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Comment by timerol | Hacker News Reader

Are you comfortable parking your car inside of your garage? Even with a full tank of gas? Safety issues are real, but they have been solved before and are being solved now

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I've seen cars burn, they don't explode like the movies, they burn. Like a couch.

Lithium batteries are much more energetic about their failures, "explode", and they can do so with only minor electrical or mechanical mistreatment.

A car in my garage is cold, outside of very odd situations it is not going to spontaneously ignite. Cars burn in accidents or when you are running them, not randomly in the middle of the night.

The "proper" safety for a large lithium battery pack is in a concrete sarcophagus or similar vessel capable of shielding and containing a catastrophic failure.

> Cars burn in accidents or when you are running them, not randomly in the middle of the night.

My co-worker's nanny's car, a new Subaru, burst into flames in her driveway while it was just sitting without the engine running. Non-crash fires occur so frequently that the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) produces a Noncrash Fire Losses Report, and insurance companies calculate premiums based on that data.

https://www.iihs.org/media/c93b98d8-6a7d-44a1-810e-4468ec539...

We get one car fire every other year in the neighborhood thanks to the combination of teenagers with fireworks. There are always a few dozen a year in the town (110k people).

I'd have a power wall either in my garage or in a box outside the house if it would mean that we could go off-grid. Sadly that's not possible here (we've got more wind power than sun power and residential wind isn't feasible).

This is really wrong. Cars have been recalled as recently as this year due to fire risk when not running.

Not only that, but they are actually no more energetic than gasoline. This is an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdaFk3w6rUY

Gasoline actually has a higher risk of becoming "explosive", though as you pointed out that is not the most common outcome.

Have you seen batteries explode? They make an audible bang, and can even push things around if they are touching those, and that's all. This is because the explosion is contained in a steel sarcophagus (much more efficient than concrete) that detracts a little from portability, but is already included on the costs people are bringing to this thread.

These technologies typically went through a period of development where safety was not a paramount concern. Once electric cars become mass market we'll probably hit that point.

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