https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/07/e-bike-battery-lithium-ion-fire/674622/
https://www.caixinglobal.com/2024-02-24/nanjing-e-bike-parking-lot-fire-kills-15-after-spreading-to-apartment-building-102168649.html
One needs to be a bit careful about this. "Electric vehicle catches fire" is still novel enough to be news. "Petrol-driven vehicle catches fire" is not news.
But every year around 175,000 vehicles catch fire in the US and several hundred people die as a result. Almost all of them are ICE vehicles, not just because ICE vehicles are commoner, but because ICE vehicles are roughly 20-50 times as dangerous than electrics in this regard:
https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/tusker-fleet-data-reveals-the-truth-about-ev-fires
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/20/do-electric-cars-pose-a-greater-fire-risk-than-petrol-or-diesel-vehicles
The issue is, from talking to fire & rescue types, that EV fires are hotter and more difficult to put out. SFRS is training its crews accordingly as EVs become more common.
(The other issue is, as OP notes, that Chinese counterfeits are poor-quality and dangerous. But that's just a general rule of life.)
https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/nickel-rout-is-energy-transition-warning-west-2024-03-08/
That seems strangely gloomy in tone for an article that says
a) production of nickel has successfully expanded to meet soaring demand from EVs;
b) in fact it's expanded so much that the price has fallen, making EV manufacturing cheaper;
c) if demand rises still further and the price starts to rise again, there's loads of spare production capacity that is currently mothballed and can be brought back into the market;
d) the industry is becoming dominated by a fairly friendly, fairly democratic middle-income country that is using it as a springboard to climb further up the EV manufacturing value chain.
Anyway AIHMHB, my 2 cents are that ICE is going nowhere slowly, due to failures of MIC electrical grid buildout and the price of new EVs vs used ICE. I think the PRC ICE market is unusual enough it doesn't really extrapolate to anywhere, especially MICs.
Volvo really wants me to buy an EX30 and they make a good case. The electric grid here is fine, unless it rains.
I also think a lot of vested interests (including multiple nation states, and not just the obvious ones) are so invested in oil that there'll be a very protracted glut, thus prolonging ICE.
And while we're doing this, I also think that everyone should give me all their money.
Except peep. Becuase librarians are special.
I just bought a used ICE, on the theory that an EV would be wasted on me based on how little I drive, and that its probably better to wait for the next generation of EV technology anyway.
Also I am not interested in driving something that has LED screens as the dashboard. That Volvo EX30 is an attractively priced, Chinese made EV that looks like it would be a great car except it has an iPad bolted to the center console. If you want to adjust your side mirrors, you have to find them on the menu.
4d: Which country is this? The link stopped working for me.
10: Maybe I'll wait. I heard the screens are becoming less popular.
I don't really like the small screen in our Toyota because it's harder to change the radio station.
4: I basically agree; 3 is posted just for general interest. That said, quibbles:
-Indonesia is democratic and friendly relative to the PRC, but not relative to Australia, France, Canada.
-Indonesia is no-one's friend. It plays only on its own team, and conceding it a dominant position on anything is risky.
-Indonesian production isn't straightforwardly Indonesian, it's mostly PRC companies on Indonesian territory.
Also, their capital city is sinking.
10: ERROR: lvalue required as an increment operand
And would would you buy a lithium-ion battery from Uncle Sam? Fuck no.
Before they block TikTok, I should just steal a Kia. That's probably better on environmental grounds.
19: ERROR: non-humanities education required for coding jokes.
The Deutschland AG angle is also interesting; VW doubling down on ICE in PRC (and XUAR! Irony bonus!); Bosch floating major secular layoffs. I'm guessing most of the Middelstand will do fine, but the national champions?
-Indonesia is no-one's friend. It plays only on its own team, and conceding it a dominant position on anything is risky.
Isn't this true of most Asian countries that aren't close US treaty partners?
And it wouldn't be conceding some kind of dominance for them, it would be increasing their relative power compared to other much larger powers.
24.1: Yes. This is a country that just elected an unrepentant war criminal president.
24.2: Dominant in the narrow field of nickel production. Consider the shit brewed up by KSA's rather less (?) dominant position in oil.
KSA's capacity for evil is a result of it being a small country with a dominant position in a huge ($2 trillion) market, giving it a lot of spare cash with which to work colossal evil. Indonesia is a huge country with a dominant position in a far smaller ($36 billion) market - the entire world market for nickel is about the same size as the entire world market for Playstation games. It's not going to be able to do much with that.
26.1 +an evil evangelical ideology, I think that's crucial here.
I admit the main reason I want to electrify cars is because I don't like the people with most of the oil. Climate change is second.
Just saw 9. Much appreciated, Mossy, but what about Barry?
The link in 3 is fascinating. The criticisms in 4 are fair, but it seems to be written from the perspective of non-Indonesian producers of nickel and makes sense from that perspective. I guess Reuters knows their audience.
30 is a good point. If you're a nickel producer outside Indonesia, all of the article is bad news - there's this huge boom in demand from EV manufacturers and you should be making bank, but instead these bloody Indonesians have flooded the market and you've actually had to shut your mine down. Infuriating.
West Nickel, Pennsylvania, will be heartbroken.
The most fundamental principle of decent, civilized behavior is, don't break into my cardon't drive down my profits by competing with me!
Nickel trivia: the largest nickel-mining complex in the world is Norilsk in Siberia, which was founded as a gulag labor camp. Maybe the Indonesians aren't so bad!
Our mass murder is unrelated to nickel.
