The Fallout from Hurricane Ian Continues

In a surprising development, at least nine electric vehicles suddenly caught fire in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.  It’s unknown how many cars in total may have been impacted throughout areas in the state affected by Ian, which hit Florida as a Category 4 storm at the end of September.

The fires were apparently sparked as conductive saltwater poured over flooded cars and their charged lithium-ion batteries. Saltwater can create a dangerous “salt bridge” between the positive and negative points of the battery, which has the potential to short-circuit and start fires.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, has warned that EVs can ignite weeks after contact with saltwater.   As a result of the news, tow truck companies are now refusing to pick up water-damaged EVs, ABC News reported.  The unexpected danger from affected electric vehicles has forced local fire departments to divert resources away from hurricane recovery to control and contain these dangerous fires.  As of August, there were more than 95,000 registered EVs in the Sunshine state, up from 58,000 in 2021.

Fires in electrical vehicles run extremely hot and are challenging to extinguish.  Six vehicles in Naples burned for “hours and hours” and required “thousands upon thousands” of gallons of water to extinguish — a far more intensive battle than one posed by a gas-powered car, a spokesperson for a local fire department told E&E News.  At least one electric vehicle reignited after flames were extinguished, destroying two houses that had survived the storm, according to officials.

Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s chief financial officer and state fire marshal, warned early this month about the problem in a tweet. He shared a video of firefighters in Naples extinguishing a vehicle fire. Patronis said “a ton” of EVs were disabled by the storm. The fires are a “new challenge that our firefighters haven’t faced before,” he noted.  Patronis sent letters to the NHTSA and EV manufacturers with pointed questions about the fires. In a message to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, he complained about the potential of EVs to “spontaneously combust” and described the recent fires as “surreal, and frankly, scary.”