These days, you don't need to be an engineer to know what a lithium-ion battery is. Half the country now knows that lithium-ion chemistries played a role in fires aboard Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. The term has been used in newspapers, on television news programs, and on tens of thousands of websites around the world.
So it's probably inevitable that much of the public is now making the connection between Boeing's fires and electric vehicles. And news organizations are helping make that connection.
A recent NBC News story asked whether Boeing's woes would "short-circuit" electric cars. Numerous other news sites have tracked the stock market effects of the debacle on electric vehicle manufacturers. And a Chicago Tribune story about imported products even used a graphic depicting burning bread in a toaster with Boeing's name on it. A caption under the photo asked, "...what might be expected of lithium-cobalt oxide batteries?"
Boeing's batteries overheated and burned (left) onboard a 787 (right), but that shouldn't be an indictment of lithium-ion chemistries. (Source: NTSB, left; Boeing, right)
If all of that is beginning to sound like an indictment of lithium-ion batteries, then that's a shame.
Yes, it's true that today's electric cars and plug-in hybrids use lithium-ion batteries. And it's true that lithium-ion is more prone to overheating than, say, lead-acid or nickel-metal hydride chemistries. But the term that too often gets left out of these discussions is "engineering." This is what engineers do. It's what they're good at. They take energy sources and make them do work. And if they do their jobs right, then they do it safely.
"No matter how you slice it, a lithium-ion battery, or any high-performance battery, is a package of energy," Elton Cairns, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of California-Berkeley, and a designer of fuel cells for NASA's Gemini flights, told Design News. "If they had put a similarly-sized vessel of gasoline in place of that Boeing battery, it would have been an even bigger fire hazard."
To be sure, the lithium cobalt oxide chemistry used by Boeing is even more energetic than other lithium chemistries. But that's not really the issue. The issue is that engineers are supposed to determine the energy level, and then build in mechanisms to make the situation safe for users.
That's why engineers at General Motors put 144 plates filled with liquid coolant between the lithium-ion cells on the Chevy Volt. It's why Toyota uses 42 sensors to monitor temperatures of the Prius PHV's lithium-ion batteries, as well as three fans to cool the cells. It's also why engineers use special electrical connectors to prevent against shorts inside and outside their batteries. And why they employ battery management ICs to monitor performance. It's all part of the process of learning to manage the energy.
The point is, lithium-ion is energetic, but with proper engineering, not dangerous. Over many decades, engineers have learned how to safely operate internal combustion engines with gasoline, stoves with natural gas, and jets with jet fuel. Yet, we don't fret about the gasoline, jet fuel, or natural gas. Why? Because we expect engineers to manage the risks. And engineers will do the same with lithium-ion batteries, assuming our risk-averse society doesn't block the way.
"As long as you have a battery that contains a lot of energy, you'll never have 100 percent protection against some kind of failure," Cairns told us. "It's all a matter of proper design and acceptance of a certain amount of risk."
Chuck, it is a wonder that the engineers at Boeing do not seem to have provided enough battery protection, or cooling, is puzzling. It is puzzling on a couple of levels. The first is that Boeing is an aerospace company, and that kind of thing is very important in that world. The second is tha they do not seem to be up on the latest research. Any reading of the information available from vendors of CAE software, such as Ansys and Comsol, would reveal lots of articles about lithium ion battery research from the major auto companies. One of the recurrent issues is cooling.
Don't forget, though, that there was that case of the Chevy Volt that had been used in a crash test caught fire after sitting there for a couple of weeks, if I recall correctly. You wrote an article mentioning it just about one year ago. And, of course, there is the celebrated case of the Apple laptop batteries that caught fire. These are power sources that are very good, but do requre, as many of your readers point out, some very good engineering to use safely. I use one in my laptop and I am now comfortable using it in my lap. That, in itself, says something.
My quip that had Bob Lutz been the President of Boeing this would never have happened, besides being on point and a bit humerous bears some powerful truth.
