Rich rebuilds has a bit of an incident.

Sad. There is a reason people pay engineers, to say nothing of firefighters.

Mark Bosse

At this stage it's not clear what the cause was. It's still under investigation. If hear anything I'll put it up.

That's horrific. I wonder if it was the battery or wiring that went on fire. And if stuff was being stored on it.

Big Clive

Nope cause manufacturers do things correctly. These guys just did a shit job.

Kilrah

Makes you think. There should be more education about using and maintaining these new lithium batteries. A friend's brother died when the battery in his mobility scooter caught fire. <a href="https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/mid-west/faulty-battery-blamed-for-geraldton-mans-horror-fire-death-on-mobility-scooter-ng-b88997530z" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/mid-west/faulty-battery-blamed-for-geraldton-mans-horror-fire-death-on-mobility-scooter-ng-b88997530z</a>

wow. what happened, did some cells overcharge another?

Selth Blackwings

I like the sign where it's burning: 🔥 "Please extinguish smoking material here". 🧯Well no kidding! 🤣 It was like a freaking firework show! 🧨

Gadgetman

I find it quite beautiful

Sean Yem

Not so much "Thermal Runaway" as "Thermal run for your life" :)

Phil Collins

I just bought a 2015 Chevy VOLT about a month ago. I hope to disappoint you. ;p

Daddy Bearcat

Thanks Clive - yes I know, I should have put a smiley in but don't think you can.

Lithium cells are fine as long as they do not get overcharged or damaged, either physically, shorting or excess current draw. The vape battery explosions have mostly been down to incorrect chargers or low current cells being stressed in high current vape devices. I'm quite looking forward to the accidents at the high current charging stations though. Especially when people make their own adaptors, repair their leads badly or just try to ram a broken connector into a socket.

Big Clive

It's fine. Your EV has proper battery management and containment.

Big Clive

If I could get my hands on one....

Big Clive

They were charging without a battery management system. If you look closely you can see the edit where a wire disappears and people jump positions.

This is crazy... so in 20 years time when everyone is driving around in electric cars are we going to see examples of this every day on our roads? And we all carry a lithium battery around with us in our pockets... imagine if that happened to your mobile phone battery.

Yeah... I noticed the part where he said they didn't use the BMS or any cooling, but they where also dumb charging it when that happened? Even with normal 18650's that would be stupid. Wow. Tesla's that have had their BMS or battery cooling system compromised can be hazardous. I had one hit me a couple years ago, &lt;30MPH collision, superficial frontend damage to my vehicle with no airbag deployed, but the Tesla was really bad off. All airbags deployed, frame bent, passenger doors were unusable (luckily only the driver was in it), drive system crashed and couldn't be turned off, BMS failed to cut the power, and the battery coolant system was venting boiling coolant. Apparently local fire dept is accustomed to this and automatically respond to any no-injury crashes involving electric cars. They blew the battery disconnects so the police tow could safely clear the scene without the Tesla randomly exploding in to fire later on.

Kadah

I used to have to walk by the local Vaillant branch building on my way to work. They had this tiny prototype electric car parked in front of it ( <a href="https://www.webgradnja.hr/images/obavijesti/2412/slika1-new.jpg?1474382148" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.webgradnja.hr/images/obavijesti/2412/slika1-new.jpg?1474382148</a> ). So one day the batteries caught fire. By the time I got there, the fire was already out and about 15 fireman where standing around to make sure it really was out. Now I really feel sorry i missed it! :D P.S. Using water to put out burning batteries? Really?

"OK, something just went bang and that dogs barking a lot. There's a guy panicking and he's trying to blow it out. Now the whole lot's going up and someone's opened the roller door. They're trying to push it out but I think the brake's on and the wheels are in the wrong direction. They've got it out now and it's going off like a firework show. Here's the fire brigade, OMG it just blew a chunk at their shiny truck. They're hosing it with water now and it's sizzling a bit. I think it's over now, but everyone's a bit shaky and they're making coffee."

Big Clive

None of them were wearing a Colin Furze style clip on safety tie, not even the fire fighters.

evilution

Thanks Clive for this - since I have an EV this is a great comfort - not.

