Tata battery production.

Aveline

Just seen on the news: A Dutch cargo boat carrying cars is on fire. Coastguard say the fire is most likely due to one of the electric cars on board igniting itself.

The Dutch Coastguard has confirmed that they did not say this and the cause of the fire is, as yet, unknown.
electrek.co/2023/07/26/surprise-media-is-misreporting-the-source-of-a-dutch-cargo-ship-fire/

That is the one mentioned up thread MerylStreep. There has been no investigation or conclusion yet. As the article states there has been no conclusion to the cause of the 2022 fire. There is no doubt that fires in electric cars are harder to put out, but we also know that they are far less likely to catch fire than ICE cars.

How many more of these fires.

www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a44651109/another-car-carrying-cargo-ship-catches-fire/

For those who don't do links, here is the conclusion of the RAC report.
"So, in conclusion, electric vehicles already vastly reduce particulate matter from brake wear, and claims of tyre wear contributing 1,000 times the particulate matter pollution of petrol and diesel exhausts are greatly overexaggerated. Real EV fleets are already seeing brake lifespans increased fourfold versus the diesel vehicles they have replaced, and tyre wear that is broadly on par with petrol and diesel cars (unless, as like with any vehicle, the drivers get a bit throttle happy!).

One final thought on emissions to end with: the UK is set to close its last remaining coal-fired power plants, but even if EVs were 100% powered by coal, it is much easier to fit particulate filters to a small number of very large, static power plants located away from city centres, than it is to fit effective filters to millions of small, mobile petrol and diesel engines running in urban areas.

The end result is that cities that have embraced EVs have already demonstrably benefitted from reduced pollution and improved air quality, and this trend shall only continue as more EVs switch to drum brakes, new tyres are developed that reduce nanoparticulate pollution even further, and the UK’s grid becomes ever increasingly powered by clean renewable energy."

And one Norwegian cruise line is not accepting EVs in the 9 cars it takes on a cruise. The ferries are fine, some even have on-board charging.

Oh and EVs are 20 times less likely to catch fire than petrol or diesel cars. When they do they are harder to extinguish. I will wait for the investigation and evidence in relation to the cargo boat.

B9exchange
Those awful facts are what they don’t want you to know. Why would they in the push for EVs.

This article from the RAC debunks some of the myths around electric cars.
www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/running/do-electric-vehicles-produce-more-tyre-and-brake-pollution-than-petrol-and/
The one about brake pollution always makes me laugh. When I point out that the vast majority of braking (about 80-90% in my experience) is regenerative braking, I frequently get a blank look suggesting that the person in question knows not very much about EVs.
Our car is heavier than the ICE equivalent, but way lighter than the big SUVs I see on visits to the UK.
There are some very powerful vested interests out there.

Aveline
There is a lot of research going on but you have to look for it.
Siemens, Porsche, Aston Martin F1 racing.
Just a few days ago there was a program on tv featuring a small british company who said they will be producing by 2025.
Unfortunately at a hideous price, but we have to start somewhere.

I hope that the factory will look into where it is getting its rare earth metals from. The Amnesty International website cites these issues:

"The real frontier of the battery revolution is not in the corridors of Brussels. It is in the unregulated cobalt mines of the DRC, where children as young as seven work in perilous conditions. It is in the vast frozen expanses of Siberia’s Taimyr Peninsula, where a nickel mining company spilled thousands of tonnes of diesel fuel into the Arctic; and in the salt flats of Latin America, where lithium extraction is threatening livelihoods. Cobalt, nickel and lithium are key components of rechargeable batteries, and we are sliding towards a situation where we have replaced one type of environmental injustice with another.

The grim irony is that these abuses are being perpetrated against the people least responsible for the climate catastrophe. Indigenous fishing communities in Papua New Guinea’s Basamuk Bay aren’t the ones pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. Yet it’s their water that was poisoned when a nickel mine dumped 23 tonnes of toxic waste into the ocean, while sourcing the minerals necessary to get drivers in Paris, Beijing and New York into electric cars. The need for regulation has never been so urgent."

