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RTC
What's an RTC?
Hasn't there been a couple of horrible accidents with teslas where they catch fire and it's been really hard to put out? Spoke to my neighbour who's a firefighter who mentioned something along these lines
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to dispose of the batteries at the end of their useful life is?
Which useful life?
As a car battery, having only 75% of the original capacity would suck if that regularly put you at risk of being involuntarily parked.
That same battery is still useful for applications which don't need the energy density to be as high, like taking energy from a domestic solar panel installation while you're at work and not using much electricity at home, storing it, and then drawing your needs from a battery when you get home and everyone on your street is cooking, boiling kettles and powering massive TVs. Or charging EVs.
When the battery's been through its less demanding "pension age" duties, it can be recycled.
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I haven't seen what Tesla do with end of life batteries yet have seen Zoe and Leaf batteries getting reused for industrial applications, they get bundled up into air-conditioned shipping containers in racks and used for either storing renewable generation, standby-power or charging when cheap and discharging when expensive (industrial users have tariffs that penalise power usage at peak times). The batteries are end of life for car due to shortened life but still have a lot of life in them for other uses. In the EU and China currently, the car manufacturer is obliged to recycling them at end of life, so they are working hard to find other applications. People will make it sound straightforward to recycle them when they are truly knacker and it isn't. its possible but it is neither cheap or easy and no where in the UK can do it that I am aware of so we send them to Europe for the time being...
As you are asking from a fire brigade point of view, I am not sure if this is true or not but when I have spoken to suppliers, I told that if the containers catch fire the fire brigade will come but once told it is a lithium battery will stand back and leave it to burn which wasn't overly reassuing.
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Hmmm, lots of onfire batteries seems bad. I have a pal over here who is a firefighter, and there was recently a fire at a Tesla warehouse. I'll ask him. I don't think cars burnt, but they presumably have a plan
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@stedlocks
can I just ask, please don't sick burn me, but does anyone know what the plan is to dispose of the batteries at the end of their useful life is? The other thing nobody seems able to tell me is what are the likely outcomes if the vehicle enters a watercourse or has a significant RTC.
Ive asked lots of manufacturers and their reps, and while I know the basics of how to isolate the system, there are question marks about residual charge in the system and earthing.....
Its relevant to me as im a firefighter and water rescue technician....