Electric cars.

At work, my understanding is that we had a couple of insurers offer cover for everything except fire - given that our premises are manned 24/7, 365 days per year, the likelihood of events other than fire leading to an insurance claim is pretty slim, so those quotes were dismissed.

 

I sort of agree and sort of don't.... the increase in weight to 4250kg will require most drivers to pass the LGV test (certainly all who passed their test after a certain date, I think mid-90's?) to be able to drive them - for businesses, this is going to present a huge headache when it comes to recruitment as folks seeking a job won't necessarily have the funds to learn/pass the test so it will likely require prospective employers to pick up the tab. Now, it could be argued that this will lead to safer roads as people will have been tested and approved to drive an appropriately sized/weighted vehicle, but where is that additional testing capacity coming from? As it stands, there are long waiting lists for driving tests in many categories (especially basic car), so adding in a further layer is surely only going to add further pressure?

As for the MOT deferral for vans, I disagree - you only have to look at some of the sheds that Amazon are running around with and see how badly they fail when they are presented for an MOT to see that maintenance is severely lacking. Our motors are off the road once every six weeks for an inspection by an engineer, with varying servicing being done depending on which inspection it is (one of three) and they are MOT'd annually. I have seen defects appear within that six week window that would result in an MOT fail if allowed onto the road - we catch them, but how many wouldn't, and if it can happen inside six weeks, what can happen in three years?

 

We have had risk assessments for ICE vehicles for many years. Taking any one of our yards at work, we have had ICE vehicle fires - usually started by vagrants who have managed to sneak on to a site to sleep on a vehicle, half sozzled, having a cigarette and then setting seat fabrics alight - much less likely to happen since the move away from flat bench style seating and improved CCTV.

We have fuel shut-offs to isolate fuel islands and the (2x or 3x depending on site size) 30k gallon diesel tanks; we have specific parking areas for private cars (mostly not undercover) and we have full sprinkler cover indoors (such high pressure that it has an 80k gallon water tower to supply it which is pumped by a diesel engine - a Ford tractor engine to be exact); if an ICE vehicle catches fire, be it internally or in the engine compartment or even fuel tank, many can be tackled with a suitable fire extinguisher and indeed I have successfully put out a couple of such fires over the years.

If an EV has an internal fire, that same principle applies - - if, however, it relates to the drivetrain that principle does not apply and the current policy is to get as far away from it as you possibly can and let the fire brigade decide how to deal with it. Worse still, it is entirely unclear what the result would be if the sprinkler system activated dowsing batteries that are in a vulnerable/ruptured state. Yes, the incoming supply would trip off... but there would still be the rather tricky situation of there being somewhere in the region of 4 - 4.5 megawatt hours of energy looking for an excuse to escape.

So, to answer your question - we have considerable mitigation when it comes to ICE fires, yet at this stage we don't have anywhere near as much mitigation for EV fires. The likelihood of an ICE may be higher, but the severity is nowhere near as much.

Before mitigations, I'd say a probability of 4 and an impact of 2 to 3, so overall risk medium to high; after mitigation, probability remains 4, impact drops to 1 to 2 (thanks to open air parking, fire extinguishers, sprinklers, fuel cut offs etc) so we are now firmly medium risk.



For EV, probability is lower - so 3 but the impact would be 5, so overall risk is very high; our prior mitigations don't work and as it stands the only tool we have in the toolbox is to trip the incoming power supply. So, final risk assessment is probability of 3, impact remains 5, so very high. It is only the probability that is keeping that down, by the way and as previously mentioned we are seeing increasing incidents with lithium based battery tech, so that probability appears to be moving.

Like it or not, that is the sort of assessment that insurers will be making - and bluntly, they don't give a toss about whether a technology is being mandated or not or indeed whether it is environmentally beneficial; their sole concern is whether they are likely to get their fingers burnt by having to make a massive payout.

 

Electric buses on hold in HWRSD until fire cause known - The Reminder