Just seen on the news: A Dutch cargo boat carrying cars is on fire. Coastguard say the fire is most likely due to one of the electric cars on board igniting itself.

Casdon

Whitewavemark2

The FT reporting this week that Sunak’s friendship with Tata’s owner appears to have clouded his judgement, and Tata is not the best or most able company to produce batteries.

One of the things we do know is that Ms Murty’s mother worked for Tata, and Sunak has pledged £500000000 of tax payers money to the company. In order to get the factory built Sunak has been tied down to the promise that the U.K. will end petrol and diesel by 2030.

Did the contract go out to tender I wonder?

The article about this factory that I read in the Observer on Sunday said that Tata didn't have experience of battery production.

I thought that that was the reason the govt. failed to support the gigavolt project in Northumberland.

But, heigh ho, perhaps no tory donors or relatives were involved in gigavolt...

Grantanow

No, MaizieD. Tyres are a product based on natural rubber which has been vulcanised. There is a similar particulate problem with brake pads. The problem is that the abrasion between the tyre or pad and the road or brake shoe/disc respectively causes fine particles to be released into the atmosphere. The much greater weight of EVs may exacerbate the problem.

I think you might find that tyres aren't always made from natural rubber, Gtrantanow. Which is why I was querying my understanding of the posted article

www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/technology/under-skin-what-are-modern-tyres-made

Whitewavemark2

The FT reporting this week that Sunak’s friendship with Tata’s owner appears to have clouded his judgement, and Tata is not the best or most able company to produce batteries.

One of the things we do know is that Ms Murty’s mother worked for Tata, and Sunak has pledged £500000000 of tax payers money to the company. In order to get the factory built Sunak has been tied down to the promise that the U.K. will end petrol and diesel by 2030.

Did the contract go out to tender I wonder?

DH is car mad. He's amazed that there isn't more research going on into synthetic fuels. Electric cars are incredibly environmentally unfriendly in manufacture, are much heavier than other cars and seem potentially more liable to going on fire. (Some car parks work allow them in for this reason and the extra weight is leading to ferries restricting numbers). Development of synthetic fuels could lead to more environmentally friendly car use without having to somehow create lots of electricity to run them and deplete the planet of precious minerals. Will electric cars be the 'Betamaxes' of tomorrow?

The FT reporting this week that Sunak’s friendship with Tata’s owner appears to have clouded his judgement, and Tata is not the best or most able company to produce batteries.

One of the things we do know is that Ms Murty’s mother worked for Tata, and Sunak has pledged £500000000 of tax payers money to the company. In order to get the factory built Sunak has been tied down to the promise that the U.K. will end petrol and diesel by 2030.

No, MaizieD. Tyres are a product based on natural rubber which has been vulcanised. There is a similar particulate problem with brake pads. The problem is that the abrasion between the tyre or pad and the road or brake shoe/disc respectively causes fine particles to be released into the atmosphere. The much greater weight of EVs may exacerbate the problem.

Grantanow

Yes, it's true about tyres. We need a replacement for rubber.

Isn't part of the problem the fact that tyres don't use natural rubber? Or was I reading that wrongly?

Yes, it's true about tyres. We need a replacement for rubber.

Interesting MerylStreep thank you, I wasn’t aware of this issue.

Everyone talks about the batteries but not many mention the tyres. They are causing far more damage to the atmosphere than a clean petrol car ever did.

www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tyre-makers-under-pressure-too-much-rubber-hits-road-2023-05-17/

Good news for the local economy. However there are still questions about how environmentally sustainable these batteries are. Electric car batteries are complex components containing many rare earth elements like lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite. As their name suggests, these materials are difficult to find and extract, requiring intensive mining and even some polluting processes to separate them from the soil. I supppose we must look at the broader picture of how environmentally friendly EVs are compared to conventional petrol vehicles.