risk than standard lithium ion (Nickle cobalt or whatever Tesla and the big Chevy trucks use )
Edited for spelling
I started exploring more LiFePo4s, NiMH are sometimes a safer bet. We don't have many options out there unfortunately.
I know NiMH are way easier to charge, but lifepo4 has better capacity and way more charging cycles I believe.
The tricky thing with iron phosphate is that the voltage level between 75-80 and fully charged is very flat, so it’s difficult to reliably know the state of charge.
Solid state batteries are much safer, but much more expensive to make in facilities resembling chip fab clean rooms.