Maybe Mr Panasiewicz is Master of Science and Professional Engineer and he apparently is a Certified Fire & Explosion Investigator and his Bio even states that he specializes in Electrical Engineering, but I highly doubt that he has any practical knowledge of Electric Vehicles. He has several decades of electrical engineering, in particular repair of power supply equipment for Aerospace, as well as working as electric engineer in fire and explosion investigation and Failure Mode Analysis (which typically is a paper exercise, nothing is actually made to fail to do this analysis in practice), until 2 years ago when he became Forensic Engineer for his current employer.
He contradicts himself and makes ridiculous statements with regards to batteries, so either he has written this story in a different language (French?) and it was (incorrectly) translated for him without him verifying the translation, or he is actually making ridiculous statements himself. Let me give some examples: Thermal runaway and Fire on Impact: This is written to read as a horror story, totally ignoring that he is generalizing about Lithium-Ion batteries, without even checking statistics on how many EVs have burned due to the cited "serious risks" and without any comparison to the number of ICE vehicles exploding and burning due to similar incidents. I smell fear mongering creeping up. Constantly 'Running' "When an electric vehicle is parked, it is not de-energized." The above statement is simply untrue. Every commercial EV has contactors that disconnect the battery and de-energize the vehicle as soon as you park and push the power (off) button. When you plug it in to charge, AC is fed to the charger and the output of the charger is able to feed into the battery, but the drivetrain of the vehicle is still de-energized. If you want to start about the danger of the energy stored in the (disconnected) battery, then let's also address the energy stored in the fuel tank of an ICE vehicle. Proper Maintenance of Charging Stations: "Inadequate cable insulation, wear and tear, collisions, vandalism and theft can damage charging cables and devices. Mass-produced cables that are not properly insulated or have exposed wiring from use or copper theft, standing water and damaged units all contribute to the potential for electric shock." It seems that he has no clue about EVSE and the requirements for GFCI and pilot handshake, so I will leave it at "this is fear-mongering and an apparent lack of experience with UL certification and industry practices" Risk of Collision Injuries: "Due to the lightweight construction of electric vehicles, the risk of injury may be higher for drivers and passengers involved in a collision. The Insurance Institute of Highway Safety shows that tiny cars are no match for bigger cars." The old mistaken ideology that heavier is better. Only he is forgetting that an EV has a large battery and thus all commercial EVs are actually relatively heavy vehicles, ooops. This brings us to one of his biggest goofs: Battery Disposal Cost: "When a battery-powered electric vehicle is involved in a collision, the battery needs to be removed, discharged, frozen and then destroyed. Getting rid of a large, lithium-ion battery can cost upwards of $30,000.00" Say what? Frozen? As in putting it into a freezer and freezing the battery? Why would anyone want to do that to a Lithium battery? Makes no sense at all. And Lithium battery packs from collision vehicles are not destroyed, they are sold for good money, Nissan Leaf packs from Salvage cars fetch upwards of $2k with low mileage ones ranging in the $3k - $4k from dismantlers, so anybody who is paying to have their Lithium battery pack destroyed for them might just as well throw that money from a highway overpass. I know, because I have bought and sold several Lithium battery packs from Nissan Leaf. Even if the battery is completely worthless, such as the pack that I have sitting on a pallet, coming out of a burned vehicle, with the wiring inside the pack partially molten due to the forceful discharge of the cells inside and the do-it-yourself modifications on the pack that a previous owner made (and which caused the fire), still I can drop off this pack for free at the nearest Nissan dealer and they will take it and have it recycled for its materials, I might even get a phone call soon from a local recycler who might be interested in pickup up the pack for me and paying me for it. So, there appears to be no basis in reality for this outrageous claim, again: fear-mongering... And this brings us to the claim: Risk to Pedestrians: "Electric vehicles are extremely quiet, and many drivers love this feature as it makes for a very peaceful driving experience. The downside of this feature is that it may pose injury risks to pedestrians, as the electric vehicle is mostly silent outside of the cabin as well, when in motion." Did the author ever stand at the side of the road when vehicles were passing? Indeed, there are some vehicles where the engine noise overwhelms everything else, this is often a result of illegal modifications to the exhaust system or the engine. All mass-manufactured family sedans make very little engine noise when driving at a steady speed in city traffic and the *majority* of the noise produced is coming from the wheels, the tires hitting the pavement. While the engine noise is always