[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by genxer

https://www.carscoops.com/2024/08/ko...rking-garages/
https://insideevs.com/news/730672/so...ev-fire-panic/
https://v.daum.net/v/20240811150646465
https://m.khan.co.kr/national/incide...02408051716507

I hope you'll step back to this story. Has fire department data been aggregated for battery type, time to extinguish, reach of colateral damage?

Not that I know of. Would b cool if there is such a database.

Originally Posted by genxer

"South Korean officials met last week to discuss an emergency response to the recent EV fires and quell ongoing public concerns. As a result, it urged automakers to reveal the suppliers of its battery cells to help instill confidence in the public." I'm discounting blaming fires on Chinese manufacturing. No scaled up vehicle producer can eliminate recalls.

If the general public EV buyer was also made aware of battery chemistry in use, would they be making the same choices as tech enthusiast early adopters? I'm guessing that plays into Tesla now offering LFP choices. The EQE from the fire was reported as Li Nickel Cobalt Manganese.

"In addition to restricting access to underground garages to EVs that have been charged to less than 90%, the new rules will enforce a charging limit of 80% on rapid charges through South Korea’s capital city."

Most batteries are NCM or NMC (same thing, just ordered differently) but there are still multiple formulations, depending on how much nickel, how much cobalt, how much manganese. Making people aware of the NCM vs LFP vs NCMA (aluminum replacing some of the cobalt and/or manganese) at the percentage of each mineral could result in forum side discussions of which formulations rule and which formulations suck ass. I hope to never wind up in such a discussion, but this is the internet.

Originally Posted by genxer

Are 80-90% charges going to be the new 100%? You've characterized Li-ion to LFP as similar to V8 versus V6. If lower performing cells are the easy safety choice, then even more so as KMPrenger says "hybrids just make sense" (including plug-in and erev).

Sorta like my prior comment. There are so many variables to battery cell chemistry (% of each mineral), geometry (cylinder vs pouch versus prismatic) installation (module vs cell-to-pack vs cell-to-body) and cooling strategy (too many to list) that just blanketly saying that this type does this thing better than that type will get really gray really soon. Although at this point in time, it is safe to say that NCM / NCMA discharge energy faster than LFP in like configurations is safe to say. There will likely be more development done on LFP over the next several years to bring it up to NCM / NCMA levels of energy discharge. Can that be done without compromising safety? I’m not the one to answer that, but I do know a few people that are keeping an eye on that. And we haven’t even started talking motors. They have a big say in all of this and all electric motors are not created equal. Not by a long shot.

I don’t think that charging to 80% becomes the new 100%. This is just a quick reaction by South Korea to a really horrific situation. Different battery types have different charging norms and manufacturers will communicate what is the best charging scheme for each vehicle. Tesla does that today based on how owners of NCM equipped cars are instructed and the way owners of LFP cars are instructed. I expect that to continue.

Originally Posted by genxer

I'm also hoping you comment more about this week's Ford EV news. The skunkworks vehicle reported to be mid-size trucks seems odd.

Two thoughts on that…I know our forecasters already had the “skunkworks” vehicle well placed in our forecast. I don’t think they had it as a pickup though. But it makes sense. Mid-sized pickups are already selling in fairly high numbers as hybrids. And the Rivian R1S, which is sort of a mid-sized / full-sized tweener sells pretty well and performs off the charts. It’s a market that doesn’t do a lot of towing, Canyon / Colorado diesels aside. An EV pickup makes much more sense there than in the F150 / Silverado Ram 1500 class.