The engineer of the powertrain of the Volt and the watered down ELR is a woman. That there is a cooling system for the batteries surely owes some credit to her.
When Bill Stout was killed and Henry decided to walk away from the aircraft industry in which he was the leader, the aeronautical engineers, full of pride of superority, left Detroit for the west Coast.
Looks to me like the Engineers of Detroit are not that inferior at all when it comes to hard core thinking, but they went a long way towards hurting the Converj by abusing the absolutely superior work of the designers.
I'm using the term to indicate Designers who went to Design School and studied Design.
The headline is a most unfortunate, dangerous twist. Don't forget that the Volt is outselling the Corvette and is a magnificent vehicle.
Perhaps Elon could tell us about his cooling system and his safety ratings in a side impact.
Recent publications on Li batteries indicate that Li-ion batteries have a problem which NiCads do not: The former melt at a very low temperature and once the process starts, it doesn't end until the battery is consumed in a catastrophic meltdown, thus the fires. NiCads, however, require double the weight for the same energy storage, thus the urge to use Li's.
One can readilly extrapolate that the new Li's used on the aircraft are larger than previous models, thus quite possibly creating a temperature gradient from the innermost cells to the outside which is risky in terms of reaching the melting point within the battery. If this be true, two cures are indicated: (1) active cooling of the batteries (not currently provided for in the Boeing design), including possibly active cooling within the battery volume, and temperture sensing within the battery (also apparently not included) as a control signal to the charging circuitry.
Battery powered cars are a product of the man-made global warming theory and taxpayer subsidies. If one believes in the theory, then one should be prepared to have egg on one's face when the theory is finally accepted as a hoax. Quiz: Who was it that said back in 1933 that "if you tell a lie and keep repeating it, the lie will come to be accepted as the truth ... the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie and thus, by extention, the truth is the mortal enemy of the state"? Hint: der Fuerher loved this guy.
A couple of issues I have with the overall reporting of this problem... First, everyone discribes the battery as Boeing's design... Having worked in aerospace, this part very likely was subcontracted... That does not relieve Boeing of responsibility, but the Boeing engineers I have worked with are excellent aerospace people, maybe not battery people... Therefore the possible outsourcing...
Second, many have freely tossed around the word 'fire'... related to this failure... I know, many of our parents probably stated "where there is smoke, there is fire!" but in reality there isn't always... It is obvious there was significant heat released, and a great amount of smoke... but maybe not flame... My experience with lithium-ion batteries leads me to believe there quite possibly was not flame generated... The batteries have high energy density but unlike gasoline, I have not experienced flame or explosion as a result of failure...
Many thoughtful comments .. and better informed than in most media.
The fact remains..
We are just speculating with limited specific knowledge to the details of the two 787 Dreamliners with damaged batteries. This is a very small sample size to make generalizations with. And, yes, media's love of speculation is likely to hurt the image of anything with Li-ion batteries. And that is unfair.
Old US Air force definition of an airplane:
A group of compromises , flying in close formation.
There are several lithium ion chemistries available and the cobalt based battery is well known to be thermally unstable. Recall computer laptop fires?
If a 'safe' chemistry had been considered, e.g. manganese based lithium then this would have increased the thermal margin such that cooling is not needed and another failure mode is avoided. Keep it simple!!
It seems to me that Lithium Ion battery technology has not reached the maturity that resulted in grounding 30+ aircraft, at millions of dollars a day, regardles of any power to weight benefit. If a car has a fire you can quickly pull over and get out. If an aircraft has a fire in flight what do you do?
At the time the US government certified Boeing's 787 Dreamliners as safe, federal rules barred the type of batteries used to power the airliner's electrical systems from being carried as cargo on passenger planes because of the fire risk.
Boeing appears to have taken gamble and lost. Poor design, poor engineering, poor implementation or.... eventually we will know.
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