The Expert Podcast

…How does the us coast guard have an impact or affect your knowledge of electric vehicles It may not seem like the coast guard and electric vehicles have anything to do with each other, but they released a blog post on their official website within the last week that talks about electric vehicle batteries Now, this has to do with shipping these batteries on cargo boats and shipping containers and how it affects the Marine environment And they have a safety alert that says saltwater intrusion causes damage to these battery Batteries more importantly it can cause fires In fact, in there. article they have a picture right here of a fire. That happened because salt water intruded on electric vehicle And it says right here vessels ports and shippers should be aware of this extreme risk and avoid loading EVs would damage lithium ion batteries into commercial vehicles. That's the bottom line right? They don't want you to put damage. Lithium ion batteries that are in EVs onto commercial vehicles because our commercial vessels because the boat could burn. Right. It's bad enough to have a fire on land but if you're 50 miles out at sea and your boat catches on fire. Right There's no fire department granted that there's water all around you, but unless you have good firefighting your boat's going to sink Yeah The fire is going to go out when your boat sinks, how is that? Relevant to electric vehicle ownership Well, If you live in a saltwater environment near the coast which is where most people live, California Oregon Washington Florida. Texas. New York New Jersey Virginia are all some of the most high. populated states and some of the states with the highest use of EVs and they're on the coast. Right. That's where the salt water is.

So. What if your Evie battery is damaged somehow you drive over a rock a speed bump something damages it, your battery still might work. Your battery might not show any sign of damage because quite frankly how often do you look at your battery? If you've got a rock chip on your windshield and a chip that you'd see it If you had a door ding from a shopping cart you'd see it. If a rock came. underneath and damaged your battery, you don't see it cause you don't pick onto your car every day. Right? So this is an example of where. The damage can do more harm than just cosmetic. If the battery is damaged. and saltwater can intrude either from spray from the road that you're driving. And the row in the saltwater kicks up into your battery. According to the coast guard It says right here it causes fires. Extreme risk averse… Damaged batteries extreme risks That's their words. And. What if your car's in your garage? And the saltwater corrodes the leads or short-circuits and it catches on fire. Now you're not just losing your your car You're losing your house. And you might say well, I don't live near the ocean. Maybe you don't, but I guarantee you in the winter. Most of the country. Has snow and ice mitigation where they put salt on the roads. That's still salt water. In fact that's salinity content might be higher. than the ocean in some places. So if you live in. Maine. New Hampshire Wisconsin. Michigan Minnesota. North Dakota South Dakota where you have snow on the road. They put down salt. Saltwater intrusion in a battery. Right. So. This is something to be aware of I… don't know the level of the risk. The coast guard is calling it extreme risk. It also has to do with how much damage is on the battery. Something to be aware of the coast guards were. commercial boats. To be aware of it. But it's something that may not be in the mainstream knowledge of, consumers or civilians that might be important to know about maybe the check your vehicle every once in a while check out your battery to make sure that it's up to snuff. Make sure there's no physical damage to it Make sure that if you feel like you might've scraped it on something you haven't checked out before you put the rest of your property at risk by parking in the garage and burn it down your house. Allegedly.