From Florida floods to Idaho desert: Understanding impacts of flood damage on vehicle batteries

IDAHO FALLS – Out connected nan Idaho National Laboratory godforsaken Site sits an electrical conveyance (EV) enthusiast’s dream: 9 high-performance, battery-powered cars including 4 Tesla models (S, 3, X and Y); a Porsche Taycan and a Lucid Air. Each car boasts immoderate of nan astir precocious EV exertion available, allowing drivers to accelerate from zero to 60 mph successful conscionable a fewer seconds while sitting successful a futuristic cocoon of touch screens and heated seats.

But upon person look, these cars person seen amended days. Sitting against nan inheritance of nan snowy Idaho desert, their erstwhile shiny overgarment jobs are now speckled pinch h2o spots. The cars are covered pinch dirt, sediment, mold and mildew, some wrong and outside. Many of their hoods person been manually sealed pinch conveyance tape, and respective of their beforehand and backmost fenders and sideview mirrors are drooping. A fewer of nan windshields are truthful filthy that passersby can’t spot into their luxury interiors.

Electric vehicles connection immoderate clear advantages complete gasoline-power cars including zero emissions and little cognition and attraction costs. But they besides coming immoderate caller challenges. Recent storms person revealed that seawater-flooded EVs tin airs information concerns for passengers, emergency responders and betterment personnel. The power near stranded successful nan artillery aft submersion successful brackish h2o tin lead to catastrophic events, for illustration fire.

The cars were each flooded pinch seawater during Hurricane Ian, which compromised nan batteries of arsenic galore arsenic 5,000 electrical vehicles successful 2022. Of those, 36 of nan impacted EV batteries caught occurrence owed to thermal runaway, an uncontrollable summation successful somesthesia that tin hap successful damaged batteries.

Interior of nan flood damaged EV.

At nan petition of nan National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), INL engineers conducted teardown investigation connected nan EVs to understand nan impacts of flooding connected their batteries. They studied 10 conveyance artillery packs. Following nan teardown study, 1 of nan vehicles went straight to a NHTSA trial facility, and nan different 9 were sent to INL.

“Some of nan main artillery packs were partially submerged, and immoderate were afloat submerged,” said Tanvir Tanim, nan main interrogator connected nan investigation task astatine INL. “Five of nan 10 batteries did not show grounds of h2o successful their main compartment; nan different half did.”

Of nan 9 electrical vehicles examined by INL researchers, 8 exhibited varying levels of h2o intrusion wrong either nan penthouse compartment (a compartment attached to nan artillery battalion lodging nan powerfulness electronics) aliases nan artillery battalion itself. Five of these vehicles showed grounds of h2o infiltration into nan superior battery-pack compartment. All nan 12V onboard auxiliary batteries were recovered to beryllium wholly discharged without showing immoderate grounds of catastrophic failure.

Tanim and his squad identified aggregate imaginable pathways for h2o ingress, including manufacturing imperfections, improper constituent installations and constituent failures. However, researchers concluded that nan measurement of h2o permeating some compartments was insufficient to trigger immoderate catastrophic events involving nan batteries. Nonetheless, flood-damaged EVs are susceptible to corrosion and mold growth, presenting information risks if these vehicles stay operational.

Battery battalion aft dropping from nan EV and removing nan apical lid.

Additionally, nan squad observed that 9 of nan 10 EV main artillery packs hadn’t afloat discharged, moreover aft astir 10 months of storage. These complaint levels bespeak that a important magnitude of power remains stranded wrong nan EV artillery packs contempt vulnerability to h2o and/or agelong storage.

“Stranded power astatine an chartless authorities owed to either a collision aliases earthy disaster could airs awesome information concerns to anyone who comes into interaction pinch an electrical vehicle,” said Tanim.

Tanim and his colleagues will proceed examining nan impacts of flooding connected conveyance batteries. They are building an immersion trial installation for testing EVs and artillery packs astatine INL. This installation should beryllium disposable for testing by this summer. Once it comes online, Tanim and different conveyance infrastructure researchers astatine nan laboratory will behaviour full-scale immersion testing to amended place nan guidelines causes of flood-induced artillery problems.

With nan Hurricane Ian vehicles, nan squad lacked nan advantage of assessing nan battery’s information anterior to flood exposure. By conducting broad examinations before, during and aft immersion tests, they purpose to place nan astir apt factors contributing to occurrence incidents aft submersion.

“Already, we understand truthful overmuch much astir really seawater immersion tin effect artillery health,” Tanim said. “As we proceed to turn our knowledge, we’ll beryllium capable to guarantee that wide electrical conveyance take tin beryllium implemented successful nan safest imaginable mode for everyone connected nan road, including first responders during earthy disasters.”