I did consider replacing my Golf trolley lead acid to "LION" (the cell that can bite) however I will now go with my blotting paper zinc iron vinegar cells that I might have to PI$$ on to get the trolley up some of the hills. I walked passed Barry, Wales ASDA charging station, makes me think the car charging stations should NOT be near the front doors or any store ? My father recently bought a Cordless Grass Trimmer Lithium-Ion in Canada , he keeps it in the garage so the Winter and Summer temperatures are not that safe. Just up the road in winter my Nephew leaves massive tractors running overnight in winter, or they can't start them after the oil gets cold. - Me! I just use a Scythe to trim the small amount of grass I have, What is odd is that every so often you have to use a hammer in the sharpening process :-)) [British Scythes are different]. What is nice is that in the early hours of the morning I can cut the grass and know one will hear me cut. Bulb replacement with LED I understand - but why replace a Lead Acid battery with Li-Ion unless there is a real benefit. "if it ain't broke don't fix it" ---- in summer on a dry day a cup of petrol will clear my grass, in the same way you can make a cat sound like a dog....... WOOF... John

John Harrison

In case anyone reads this: It seems they were using a dumb charger with NO BMS and NO cooling of the cells. This is a recipe for disaster. "Normal" 18650's have a pressure relief (CID) and over current protection (PTC) in the top of the case - Tesla-cells DO NOT - Tesla-cells are more dangerous than standard 18650's and should not be charged without a BMS attached. I hope Rich will elaborate on this and tell us that they goofed it. This will not happen on its own - only an overcharge situation will do this.

Per 'Zapro' Jensen

I watched this a couple of days ago and wondered what triggered it? Were they charging the car or was it just sitting there? Rich admits they had no BMS or cooling but just having a bunch of lipo's go thermonuclear just sitting idle?

George Cohn

Sharing this made me rethink one of my projects. I am sticking with old tech of lead acid, Lead acid batteries are a lot more forgiving of charging and discharging. If I had the extra $$$ for a proper battery management system then I might have gone the Lithium battery route. But being on a limited budget makes a big difference.

Charles Bruckner

Clive I came here hoping you did a commentary of what was happening.

Aaron Nadler

Clive, you are gonna need a bigger pie dish for 18650's.....

Chris Muncy

So I take it that we are not going to see tesla batteries on big clive's channel any day soon.

Literally worse than a cheap, pink, shitty usb charger from China.

Simon Mikkelsen

Thanks for sharing this Clive. I never knew those batteries could catch fire like that.

Nuts 'n' Proud

That sucks on so many levels. Cool car, cool idea... A valuable lesson indeed! I'm glad nobody was hurt&gt; HOLY CRAP WHAT A SHOW!!!

Michael Thompson

As far as I am aware there is no free Lithium metal in the cells, just Lithium salts (ions). It is the uncontrolled release of the energy stored in the cells that causes the "energetic reaction". In a large pack one cell sets off the ones around it and you end up with a chain reaction. Non-rechargeable Lithium cells do contain a small quantity of free metal, usually an alloy with other metals.

That is seriously dangerous.

Frank

That is genuinely impressive. The way they were fighting the fire with 18650s shooting off in every direction.

Asystole

If you want to see real fireworks, you should see a petrol car on fire. ;) Seriously, though, a top-end Tesla Model S can do over 300 miles on the equivalent energy of 10 litres of petrol. So that's how much energy there is in their biggest battery pack.

Tom De Mulder

there is a lot of energy there

A learning experience

Pieter Gosselink

No cooling, no battery management system and the packs outside their container.

Pieter Gosselink

In Australia we have a retail chain called BWS, I presume that from the other side of the world it looks like BMS to you... it stands for "beer wine spirits".

Moz in Oz

nice find, thanks for the share

Phr3d13

BMS ? Is that Beer, Marshmallows, and Sausages ?

Was going to mention the containment pie dish but you beat me to it. No home or workshop should be without one.

John Carr

People in the comments noticed that there is a brief cut at 3:14 where there is a charging lead and then suddenly it disappears at 3:15. That pack blew because it was being incorrectly charged and didn't have a BMS.

Trevor

I know what happens when you drop pure lithium in water but is there enough lithium exposed at one time there to worry about an energetic reaction? It didn’t look the fire department was was using anything special.

Lostngone

Maybe they mixed up battery cells and fireworks

All I can say think to say is.... WHERE WAS THEIR BATTERY CONTAINMENT PIE DISH! but no.. they were damn lucky R.i.p Daisy

Jono Harley

It's like the most expensive firework in the world combined with firecrackers and absolutely reminds me of the acetylene plant explosion (in Dallas I think?) in miniature.

Oddly enough I watched this earlier today. Pretty impressive carnage. Not sure whose fault it was though. Proper battery monitoring should have prevented this.

Vaughn B.

Interesting to see those battery banks go up outside of the confines of the whole pack mounted under a car. Expensive scary fireworks. Pretty irresponsible charging those packs that way though. All involved we're very lucky. Saying that I'm a big fan of Rich!

Good grief! Lucky they were there.

Neil Tonks

This is what happens when you change lithium batteries with no BMS.

Jason munro