Odin

I have the ICE cars I need until I kick my boots. I sold my Taycan as it was a major disappointment, but I’ll probably get myself a small EV for daily duties n the next few years.

greatfox315

And what about a Porsche? Where the gas tank is in the front like it's always been?

Edit: also, the optimal positioning of the gas tank is not the same as engineering the tank to withstand a puncture. Gas tanks today are still woefully unable to prevent such failures, yet we are all perfectly happy driving with that much (unsafely) stored energy because we're used to it. Plain and simple.

IndigoInkTaco

LOL... If true, porsche dealers and flippers are gonna be pissed when they find out they can't fear monger their way to +15% on their used car b/c the cayman ICE platform is "dead". #nEVer

Zhao

Even if the tank hasn't changed in 100 years (it has) the location and surroundings have greatly improved safety and are far more important than tank design. My career is collisions. Tens of thousands of ICE cars inspected, zero tank punctures. They're protected by 2 frame rails and are behind an axle in the middle of the car with a bulkhead sealing the cabin from it. Porsches do not have them in the same place as they used to. They follow that same formula now, behind the front 'axle', between teh rails. In the 70s Porsche put them in front of the 'axle' between the rails. Big difference. If a collision crushes or penetrates to where they're located in cars today you're probably not caring too much about a tank puncture honestly. ICE car fires are rarely caused by fuel in my experience; it's usually lubricant on a hot component that ignites. EV's are much better for not igniting while being used, but average age of EV's on the road is much newer than the average age of ICE cars so that could be contributing to their better numbers. Once range on the track gets solved too, there is going to be some serious heat issues that need to be solved for EV sports cars, as the drivetrain and batteries get very hot very quickly. If they run lubricant coolers on components they'll be prone to the same types of fires ICE cars are prone to (some stupid line fails and sprays fluid on something hot enough to light it up).

Also, from what I've seen the only thing that punctures a tank in a modern car is a methhead stealing gas so he can drive around and steal more catalytic converters.

greatfox315

That’s an awful lot of fear mongering and hand-waving, so let me dispel your disinformation with some cold hard facts:

Gasoline cars are 61 times as likely to catch fire than EVs. But again, don’t let facts get in the way of your bias/fear.

source:

https://www.kbb.com/car-news/study-e...est-car-fires/

Zhao

Keep toxic terms like disinformation, strawman arguments, and goal post moving off this forum. I literally said they were less likely to ignite while using them in the post you quoted.

I've already read the stats long ago. Also, that link is limited to 2020 which had significantly fewer EV's and almost all of them were new. Like I said, age of vehicle matters and when you're only looking at new vehicles of one category vs a fleet of vehicles that is much much older for the other it's comparing apples to donuts.

Do you know why hybrids have higher risks of fire than ICE engined cars and EVs? Neither do I, but it's an interesting anomaly which may indicate as EV's age their risk may exponentially go up.

Igniting while driving isn't a big deal either since with non EV's at least you pull over and casually get out (with telsas I guess you need to hope you can kick your window out since it seals you in the car with a power loss); what is terrifying is the vehicle igniting in your garage while you sleep.

greatfox315

If anyone moved the goal post, it was you. My comment about ICE vehicles being more likely to catch fire despite being around for over 100 years was in response to this comment:

To which you decided to steer the conversation toward gas tank positioning.

Edit: also, the study takes into account all the instances of fires occurring while parked as well as while driving.

Adrift

Agreed that 3 and 4 need to be prioritized, but it doesn't change the need for #1. Is it ironic we are discovering room-temp superconductors and controllable fusion possibly just too late to avoid tipping into environmental collapse? I am very aware of that. A source of hope? Given the dysfunction of American political climate at the moment, I definitely don't see us going nearly far enough fast enough. We're all betting the farm baby steps will get it done. I guess bringing up the latest UN report has probably already been beaten to death above (a thread I can't bring myself to read).

The bottom line is too many people made way too much money from fossil fuels (FF), and sold us all up the river to keep that torrent of money flowing; believing the existential crisis predictions is already hard to stare in the face, so it is certainly easier to hand wave it away and hope it doesn't happen (while keeping the epic amounts of FF money flowing, and getting to keep listening to our cars go vroom vroom). .

Oh well, I wanted to weigh in to salute those brave souls who are trying to fight the storm of denial / redirection; it is at least heartening there is a (growing) presence on even car boards that this is a real thing. You'd have gotten crucified not too long ago, by pretty much every member of a car forum, for speaking such ICE heresy.

But as someone said in another thread on this subject, ain't no one on here gonna change anyone's mind, one way or another. Hell, COVID proved people will literally die with (science) denial still on their lips.

clutchplate

Can't wait to put all my eggs in the P.G.&E. (electric company) basket. They're only requesting a 36% increase next year. What are they going to do when they have the monopoly on cars too? But yeah, everyone going electric sounds good.

slivel

Not in my garage.


https://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.bmx...60add53424.gif

greatfox315

Time to get solar and be fully independent. Nobody has any issue with gas prices going up 50% in the last year, but somehow electricity rates going up is a bridge too far.

greatfox315

You're right, this seems more appealing:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Zz_ErbI1GV8

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ciWLPk-oz8o

clutchplate

Sorry, they’re taking that option away too as of April 15 when they reduce the solar credits by 75%. California is the most screwed up state in the nation so for now I’ll keep some ICE cars. Just to keep it in perspective, I’m talking $2000+ monthly energy bills for a 2500 sf house.

Zhao

A car is the sum of all its components. If you want to talk safety you need to factor everything in. Laser focusing on one item and not factoring in how everything around it has changed has little value for a position. You're laser focusing on # of fires too, disconting how and when they happen. A fire that is noticed is rarely a problem. A fire that burns without being noticed until it is massive is usually a huge problem. Why don't you see that?

There are also 2 studies that suggest the current data insurance companies are using is misleading. They're pulling data from total number of fires for each type of vehicle and getting a ratio by the number of vehicles and saying EV's are safer from that. But 2 university studies say the risk of fire is much higher than suggested by that data. One study says when you look at fires per starts, it actually is significantly more in favour of EV's igniting.

I'd say that means comparing a fleet that contains a ton of poorly maintained 20 year old ICE cars in it to a fleet of brand new EVs driven by rich people who maintain them is garbage info, and it also brings up something I didn't think of before, in taht EV's are largely people's 'other' car, and are not a primary car for a lot of people, and those that use it as a primary car are gnerally people who live in a large metro area that do not have the same driving habits as someone living in a less populated area, and thus EV's have less starts per year and less KM driven than your average ICE cars. Basically if you drive a newer car less and maintain it better of course it's going to show data that it has less fires. THe primary cause of ICE car fires is poor maintenance. The primary cause of EV fires is battery failure.

BlackGT3

So annoyed with these EV loving propaganda. Can’t believe it’s also happening on this forum.