Chevy Bolt - 200 mile range for $30k base price (after incentive)

[MP3Mike]

Excerpt:
"While we don’t have the numbers for GM, proportionally about the same number of Teslas had caught fire as Bolts. The resulting numbers should thus be close to being the same – that is about 10x more likely for a gas car to catch fire than a Bolt."

I'm not sure they can really apply the Tesla fire stats to the Bolt. Entirely different battery type and protections and all... And really fires caused by high speed collisions really shouldn't be included in any of the stats, or should be broken out, as they are an entirely different animal.

 

[rjpjnk]

I was mostly referring to the point made that ICE cars are even more likely to catch fire, 10x more.

 

[Zaxxon]

I was mostly referring to the point made that ICE cars are even more likely to catch fire, 10x more.

I don't have the stats handy, so I can't say 10x is correct, but it's a multiple, and well more than 2x.

 

[TEG]

ICE cars are dangerous.

I drive a good amount of interstate (I-285, I-75) in Atlanta. In the 7 or so years that I have had a car here I have seen probably a dozen car fires. So in the theme of " Gas stations are dangerous!! " I am putting up a photo I took last week of a car fire. I just missed the car (behind my B...

teslamotorsclub.com

Gas stations are dangerous!

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[Jeff N]

I'm not sure they can really apply the Tesla fire stats to the Bolt. Entirely different battery type and protections and all... And really fires caused by high speed collisions really shouldn't be included in any of the stats, or should be broken out, as they are an entirely different animal.

And also the age of the vehicles. The vast majority of EVs on the road are only a few years old. It wouldn’t surprise me if many of the gassers catching fire are older and less well maintained.

 

[dgodfrey]

Interesting article. I was a bit worried about battery fires (I guess because they are a danger we're not yet used to hearing about) but this article indicates that gasoline powered cars are 10x more likely to catch fire, which is reassuring. Do other studies support this figure?

Excerpt:
"While we don’t have the numbers for GM, proportionally about the same number of Teslas had caught fire as Bolts. The resulting numbers should thus be close to being the same – that is about 10x more likely for a gas car to catch fire than a Bolt."

As MP3Mike states below, to make a fair comparison, it should be based on spontaneous fires where no known accelerant or outside ignition was present. Based on that, the Bolt is about 1/10,000 cars. There would need to be 100 similarly non-accident, non-shooting the pack with a gun, non-sabotage Tesla fires to equal the Bolts stats.
The recent article below quoting Tesla's stats are based on mileage but it doesn't account for the fact that Tesla's and most EV's are newer than the average ICEV. So the statistics are really tough to compare without bias.

Tesla fires per km

Here's a listing of all Tesla fires from 2013 to 2018 and a link posted here on TMC put together by a known Tesla fudster I've bantered with over the years. Even this listing with overlapping data is less than 100 Tesla fires total.

NFPA claims you are 5 times more likely to experience a fire in an ICEV than in a Tesla.

I'm not sure they can really apply the Tesla fire stats to the Bolt. Entirely different battery type and protections and all... And really fires caused by high speed collisions really shouldn't be included in any of the stats, or should be broken out, as they are an entirely different animal.

 

[MP3Mike]

A new article from Electrek is out where they talked to the owner and got more details: Exclusive: The latest Chevy Bolt fire reveals troubling pattern that owners should be aware of - Electrek

In summary:

• The temporary recall fix had already been applied.
• The owner did not charge to full often, if ever. Even if he did, the initial recall fix would have limited it.
• The car was typically charged when it got down to about 30 miles of range left and stopped between 160-180. That’s about 65-75%.
• The car was rarely used – only 19,000 miles over 2.5 years of ownership.
• There was no damage to the car.
• The car had not been driven that morning, and it was unplugged at around 75% charge.
• The car was unplugged at the time of the fire and had been for several hours.

So the temporary recall fix was completely ineffective for this case, the car was only charged to ~75%. Though 5 of the 7 fires apparently had the same pattern of letting the car get low on charge and then filling it up vs. keeping it topped up all the time. I wonder if the long charge times this causes leads to some issue/damage in the battery cells?

 

[miimura]

A new article from Electrek is out where they talked to the owner and got more details: Exclusive: The latest Chevy Bolt fire reveals troubling pattern that owners should be aware of - Electrek



So the temporary recall fix was completely ineffective for this case, the car was only charged to ~75%. Though 5 of the 7 fires apparently had the same pattern of letting the car get low on charge and then filling it up vs. keeping it topped up all the time. I wonder if the long charge times this causes leads to some issue/damage in the battery cells?

I would assume that DCFC from low SOC to moderately high SOC, like 10%-75% would be more stressful on the whole system than AC charging, even though the AC would have been charging for many more hours. Yet, we've never heard about Bolt battery fires after DCFC. Tesla, on the other hand, did have a fire during DCFC because of improperly torqued HVDC cables.

 

[rjpjnk]

As MP3Mike states below, to make a fair comparison, it should be based on spontaneous fires where no known accelerant or outside ignition was present. Based on that, the Bolt is about 1/10,000 cars. There would need to be 100 similarly non-accident, non-shooting the pack with a gun, non-sabotage Tesla fires to equal the Bolts stats.

I understand and you are right for the purpose of this specific type of battery disaster. However, it would be useful to have a statistic comparing all fires in EVs vs all fires in ICEs regardless of the reason the fire started just to assess which fuel source is more dangerous, gasoline or batteries. I guess that’s a topic for another study.

 

[MP3Mike]

I would assume that DCFC from low SOC to moderately high SOC, like 10%-75% would be more stressful on the whole system than AC charging, even though the AC would have been charging for many more hours. Yet, we've never heard about Bolt battery fires after DCFC.

I don't think we have an idea how many of the Bolt fires followed AC vs. DC charging. But my point is that there may be some issue/design in the cells that causes issues because of time spent charging rather than the rate of that charging. Or it could be a BMS management/thermal control issue. Maybe they handle DC charging well and AC charging poorly. We just don't have enough information to know anything at this point.