And you thought that laptop fire sucked...
By Evan Blass 
posted Jan 16th 2008 4:13PM
posted Jan 16th 2008 4:13PM
[Image courtesy of Matt G.]
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Burn Baby Burn Disco Inferno!!!!!
We Didn't Start the Fire, It was always burning since the world was turning...
that's one of my favorite songs... so darn political too. good show. [@ we didn't start the fire]
We don't need no water, let the futher muckers burn.....
The NEV, the NEV, the NEV is on fire...
When will people finally learn that Zeus is a fickle god and that trapping his holy thunderbolts in little batteries is an abomination to him?
a combination of that comment and the fact that its snowing in atlanta made my day
lol, great comment.
Cool pic of the EV burning. We use those things at my campus too, which is about 3 miles from UCR.
Yes. Yes, I am fickle, and all who have sought to entrap my essence WILL SUFFER!!!!!
Is there a video of this fire?
The hazards of technology. Anyone else want to talk about how "technology will save us"?
Oh well. There's a ton of these things on the road and this is the first time I've seen a picture of one do something like this.
I don't think they are as combustible as their gasoline counterparts and since the picture lacks anymore info, it could be that someone doused the vehicle in gasoline.
It was using outdated NiMH or Lithium Ion batteries.
Lithium ion polymer batteries that we currently use will not burst into flame if they are overheated.
Not very environmentally friendly now!
I'm sure it's clean burning.
Mr. Lange, can I get a "FIRE!" ?
I wonder what its carbon footprint is now?
One of these burned down the Warming Hut at Crissy Field in San Francisco. Since then the National Park Service has grounded all of them, they are all currently gathering dust at Fort Baker...
Apparently its happened more than once:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/26/BAGGONPRBP14.DTL
Patiently waiting for someone to report why this vehicle is burning, it's sort of being implied that the battery caused the fire...?
umm...no story, explanation, verification or anything? Other than being a cool picture, what happened here? Is there any reason to blame the batteries other than it being an electric car?
Thats a Gem Car by the looks of it:
http://www.gemcar.com/models/details.asp?MID=8&ID=310
It's a GEM car by the look of the caption below it, Sherlock. How about some real searching next time?
There wasn't a caption at the time of our posts, dick head. Which is why I was replying to Kasona's comment. Sounds like you're the one who needs to read a bit.
umm...no story, explanation, verification or anything? Other than being a cool picture, what happened here? Is there any reason to blame the batteries other than it being an electric car?
very odd indeed. it's almost like engadget is trying it's hand at spreading fear uncertainty and doubt. I wonder if they'd be open to following up with a picture of a fossilfool vehicle burning or maybe the hindenburg.
not going to buy anything with a battery bigger then my hand from now on.
gas tank?
hey look.. my school made engadget. lmfao. i'm writing this in class too...
this is your teacher. i am not amused.
Well if it was the battery, wonder if it was made by the same defunct company responsible for the exploding AT&T boxes?
Where are all the people converting all that heat into usable energy. At least make smores. COME ON, PEOPLE! ;)
and you thought that fire sucked... http://images.google.com/images?q=car+fire
Lmao. 2nd row, 3rd one down...now that is scary.
Holy crap I go to UC Riverside, a friend told me bout this yesterday but I didnt think it was this bad
I've driven in a bunch of carts like this. That never happened to me.
Yet...
I've been outside a bunch of times, never had a tornado get me.
Ha, I can't believe this made Engadget. I go to UCR and I actually saw the smoke when it started to happen. I didn't realize it was one of the karts though. Just cool to see it here.
we don't need no water let the XotherXucker burn! Burn XotherXucker Burn!
whoa.. so thats what the smoke was about. i go to ucr too. lol
Riverside Highlanders!
Now I don't know what kind of vehicle that is but it looks like some kind of nonglobal warming green electric cow manure powered vehicle. So I ask what is making this look as though a gas/oil fire? I know its all the plastic that was made from Oil.
Also with all this smoke I don't think they will be carbon neutral for quite some time.
When did Dell start making cars?
Looks nasty, but still doesn't beat this one: http://www.popamericana.com/!/barrel.o.fun.jpg
That's a big laptop
damn........this happened near me n it's posted on engadget? I didnt even know about this n i go to RCC.
One of these things went up in flames and burned the Warming Hut in the San Francisco Presidio.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/27/BAG8ANQ2P71.DTL
See what happens when you leave that nice laptop in the car unattended... kaboom!
For what it's worth:
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/35646/113/
Instead of giving out parking tickets UCR Police now just burn vehicles.
Had many a parking tickets there...
Well its highly unlikely to be the battery since they do NOT use Lithium Ion Batteries at all. They use Lead Acid ie the same battery thats under the hood of your car In fact there sealed GEL CELLS so they are even safer than the battery in your car right now. So whatever caused this fire its almost certainly not the battery back going nuclear.
I was on campus all day and didn't see that.. WTF?!?!?!?!!
Thats in front of the art's building... Crazy. How'd it happen?
"Just thinking about those little pieces of heaven, makes me wanna burn this mothaf@$#er down."
"C'mon Pookie, let's burn this mothaf#@#er down."
Battery made by Sony? :)
they're like, just let the mofo burn!
There are occasional battery fires, mostly from bad wiring -- that's probably what this was, since the GEM uses lead-acid batteries.
We don't hear much about the 250,000 vehicle fires a year in the U.S. resulting from the explosive material found in most vehicle fuel tanks. I'd say if gasoline cars weren't already approved, they'd never get the regulatory OK from state or federal motor vehicle safety agencies!
-- Felix Kramer, Founder, The California Cars Initiative (CalCars.org)
Where do you get your numbers? Annual average of 377,000 vehicle fires in 1996-98. In 1998, 29% of those had gasoline as the primary ignition source while electrical wiring was in 30%. Gasoline vehicle fires are usually caused by owner negligence as opposed to spontaneous combustion.
And yes, I am in the fuel business but am also an environmentalist. I dislike people that toss out numbers randomly or out of context in an attempt to make a point when the point can be made without deception or exaggeration.
Its a sony battery
Who killed the electric car?
Does it still retain it's Zero Emissions Vehicle status?
UCR REPRESENT!
hahahaa.
-_-
-ANDREW KIM!
Dude, you've obviously never over-charged a LiPo battery. Over-charging causes them to heat up quite quickly, boil, then burst into flames. Adversely, rapid discharge also has the same effects. For an explosion, cut one open and toss into water. Lithium being the "Li" in the name "LiPo" is highly reactive with water just as Potassium is. Just search for "Lipo fire" on YouTube, 'tard.
----
Ignatius @ Jan 17th 2008 12:20AM
It was using outdated NiMH or Lithium Ion batteries.
Lithium ion polymer batteries that we currently use will not burst into flame if they are overheated.
Global Electric Motorcars (GEM) learned of this incident when a staff member visited this site for MAC news. GEM has contacted UC Riverside and will be sending an engineer to work with the University to investigate the incident.
Dave Gannon
Director of Service
Global Electric Motorcars
ohhhhh shit
(franticly runs outside)
damn that was mine
whats sad is I go to UCR and never even noticed...
oh well, most the people driving those are just lazy.
lmao, oh wait I have a gem nev in the garage. I'm going to go check my batteries real quick. Oh anyone in the market for a used nev?
Nice try joe...
"The fire caused relatively little damage, but the smoke it generated and the water used to extinguish it made a mess of the building and its inventory, Weideman said."
good factual comments once again.