The Crews Bracing Themselves For A Rise In Electric Car Fires
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the sub-heading.
Each year, Essex Fire and Rescue Service focuses on one area of “top-up” training for its crews. In recent years, this has included sessions on firefighting at height and managing hazardous materials. This year, a new course is being introduced: How to deal with electric vehicle fires. Why?
These are the first three paragraphs.
Station manager Terry Maher has recently taken on a new role within the fire service.
A hazardous material expert, he is now the service’s lead officer on tackling lithium-ion battery fires.
His new responsibility comes as the number of electric vehicles (EVs) on UK roads hits more than 540,000. And the number is rising fast.
The article certainly worried me.
Most of the views expressed are by a fire officer, who is also a hazard materials expert.
It should be remembered that I have had serious fire training both as a Scout with the London Fire Brigade and a few years later at both Enfield Rolling Mills and at ICI.
These are a few points from the article.
- Dealing with a petrol or diesel car fire would normally take about 30 minutes. With an EV fire we’re looking at four or five hours or longer, if we’ve used water.
- As more and more people use electric vehicles we can expect more and more electric vehicle fires.
- The results of text searches show there were 59 electric vehicle fire references in 2022-23 across England – up from 30 the previous year.
We are dealing with dangerous vehicles and must handle with care.
These are my thoughts.
Car Insurance Rates For Electric Vehicles Will Rise
The worse the risk, the more you will have to pay.
A Full Safety Assessment Should Be Done Before Buying An Electric Vehicle
For instance, I have an integral garage in my house and wouldn’t feel safe at night, if an electric car or bicycle was in there on charge.
I certainly wouldn’t buy an electric car with a plastic body. Although I did own a Lotus Elan for over twenty years.
Conclusion
Everybody, who is thinking of buying an electric car or bicycle, should read the BBC article first.
Range Rover Evoque
I went to a launch on the Range Rover Evoque at Earl’s Court last night. In some ways it was a bit of a waste on me, as I don’t drive, but a friend thought ashe might buy one, so she thought she’d take an engineer along.
I won’t comment too much about the vehicle, but I think it will sell well, especially if the 58 mph claimed for the diesel is obtained by real drivers. If I hadn’t had the stroke, I would probably have at least given one a test drive to replace my X-Type Jaguar estate. But it will never match the style and panache of my Lotus Elan.
What annoyed me was the presentation. It was all about style, with plenty of scantily-clad boys and girls, lots of lights and very little substance about the tjings that matter in a car. They didn’t even have any brochures!
Ten or so years ago, the lights would have caused me to have a headache and lose my vision. But since, I’ve been gluten-free that doesn’t happen anymore to me. So perhaps, it was a good test that my brain and eyes are working well in unison. But if I had needed to leave the presentation, it wasn’t obvious how I would have done it.
When I was shown the Discovery 2 or 3, it was an invite to a nice hotel and then I was given a map to take it for a drive. I didn’t buy one, but it was much more persuasive than a horde of scantily clad ladies.
Memories of Wymondham
I actually passed through Wymondham twice today and not only is it the nearest station to where my Lotus Elan was built, but it has precious memories of the time in the 1960s, when I was courting C.
For two summers she worked as a mother’s help for a family called Wright, who lived at Hingham, looking after their three children Amanda, Caroline and Timothy.
The two girls were bridesmaids at our wedding in 1968, but we lost contact with them all over the years, despite living only an hour or so away.
Did Anybody See Top Gear on Sunday?
If you didn’t, it’s repeated tonight on BBC2 at 8:00.
They asked the team to buy three reasonably priced UK-built sport cars and Richard Hammond turned up in a Lotus Elan like mine. What he didn’t say about it, was that Elans are second only to E-Types, when it comes to pulling posh birds of a cerain vintage!
He was also unable to show, how it is still one of the fastest cars across country. Read some of my posts from last year about the car.
Interestingly, I am now driving the car again, in and out of its garage and round the yard. I can’t do this with my Jaguar as the clutch is too strong for my gammy left leg.
Perhaps, one day I’ll be back on the road! But it will be in the Elan!
Digital Radio
I generally listen to the radio through SKY or Freeview, except when I’m in the car. The government wants to switch off the AM and FM signals, but they don’t seem to be getting far according to this BBC report. People just won’t switch.
I tried an add-on digital radio for my 5-year-old Jaguar, but I couldn’t get it to work. As the radio for that car is fully integrated with Bluetooth and my phone, I doubt a proper replacement will be available, especially as the car is being discontinued. An add-on for the Lotus Elan is probably easier, as that car has a replacement modern Sony radio with a USB connection.
So what would owners of cars like my Jaguar do to get radios, if the AM and FM signals were discontinued. Probably moan a lot and not vote for the government next time. You wouldn’t spend several thousand to change your car, just to get the added safety of a radio on the move!
AM and FM may not be as good as digital, but this does seem to be rather a bodged and badly-thought out change.
By the way, when I’m in the near-continent, I get the BBC on AM. Are the BBC doing to abandon, the many people who listen to Radio 4 on LW? It looks like they are!
Medical Progress
I got my driving licence back on Thursday and yesterday I went to see my stroke doctor at Addenbrooke’s.
So how do I feel both physically and mentally?
Take yesterday.
I needed to get the Lotus Elan back from having the MOT from Newmarket and as everyone was busy and my secretary was not in, no-one could give me a lift. So it was get out my trusty Brompton and cycle. It should have been easy as although the trip was about sixteen kilometres, most of it is downhill. Or at least it is if I go the shortest, but not the car-friendliest route. But the Brompton slipped into fifth and couldn’t get anything lower than fourth. And then there was the cold strong headwind.
