AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)05/26 Report--

On the morning of May 26, an electric van rear-ended a school bus in Shenzhen, causing concern because the electric van caught fire after the rear-end collision and the driver died on the spot.

The accident occurred at the intersection of Huanggang Road and Lianke Road in Futian District, Shenzhen. According to the video posted on the Internet, there was no other emergency after the electric van rear-ended a school bus in front of it. It looked like a simple rear-end collision.

Not long after, the video of the rear-end electric van catching fire quickly went viral on the Internet. According to the video, smoke billowed from the bottom of the electric van and a fire broke out at the same time. At this time, witnesses who recorded the incident said many times that "there is another person in the car."

As can be seen in the video, the driver of an electric van tried to ask for help by waving his arm, possibly unable to escape due to a violent impact. The fire at the bottom of the electric van spread rapidly, and there was a deflagration phenomenon, during which someone tried to come forward to rescue and extinguish the fire with a fire extinguisher, but because the electric van burned violently, the whole car was engulfed by the fire.

At about 9: 00 a.m. on May 26, 2020, the Shenzhen traffic police issued an accident report. At about 06: 45 on May 26, a rear-end collision occurred between two vehicles at the intersection of Huanggang Road and Lianke Road in Futian District. The rear-end electric van caught fire and the driver died on the spot.

Shenzhen Fire Department said that after the traffic accident, Merlin Station immediately dispatched 4 cars and 20 people to the scene. After arriving at the scene, it was found that a minivan collided with a school bus and caught fire. Members of the station immediately put out three water guns to put out the fire. At the same time, they organized a demolition team to break down the minivan to save lives. After 15 minutes of fighting, the fire was put out. Shenzhen Fire Services later confirmed that the accident resulted in the death of the truck driver on the spot.

The front of the electric truck rear-ended the vehicle in front of it, but it was inconceivable that there was a fierce fire at the bottom of the vehicle after the accident, resulting in difficulties in rescue. Electric vehicles are generally designed with power battery packs under the middle chassis of the vehicle. It is well known that once the battery pack catches fire, it is difficult to control, and the fire spreads rapidly. The cause of the fire remains to be further investigated.

The sudden fire after the accident may cause public concern about the safety of electric vehicles. After the accident was announced on the official Weibo of the Shenzhen traffic police, many people said that the batteries of electric cars were dangerous and that they were determined not to buy electric cars. Some netizens said, "what is terrible is not the electric car, but the unsafe battery."

It is understood that the effect of extinguishing lithium batteries in electric vehicles with fire extinguishers is not obvious. Fire extinguishers can only extinguish open fires on the surface, and the batteries can continue to release heat and burn, which is caused by the characteristics of lithium batteries. Therefore, the lithium battery fire can only be put out with a large amount of water, which can not only extinguish the open fire, but also cool the battery.

It is worth noting that by comparing the electric truck in this accident with the EV series pure electric animal flow car produced by Iveco in Nanjing, the car has two models: lithium iron phosphate battery and ternary lithium ion battery, both of which have a range of about 200km.

In view of this incident, it is still waiting for manufacturers and relevant departments to do further investigation and analysis of the vehicle system, so as to determine the cause of the fire.

On the other hand, the driver's unsafe driving behavior is also an important cause of the accident tragedy, unable to escape in time after the collision, trapped in the cockpit, it can be seen that the impact of the collision was greater at that time.

In May this year, in order to further improve and optimize the safety technical requirements for electric vehicles and power battery products, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the latest mandatory national standards for electric vehicles, which will be implemented from January 1, 2021. In the "Safety requirements for Power batteries for Electric vehicles", while optimizing the safety requirements of battery units and modules, emphasis is placed on strengthening the thermal safety, mechanical safety, electrical safety and functional safety requirements of the battery system. the test items cover system thermal diffusion, external fire, mechanical shock, simulated collision, wet-thermal cycle, vibration soaking, external short circuit, overtemperature overcharge and so on. In particular, the standard adds the thermal diffusion test of the battery system, which requires that when the battery unit is out of control, the battery system will not catch fire and explode within 5 minutes, so as to reserve a safe escape time for the occupants.

With the enforcement of more standards, it is hoped that it will play a role in improving the safety level of new energy vehicles.

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