When I recently took a trip to China to see the world of electric micromobility, I was greeted with a…

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    5 months ago

    There are about 2000 fires in more than 800000 electric vehicle-related enterprises in China every year

    Is a 0.000125% rate of vehicle fires considered a serious problem?

    • Silverseren@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      5 months ago

      Uhhhh, I think you need to check your math there. 2000 out of 800,000 is 0.25% or 1 in 400. And while that’s not high as a generality, when it comes to selling a product, especially an expensive car, that’s pretty high.

        • Silverseren@fedia.io
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          5 months ago

          For US electric vehicles, yes. And for most other nations, as your article notes. China is the exception, it seems, with much higher rates of fires occurring.

            • Silverseren@fedia.io
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              5 months ago

              Good point! Now I’m the one who can’t math. :P Though your source doesn’t seem to mention the cause of the fires? I would assume the batteries, but involved in a fire can be vague. Same for the gasoline vehicles.

              Meanwhile, the original source I have was fires just from the manufacturing of the cars, so not even including the numbers for the vehicles sold themselves.

              • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                4
                ·
                5 months ago

                Look, I understand you’re trying to feel like you’re right but you should just accept that compared to gas cars there’s pretty much nothing to worry about, people are freaking out because EV cars are the new thing but the stats are pretty clear, gas cars fires just don’t get as much coverage because gas cars are the norm.

                • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.ioOPM
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  5 months ago

                  Eh, I wouldn’t say there’s nothing to worry about: Worry about taking good care of your batteries is wise. So is avoiding cheap shoddy batteries and bikes that don’t have any protections built in.

                  Take care of your batteries: Don’t charge them when frozen, avoid extreme heat, protect them from impact/damage, and regularly inspect both your battery and bike’s systems to keep yourself (and your bike) safe.

                  That said, yeah, cars are still way more dangerous statistically speaking even when only talking about fires.

    • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.ioOPM
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      5 months ago

      Any amount is a serious problem that should be addressed by improved safety IMO. Hoping that solid state batteries pretty much eliminate fires but I guess we’ll see.

      • Nouveau_Burnswick@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        5 months ago

        In NA, vehicle fires happen at the following rates per 100k sales per year:

        Hybrid : 3,474

        Gas : 1,523

        EV : 25.1

        If the proposed 2,000 per 800,000 is accurate that works out to 250/100k per year. Or way lower than everything but EVs in NA.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        5 months ago

        Any amount is a serious problem

        An incidence of failure that low can more readily be attributed to human error than manufacture’s defect. The idea that Chinese vehicles are less safe than their American or Japanese counterparts is not born out by your citations.

        • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.ioOPM
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          5 months ago

          Could be, but why not engineer against human error too? Seems like a very sensible thing to do: Make your products easy to use safely. No such thing as perfect but it should still be an important factor in engineering/designing anything. It can be tough to compromise between usability and safety but a really good design finds ways to meet both requirements.