But even so I made it easily in an hour. I suspect I would be a lot quicker on my proper bicycle with the wind the other way.
On Wednesday the stroke doctor had told me that I had a leaky valve. Now sometimes I think I can tell when it starts to leak. Or am I imagining things. I just push myself too hard and then I get a bit breathless, but if I get a rhythm going, I can pedal for over an hour. Especially in Holland, where they have abolished hills by law.
It was nice to get back in the Lotus, which is now all pristine and clean. I must take a few photos before it gets dirty!
Mentally perhaps I worry, but then who wouldn’t after what I’ve been through.
But as to brain function, it all seems to be working. Word functions such as spelling are as good (or bad) as they ever was but I can only type with two fingers. But then I never used more. I do various memory functions when I collect my Zopa statistics, and these are just the same.
So far so good.
Except for one curious thing. I do the Sudoku in The Times every day and have always found that the Super Fiendish were beyond my powers, unless I resulted to a process of elimination. That in my book is almost cheating.
But since the stroke, I can do these without problems in just a few minutes. I would never accuse such an august newspaper as The Times, of dumbing down, but they have just introduced a new section called Mind Games.
I should write to them.
My GP asked me how I was getting on mentally. After all, to lose one of your close family is perhaps normal or bad luck, but to lose two is catastrophic and a downright disaster. And then having a stroke doesn’t make you feel better. Does it? I don’t know, but I sometimes wonder that I now I think it can’t get any worse, so I just l0ook forward to the future. She asked me to fill in a form about how I was feeling. I scored very low. But then that was good.
So what did the stroke doctor say?
He explained that the leaky valve wasn’t probably trivial and that he would refer me to the cardiology team. But then I now feel that I’ve had it for years. I don’t think that my stamina was any better in 1980, than it is now. In fact sometimes I think it is better. But I’ve always had this problem of being able to walk miles and not being able to run more than a couple of hundred metres.
He also said that the heart monitor had said I had an irregular heart-beat.
Because of these problems, he suggested that I go on Warfarin or rat poison. This will thin the blood and make it less likely that I have a repeat occurrence of a stroke.
On the positive side, he felt that the research from Amsterdam on B6, coeliacs and strokes was interesting.
So I feel a lot better this morning, as we have a whole set of reasons, all of which it should be possible to overcome.
As I like to say – The Struggle Continues!
Cambridge to Holland via Paris
I left Cambridge at 19:00 hours on Tuesday and took the Dover Dunkirk ferry, stopping overnight on the A1 to Paris. It was a crap Mercure and I’ll be posting something later on my blog about it and the non-Eclipse of 1999, where a Belgian weatherman told me to go to the wrong place. I don’t think they’ve given it a proper once-over since.
I then drove into the centre of Paris, did Montmatre, had a meeting and then left at 4:17, only to get stuck in traffic on the Periphique. I arrived at my destination five minutes over five hours later having done about 625 miles from Cambridge most of it at about 130 to 140 kph. How many 18 year old cars could do that? Most of it during the day was with the top down, which was perhaps a bit ambitious, but then top down is the only way to travel for safety, as the visibility is so much better.
The only problem was the peage, as to get the ticket, I had to get out. And I had a very irate Belgian behind me. They always seem to be in a hurry. And then around Lille and towards Gent, the Belgian road signs leave something to be desired. It’s called logic! Like the signs say follow Gent and then they call in Gand or even miss it off completely. They even manage to give Lille in France a completely different name!
Perhaps, I should write to that nice von Rumpy Pumpy, who heads the EU and complain about his country’s signage. On the other hand, perhaps the Belgians drive like lunatics all the time, as they are forever getting confused by their signs?
Toy Oh Dear
Toyota has a few problems. Not only do accelerators stick on some models, but now the Prius has a brake problem.
These may be serious and they are probably hurting Toyota’s image and the company will suffer for years to come.
The problems are very different. The accelerator is a mechanical design fault and the brake is a software one. But if you have the first, here is excellent advice from the BBC. I know you’ll be unlikely to be able to access this advice if you have a problem, but make sure that you read it.
The trouble is that we assume are cars are perfect, the roads are perfect, the weather is always fine and nothing untoward will ever happen as we drive along in our cars listening to the Beatles, smoking fags and eating sandwiches. I don’t do the last two as I abhor smoking and can’t eat bread, unless I make the gluten-free variety myself, but I hope you get the point.
We must have more driver education to make the roads safer and dare I say it allow everybody to enjoy driving more. It’s a great pleasure to drive a car fast and legally down a challenging and empty road.
I have two cars; a Lotus Elan and a Jaguar X-Type Estate.
The Lotus is simple with no-ABS, no-traction control, no-air conditioning and very little electronics to go wrong. It incidentally has a full electronic control system on the lump that does the work under the bonnet. The Jaguar has all these, but other than body styles, the two cars are both manual gearboxes, front-wheel drive, full leather etc.
Now when it comes to bad roads, the Elan is in a class of its own compared to the Jag. The ABS and traction control cuts in on the latter and makes things more rather difficult rather than easier.
So is one of the problems of modern cars, that they have just got too complicated, too heavy and we isolate the driver too much from the road?
I know that on bad days, I take the Lotus and enjoy that drive. Perhaps, if we all learned to enjoy driving, we’d do it better and have less accidents and breakdowns.
Lotus/TVR Meet at Brands Hatch
I went to a meet between Lotus and TVR owners at Brands Hatch this morning.
Here are the pictures.
It was a good morning. I did skip the drive and lunch afterwards though.
It was the first time I’d been to Brands Hatch for many years. I actually told the story of one visit to see the Guards Trophy in Brazilian Farce. The circuit has changed a lot and where we parked today, was where we sat on the grass all those years ago.
The Anonymous Widower 