With the take-up of electric vehicles across Australia commercial market considered "pretty modest" so far, those supporting an EV garbage truck trial in Shepparton believe its important to start chipping away towards a transition.
The battery pack wouldn’t be amongst the crushing section of the truck so the fires wouldn’t be much worse then the 900 litres of diesel and 150 litres of hydraulic oil that could go up in a regular rubbish truck.
The fire could actually be very much worse. A fuel/oil fire is Class B, which can be extinguished with CO2 or with foaming agents. You can add foam to a regular fire hose and lay down a layer of it to smother the fire. A battery is a Class D (metal) fire, which can’t be extinguished with anything common.
Metal fires are some scary shit to be around. It’s risky for firefighters to even use a fire hose to cool a burning electric vehicle because lithium releases hydrogen gas and heat on contact with water. Usually you have to just wait for a metal fire to burn itself out.
As long as the battery’s undamaged it’s not an issue, but a burning garbage truck?
Yeah, there’s been a few cases of the compactors in rubbish trucks causing fires after crushing things that people shouldn’t be putting in their landfill bin, ie car batteries, old phones, etc). As soon as the fire is noticed, the trucks generally dump their load onto the road, nature strip, really whatever is available. Obviously the trucks batteries wouldn’t be crushed by the compactor, but my concern is mostly whether an EV truck would cause a nastier fire/explosions than a diesel one in the event of a fire somehow going unnoticed, or hell, even if someone broke into a truck depot and torched one (crazier things have happened…)
The fire could actually be very much worse. A fuel/oil fire is Class B, which can be extinguished with CO2 or with foaming agents. You can add foam to a regular fire hose and lay down a layer of it to smother the fire. A battery is a Class D (metal) fire, which can’t be extinguished with anything common.
Metal fires are some scary shit to be around. It’s risky for firefighters to even use a fire hose to cool a burning electric vehicle because lithium releases hydrogen gas and heat on contact with water. Usually you have to just wait for a metal fire to burn itself out.
As long as the battery’s undamaged it’s not an issue, but a burning garbage truck?
I’m not saying they’re less worse, but the batteries are better protected from fire then diesel and fuel.
I’m speaking as a professional heavy vehicle and machinery mechanic. It’s nothing to install fire suppression systems if it is such a big worry.
Yeah that was what I was thinking.
Yeah, there’s been a few cases of the compactors in rubbish trucks causing fires after crushing things that people shouldn’t be putting in their landfill bin, ie car batteries, old phones, etc). As soon as the fire is noticed, the trucks generally dump their load onto the road, nature strip, really whatever is available. Obviously the trucks batteries wouldn’t be crushed by the compactor, but my concern is mostly whether an EV truck would cause a nastier fire/explosions than a diesel one in the event of a fire somehow going unnoticed, or hell, even if someone broke into a truck depot and torched one (crazier things have happened…)