This issue we have a battery feature.  Safety working with batteries, even the traditional lead acid kind has been a somewhat overlooked issue due to their commonality – familiarity breeds contempt, but battery acid is pretty nasty stuff, and the gases from charging can be inflammable or explosive, so basic safety such as ventilating charging areas, gloves and goggles when handling batteries and avoiding sparking near batteries are all sensible precautions.
When we get to EV batteries though, the safety stakes go much higher, in some ways this is good as it will inherently make people working on them more aware of the safety requirements, after all, the voltages involved, over 400 volts, can easily kill you.
And as the recent fire on the Felicity Ace car carrier (which was believed to have started from a faulty EV battery and eventually led to the sinking of the ship along with around 4,000 cars) shows that a battery fire, whilst rare, can have significant consequences. Generally, the risk would arise from a battery with prior physical or electrical damage. Mitsui OSK Lines have temporarily stopped shipping used EV vehicles because of the problems involved in checking for any damage pre shipping.
With an EV battery fire the challenge is that once started such fires are very difficult to extinguish with a strong risk of reigniting after the initial fire is put out.
We spoke with Audi NZ last year for an EV servicing article and one of their requirements for dealers is a safe quarantine area. This is an area that an EV can be taken to if it arrives with a damaged or potentially damaged battery or damage is found during servicing as there is a small but real risk of spontaneous combustion from the battery. This area must be outside where a minimum of six car parks can be emptied easily to provide the quarantine space with the EV in the centre of the space. It should be outside the visible range of customers, not in the immediate vicinity of a building and have special signage, in some cases this requires a bunker to be constructed.
So if you had an EV in to service with a damaged battery where could you put it safely?