It makes a legitimate point about paint and temperature used in a body shop for repairs.
But I am not convinced that generally there is a real cause for concern. Any damage sufficiently severe as to cause damage to battery packs is likely to cost well into 4 figures and be subject to an insurance claim.
It may be that insurance premiums reflect this risk - but it is a small part of the overall risk which includes personal injury or minor frequent shunts.
One may be equally concerned about 50L of petrol let loose in a major accident in close proximity to sparks and hot exhausts.
Hopefully that last one is down to good engineering that it happens so infrequently these days.
I have mentioned it before, but a former colleagues Jag with magnesium and aluminium parts caught fire and disintegrated before his eyes in a few minutes on the motorway (I remember seeing the video he took using his phone) after an engine 'problem'.
Hopefully as EV tech gets more mature (especially the batteries), fires / exploding batteries won't be an issue. At least they aren't at the Ford Pinto scale of problems...
Well, the Pinto thing is allegedly mostly a myth.
http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/archives/000023.php
If that is true, it could easily be at the Pinto scale of problems, depending on the public appetite for the myth, and the media's motivation to provide one.
Perhaps then the certain Italian supercar with a propensity to catch fire in warm, sunny weather instead? :-)
The gen-1 Leaf didn't have any active cooling for its batteries, and apparently in some hot countries has suffered from fires as a result (source: John Cadogan).
The gen-2 car does apparently have active cooling, so at least on that score they've learned their lesson - the hard way. Still, you'd think that this sort of thing would've been picked up during R&D - I mean it's not as though lithium battery fires weren't unheard of beforehand, given the problems on that score with mobile phones and laptop computers...
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