Firefighters thought that they had extinguished the post-crash blaze. Then they heard popping sounds.

On the scene of a deadly crash involving a Tesla Mannequin X in Mountain View, Calif., in March 2018, the fireplace division contemplated the vitality hazards that lay within the wrecked electrical automobile earlier than them. When additional problems and potential risks surfaced, the fireplace division referred to as for assist from the automobile producer.

On this case, it was fortuitous that Tesla’s headquarters was simply throughout San Francisco Bay. In a matter of hours, two Tesla engineers had arrived on the crash website. However not each electrical automobile crash happens in shut proximity to industry-leading engineers.

As EVs proliferate, security advocates and crash investigators are more and more involved concerning the dangers lithium ion batteries pose to emergency responders.

In a report issued this month, the Nationwide Transportation Security Board discovered automobile producers have given firefighters and different responders inadequate steering on learn how to counter high-voltage battery fires and dissipate stranded vitality, which might stay in batteries broken in crashes and lead to post-crash fires days or perhaps weeks after a collision.

First responders have to know “when it is secure to move the automobile, how lengthy they should go away the highway shut down, when it is secure for a tow-truck operator to come back and learn how to management dangers for thermal runaway,” Kristin Poland, NTSB deputy director, tells Automotive Information. “There are points of this the place we really feel the producers have the perfect data and may help these emergency responders make good choices.”

A assessment of the response guides for 36 fashions discovered that automakers supplied vehicle-specific steering on preventing battery fires in solely two circumstances, in keeping with the NTSB report.

The report doesn’t delve into automobile or battery designs; as a substitute it concentrates on higher protections for emergency responders within the aftermath of crashes and fires. It recommends producers present extra particular data in emergency-response guides on mitigating thermal runaway, figuring out stranded vitality throughout a response and storing EVs with broken batteries.

Additional, the NTSB recommends that federal security regulators take into account a producer’s adherence to ISO and SAE Worldwide requirements when compiling emergency-response guides for EVs.

“That is very supportive of the actual fact fireplace service wants this coaching, and it’s important they obtain it,” mentioned Michael Gorin, rising points program supervisor on the Nationwide Hearth Safety Affiliation. “The electrification course of is constant onward, particularly with the brand new administration, and we have to proceed to boost consciousness and ship this coaching.”

To this point, the affiliation’s coaching on EVs has reached roughly 250,000 firefighters. However that leaves the remaining three-quarters of the nation’s firefighting work drive uncovered, to not point out law-enforcement officers, tow-truck operators and different responders.

“There’s a variety of work to be completed,” Gorin mentioned.

EVs account for less than a sliver of the 170,000 automobile fires that happen every year, in keeping with the Nationwide Hearth Safety Affiliation, and there aren’t any recognized cases of first responders struggling main accidents or being killed by battery malfunctions following crashes.

However the NTSB, the federal company charged with conducting investigations into transportation crashes and forming security suggestions, is anxious the risks will develop as electrical automobiles transfer into the mainstream.

Issues over using lithium ion batteries in transportation started in June 2011, when a plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt caught fireplace in a salvage yard three weeks after present process crash exams. Two years later, the NTSB probed battery fires aboard a Boeing 787 in Boston and assisted in two worldwide investigations into related lithium ion fires on different plane.

“Whether or not that battery is in an airplane or automotive, it is the identical difficulty,” mentioned Tom Barth, a survival elements investigator for the company who labored on the aviation investigations and spearheaded this month’s EV report. “What it comes right down to is, ‘If in case you have thermal runaway happen in a cell, how do you cease it from propagating from one cell to the following or from one module to the following?’ ”

The query continued. An August 2017 crash in Lake Forest, Calif., involving a Tesla Mannequin X introduced renewed automotive issues. Firefighters extinguished a post-crash fireplace however didn’t notice they wanted to spray water onto the battery compartment beneath the automobile. The battery skilled thermal runaway and reignited when a tow-truck operator winched the automobile onto the tow truck.

The NTSB reviewed 4 circumstances in its security report, and all 4 concerned fires with Tesla automobiles in 2017 and 2018. However Poland confused that the suggestions within the report needs to be heeded industrywide.

“We didn’t suppose as we began to undergo this that it was a particular Tesla difficulty,” she mentioned. “We felt like the protection points that we recognized had been frequent to all electrical automobiles, and we had been seeing that by data we noticed in Europe and different places that had been having issues extinguishing these fires with high-voltage lithium ion batteries.”

Maybe nothing illustrates the complexity just like the deadly Mountain View crash, one already acquainted to NTSB investigators as a result of the board had probed the position Tesla’s Autopilot performed within the crash.

After arriving, Tesla’s engineers tried to examine battery parts, however popping sounds once more emanated from the battery, in keeping with the report. They determined it was too dangerous to additional analyze the automobile alongside Freeway 101.

Authorities wanted a flatbed to keep away from additional stress on the automobile construction. However it was metallic, so that they propped the Mannequin X on picket blocks. Six hours after the crash occurred, a fireplace truck escorted the flatbed from the scene and alongside an hourlong, uneventful journey to an impound lot.

When the Tesla engineers arrived, they underscored the significance of leaving a 50-foot radius across the automobile. That was impractical, so the employees “did the perfect they may,” in keeping with the report. Twenty minutes later, a California Freeway Patrol officer heard popping sounds coming from the Mannequin X, and the San Mateo Hearth Division was summoned. Forty-five minutes later, they had been referred to as once more. The battery had reignited.

5 days after the crash, the battery ignited one final time, and firefighters arrived to seek out flames 8 to 12 inches excessive.

“For me, that one was actually eye-opening,” Barth mentioned. “The fireplace division had entry to the engineers, and there was nonetheless confusion about learn how to deal with this automobile and the makes an attempt to take away the stranded vitality; they weren’t capable of do it successfully. That pointed to the truth that, ‘Hey, this stranded vitality, there’s nonetheless gaps within the regulatory method.’ ”

Regardless of the presence of two fireplace departments accustomed to electrical automobiles and two battery engineers from the automobile producer, the answer proved vexing, the dangers resilient.