Most EVs have specific guides for fire fighting. For example, Tesla’s include the HV disconnects that need to be cut or disabled, and the best way to fight it: https://www.tesla.com/firstresponders
Imagine there being hundreds of models of different make and model year of EV, and you are a firefighter facing down a vehicle in the process of turning itself into superheated slag while spewing toxic smoke, and you have to play the game of whack-a-mole of trying to find where to cut so that you don't get 400 volts in your face, while trying to save the people trapped inside.
If you’re genuinely curious then ask the firefighters in Norway. In urban areas around the third of the cars on the road are EVs. And there’s probably a wider range of models than anywhere in the world.
When asked firefighters say that EVs are an improvement. Even if it’s a bit trickier to deal with a fire when there is one, there are significantly less fires than with ICE, and it takes longer for the fires to reach their peak intensity.
There was also a big fire in an airport parking garage recently. Started by a parked ICE car. Not a single battery pack ignited in that fire. Imagine if they were all EVs. No fuel poured on the fire at all (except the plastics and such of course)
There’s no reason why the car should become a superheated slag with the right equipment. All you need to do is to apply water to keep it cool, and that will generally keep the battery from getting too hot and igniting the combustible materials. There’s a lot of development in making good equipment for this. There’s was a study showing that a garden-hose like device that sprays water evenly on the battery from the underside can keep the battery cool with fairly little water use. Another study showed that you can use even less water by drilling a hole in the battery pack and injecting water directly into it. I imagine firefighters will eventually get some kind of remote controlled rover that can safely do that operation at a distance.
So there’s lots of room for improvement but EVs are already a step in towards safer cars.
There's logic to disable the HV source automatically in a collision (well, to open the contactors anyway), the cut loop is a redundant safety to ensure that the HV controller gets the message to cut power.
Where? Genuinely curiuos, I've been over my vehicle and haven't seen one. It's a Ford Mach E, so knowing how to isolate the HV system if I must would be nice.
The owner's manual version includes removing the frunk, which is a lot of work.
As another example, my Renault Megane E-Tech has specially designed "fireman access"[1] for firefighters so they can quickly get water to the battery in case of fire. It also has a battery quick disconnect switch[2] under the rear seats.
Well... It's seems... Childish, to be polite... In case of fire, typically after a powerful crash since EVs are not catching fire for no reasons every now and then, of course fireman's have easy access to open the appropriate small opening INSIDE the vehicle to extinguish it, also given the typical pressure of their water gun and the fact they can't perfectly fit the hole and there seems no easy air passages to avoid squirt water everywhere, and of course, they have easy access to a plastic Qr code in a specific small place of the vehicle to see the relevant instruction remaining nearby with a smartphone, perhaps under bat weather conditions, other vehicles burning and so on...
This seems to be what I call manager's driven design or dumb biped design.
Oh, I go further: most modern vehicles, not only EVs, are designed by people with very NO DAMN CLUE about roads and safety. Let's observe the very common mania of a big front tunnel to offer large arm rests, can holders, ... and also to impede a passenger pushing quickly the fainted driver foot out of the accelerator, easily access the break pedal while being able to steer and see the road, internal volumes not designed to move from one seat to another if the car is even only parked in tight spots, not even counting an emergency exit from the tailgate. This is the classic design of students at a desktop with no imagination of the real world outside.
And I say this as a relatively happy EV owner, who have already noticed an immense slice of missing and badly done things simply because of lack of real world, eagle eye view.
I've seen it, but that's was a VERY EASY scenario of an isolated vehicle with nothing around, try to do the same in a more realistic scenario like a vehicle crushed downhill, with a bit of dry vegetation on fire around, another with some vehicles crashed, deformed and one onto another. Even if there are no people to rescue, those alive are already recovered and eventual others are dead, how do you reach such small hole, perhaps if the car is on one side or overturned?
To me it's like an old movie of "theory vs reality with an oil ship with a serious fire on board and the young trainee trying to follow the protocol working on chemical extinguishers when an officer brutally push him out "IT'S DAMN TOO LATE!!! GO!!!".
It's not much about the involvement but the way we design cars (and essentially anything) today, the designer mindset and usual organization. Ignore the extreme scenario: various EV brands offer V2L functionalities, ALL I know offer an adapter to the charging port for such purpose, meaning you can't have 230Vac while driving or inside the vehicle, now how damn frequent is the fictional advertised scenario of a picnic with an electric grill aside the car vs you are damn trapped in the traffic, all stopped for long and you just want your laptop powered INSIDE the vehicle or you have a fridge in the trunk, a real one with a 230V compressor? To me the reasoning behind current V2L design is "well, 99% will not use such functionality, while 20% keep curiously asking for that (for incomprehensible reasons), so we add it in the cheapest way possible". In the reality it would be not much expensive put the 230V inverter in the trunk on one side and offer 230V sockets in the trunk and in the middle/back part of front seats. It's only a matter of understanding damn realistic real life usage vs not having a clue of the real world.
Another example: we have VARIOUS domestic car chargers, because well, most EV owners own a home with a garage/some space to recharge at home, since living on public chargers it's no life... Well, vast part of the inhabited world have good potential photovoltaic power, and most EV owners live in such places... Why the hell exactly ZERO vendor offer a real p.v. integration for their chargers? So far in the EV only two claim to have p.v. integration, both are p.v. inverter/battery inverter makers, one it's Fronius another is Victron, both claims are well... Questionable... The can ONLY charge in AC, meaning loosing ~30% of p.v. power in the process while at least Fronius already sell hybrid inverters with 400V batteries integration, the very same batteries of 99% of cars... Why not offer DC-tp-DC charging MUCH more effective, MUCH simpler, MUCH less risky and bi-directional by default because yes on damn all EVs you can both charge and discharge from DC at least in EU/CCS combo ports, so the car became de facto part of a home p.v. system with storage. NO DAMN VENDOR offer that. Only one USA vendor offer DC charging and bi-directional usage to power the home BUT NOT p.v. integration, it works grid connected to charge, only off grid to discharge. Heat pump vendors with DC compressors? Similarly NONE I know offer DC-direct power optional (a thing with nearly no cost to be added) to run on p.v.
Long story short ALL "green new deal" projects/tools are designed by people who show to have no clue about green new deal and real world applications. That's a classic sign of managerial-driven things, where the manager know how to organize people and know economy but damn nothing else, so apply the same knowledge and ignorance to selling apples, cruises, fighter jet and computers with ridiculous results where people who seems expert in the field invest time in convincing people he/she works for a perfect future that's actually totally surrealistic...