absent in an EV, every EV that is driving at normal speed in city traffic makes a lot of (tire) noise. Only at very low speeds does an EV become silent due to the absence of both engine noise and tire noise. That is why almost all commercial EVs have been manufactured for several years now, to have a noise maker that is automatically activated at low driving speeds. Either the author did not bother to investigate the actual situation or he wrote this article a very long time ago and it now got published with incorrect information. At any rate, seeing the blatant mis-information in the article, I would suggest to attach very low weight to the statements and conclusions. Also the question presents itself, why this author, who should be so qualified to write an excellent article with referenced statistics, apples-to-apples comparisons between ICE and EV vehicles and accurate technical details, ends up writing an opinion piece that superficially seems to be legit because of his many titles, but upon inspection proves itself grossly misrepresenting the presented issues - why does this author publish such an article? I can only think of a single motivation to do so and I will leave the conclusion to the readers. Cor van de Water Chief Scientist Proxim Wireless office +1 408 383 7626 Skype: cor_van_de_water XoIP +31 87 784 1130 private: cvandewater.info http://www.proxim.com This email message (including any attachments) contains confidential and proprietary information of Proxim Wireless Corporation. If you received this message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. Any unauthorized use, disclosure, distribution, or copying of any part of this message is prohibited. -----Original Message----- From: EV [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of brucedp5 via EV Sent: Saturday, October 29, 2016 9:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [EVDL] Insurance Forensic Eng crying wolf ... (does this explain why Insurers' EV-uptake is slow?) % Normally, I seek out only the positive EV news item for posting. But sometimes I find what seems like an anti-EV release that might shed some light on other points concerning EVs. I ask that for those interested, bring up the URL (below) on your own (I did not want to post all their mis-information as that only perpetuates their incorrect statements). I did put a few of the key points you should examine (see below). - ? Am I right in thinking the purpose of this Eng's statements, are to promote his company's agenda ? If so, then this is not necessarily a Koch-Bros funded anti-EV/misinformation smear, but one that is intent on helping drive business to that company ... (am I right?) - Releases like this being sent out to Insurance companies will certainly keep them from wanting to 'take a risk' on EVs, once they have read all the overblown hype from the writer (his writing leans heavily on an 'EV sky is falling' attitude) % http://www.canadianautoworld.ca/industry-news/electric-vehicles-and-the- unique-risks-insurers-need-to-consider Electric vehicles and the unique risks insurers need to consider October 17, 2016 Chris K. Panasiewicz ... Insurance companies need to consider the major risks of insuring these lightweight, electric vehicles and ensure that premiums reflect the potential risks associated with insuring them. ... [EV] risk of injury can be higher and repairs and replacement parts can be very costly. Here are some of the lesser-known concerns associated with owning and driving electric vehicles. Thermal Runaway ... Fire on Impact ... Constantly 'Running' ... Proper Maintenance of Charging Stations ... Risk of Collision Injuries ... Risk to Pedestrians ... ... electric vehicles posing twice the degree of accident and injury risk when stopping, starting, slowing down, backing up, and entering or exiting driveways ... Battery Disposal Cost ... Insurance companies need to be aware of the differences between gas-powered and electric vehicles, and consider the different risks associated with insuring them ... Chris K. Panasiewicz, M.Sc., P.Eng., CFEI, is a consulting forensic engineer who specializes in fire and explosions investigations and electrical engineering. He is qualified as an expert witness in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and has investigated over 300 forensic incidents to date. He has over 10 years of fire and explosions experience ... [(c) 2016 Metroland Media Group] ... https://ca.linkedin.com/in/chris-panasiewicz-5aa48092 Chris Panasiewicz Forensic Engineer at Origin And Cause http://www.origin-and-cause.com/media/Chris_Panasiewicz_new.pdf ... http://www.origin-and-cause.com/ Origin & Cause-Fire Arson Investigator, Insurance Forensics Origin & Cause has 25 Forensic Engineers and Fire Investigators that combine their Fire, Forensic Training and Education to Deliver Unrivalled Response. ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry_Wolf When one is said to Cry wolf it is an expression that means to "raise a false alarm", derived from the fable The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Cry Wolf may also refer to:. For EVLN EV-newswire posts use: http://evdl.org/evln/ {brucedp.0catch.com} -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/Insurance-F orensic-Eng-crying-wolf-does-this-explain-why-Insurers-EV-uptake-is-slow -tp4684245.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
