Car crashes are a lot more common than you think and even if you are the perfect driver, you can still be involved in an accident. In 2017, The European Commission registered 25,300 fatalities and 135,000 seriously injured people. Even though road fatalities decreased by 57.5% between 2001 and 2017, the numbers are still huge.

The decrease in car crashes is obviously due to better driving-assistance technologies, designed to prevent collisions automatically, but we have to wait until autonomous driving is a reality to see the victim numbers heading towards zero.

So today, let’s talk about how electric cars react to crashes.

The Famous Rimac C Two Crash

Many of you might have watched the TV Series “The Grand Tour” by the three famous car journalists Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. If you did, you might recall the episode where Hammond crashes his Rimac C Two (1,900 Horse Power) and suddenly the car catches fire.

Well, there’s a scientific explanation for this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CLIb1VY1zQ&feature=emb_title

While petrol and diesel-powered cars need a spark to ignite, electric cars’ batteries (which are made of lithium-ion cells) do not require it. A really bad car crash can cause quite easily a short circuit in the batteries, which in turn causes an intense heat generation. If the heat is high enough to ignite a single Lithium-ion cell (which are sensitive to heat), it will spark and will cause a chain reaction, causing the other ion cells to catch fire afterwards.

Now you might think that even the smallest car crash is going to ignite your car just like in a GTA video game, but don’t worry. Car manufacturers constantly improve their fail-safe circuitry designed to shut down the batteries when something goes wrong and other car manufacturers protect their batteries with some kind of armor.

How To Put Out A Fire In An Electric Vehicle

The worst part about an electric car that caught fire is that water won’t help you. Applying some standard quantity of water or foam on a fire caused by lithium-ion cells will cause a violent flare-up, the emission of toxic fumes and other bad stuff. To extinguish this kind of fire, you have three choices:

1. Use an incredibly high quantity of water in order to lower the temperature while you extinguish the fire
2. Use particular chemical agents
3. Run away, call the firefighters and let the fire extinguish itself (it might take more than 24 hours!)

By the way, if you want to be more prepared to face these kinds of events, probably your own country has some kind of training program to help you react faster and better.

Here is an example for the U.S. market:

https://www.usfa.fema.gov/training/coffee_break/061819.html

If you are worried about car crashes on electric vehicles right now, you should think about the fact that these kinds of cars often have an incredibly high-tech set of driving-assistance systems. Furthermore, car manufacturers constantly work on decreasing the risks of your car catching fire.

You just have to keep in mind that the rules here are a little bit different.

The post How do electric cars behave in a crash? appeared first on EVGLOBE - News on Electric Vehicles and Hybrids.

This incredible difference in cost is because electric cars are extremely less complex than petrol and diesel cars, mechanically speaking.

If you think about it, an electric car is made by a pack of batteries, one or more electric motor that converts electric energy in kinetic energy and a traction system. No turboprops, no cylinders, no consumable parts, no fluids.

Sadly, for now, car manufacturers are keeping list prices for electric cars service extremely similar to the ones for petrol cars, with small discounts of about 20-25 percent.

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But, your service repairs will never be as expensive as you’d think, because you will never have to replace oil filters, cambelts or other wear and tear parts.

Tesla Service Repairs Costs

Let’s take a Tesla Model S, for example. Starting in 2019, Tesla has decided to not recommend anymore yearly check-ups, but it only recommends particular services exactly when you need them.

Here is a table that includes most of the common maintenance services:

Let’s not count the tire rotation (which you can do anywhere at lower costs) and let’s say that you want to completely check your car every 2 years. Additionally, let’s say that you want to flush your brake system and replenish you’re A/C after three years.

Therefore, in the first five years, you’ll spend:

• $0 for the first year
• $500 (€445) for the second year
• About $150 (€130) for the third year
• $500 (€445) for the fourth year
• $0 for the fifth year

The total expense is going to be $1,150 (€1,020), which is pretty damn low (I recently sold a petrol Mazda 3 and I remember its maintenance cost to be about €300 per year).

Moreover, you’ll have the flexibility to service your car whenever you want (always check what the company suggests), if something bad happens to your wallet.

Even repair costs are lower than expected. Let’s examine our Tesla Model S once more and let’s check the price for the most common mechanical fixes:

Not bad for a premium, ultra-fast car.

Maybe now you’re asking yourself: if electric cars don’t need mechanical maintenance, why should I bring it to service?

Even this question has a simple answer: to check on the status of the batteries and electric motor. Electric cars are indeed mechanically simple, but those few elements are extremely important.

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If your electric car’s battery breaks down, you’re due for a large expense. Batteries performance won’t last forever, so it’s important to check them frequently to find out when to replace them.

Before you go, be careful to service your car only to garages that are qualified to work with electric and hybrid cars (they are extremely few at the moment, so it’s always better to contact your dealership).

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