Views on electric vehicles from The Emergency Services Show 

Andy Butterfield, Customer Services Director at National Highways, offered an overview of the some of the fears expressed by the public about using electric vehicles on the UK’s A roads and motorways. He told EST in June about the work that National Highways is doing to alleviate concerns about access to charging infrastructure and how they are innovating to remove electric vehicles quickly from the road when they breakdown.  

Project Rapid is a government funded commitment for an electric vehicle charging infrastructure, aiming to ensure that there is a rapid-charging network ready to meet the long-term consumer demand for electric vehicle charge points ahead of need. Andy said that Project Rapid hopes to provide a supportive infrastructure to power future electric vehicle requirements. The hope is that it will result in consumer confidence, reducing charging anxiety and accelerating uptake of electric vehicles.

The fire risks

After Andy shared the public’s concerns about charging infrastructure and how their electric vehicle will be recovered after a breakdown, we heard from Professor Paul Christensen, Chair of Pure and Applied Electrochemistry at Newcastle University who offered a passionate talk on the dangers surrounding the lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles. In a technical talk, he described the nature of these batteries in terms of the huge energy stored within them and what happens when it is released in a crash, for example.  

Thermal runaway can result from a crash, he told our audience. It is a process accelerated by increased temperature where the lithium-ion cell enters an uncontrollable, self-heating state. This is dangerous if not controlled and can result in a fire or explosion. He urged fire and rescue services to ensure that they teach firefighters about lithium-ion batteries, and what can be used to extinguish the flames efficiently and safely.  

Professor Christensen wrote in more detail about the fire risks from electric vehicles and the need for better understanding by fire and rescue services in an article published in the June issue of Emergency Services Times.  

One solution 

He told our audience that a strong cooling agent is needed to combat lithium-ion fires, a solution that was introduced in the session by Paul Trew from the Institution of Fire Engineers. James King from LifeSafe shared the stage and presented Thermal Runaway Fluid (TRF), a solution that significantly cools a lithium-ion battery fire and prevents re-ignition. He provided videos showing the effectiveness of the product when compared with water.  

Overall, the speakers at The Emergency Services Show provided a valuable showcase of the impact of the transition to how EVs are becoming more common, the dangers that surround them, and how to keep the public safe. This is going to be a recurring theme both for the magazine and at the show in years to come.