Why Your Package May Be a Little Late

By
eric
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44
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Here is some sage advice from an article about Amazon’s electric delivery trucks spontaneously combusting while charging: “Maybe charge in the shade until we work out some of these kinks.”

Italics added.

Who’s “we,” not-so-kemo-sabe?

It’s clearly not the person who wrote the article. EV fires are indeed caused by heat. The kind produced by the process of transferring 400-plus volts of electricity into an EV’s battery pack at a “fast” charger, which is where the Amazon EV delivery trucks (manufactured, apparently, by Rivian) went up in a blaze of glory.

The risk of such fires can be reduced by not-so-“fast” charging an EV using what amounts to a trickle charger – a common household-type outlet that offers 120V or (if a dryer-type outlet) 240V – but the problem there is just that. It takes at least several hours to recover a partial charge using the 240V (“Level II”) outlet and – literally – a day (24 hours) or longer using 120V.

Obviously, the vehicle isn’t going to be delivering anything in the meanwhile. So Amazon – like every commercial outfit that needs its delivery vehicles (and delivery drivers) to be moving rather than idling (so to speak) plugs its electric delivery vehicles into high-voltage “fast” chargers, which are capable of restoring most – but not all – of a device’s charge in about 30 minutes or so.

This gets the battery powered delivery vehicles capable of delivering again. But it also increases the chances of a fire – again.

There have been several of these, literally. As in several of Amazon’s EV delivery vans immolating together, as at a distribution center last fall in Salt Lake City.

Amazon tried to cover up the remains – again, literally – by draping a huge tent over the remains, according to a UPS driver who drove by the remains. “Last week it seems a few of the Rivian delivery vehicles went up in flames while on the chargers,” the driver wrote on Reddit. “It was a crazy scene with the intense smell of burning electronics. Immediately after the incident, Amazon put up large tarps in an apparent effort to block the view, of the charred vehicles, from the public road. Today it appears that Amazon has rented an event tent to cover the vehicle remains.”

More recently – just last week – there was another auto-da-fe (again, literally) at the Amazon distribution center in Houston, TX. Video taken by a drone shows fire-fighters attempting to put out the blaze, which becomes an inferno as they do so. One battery in one of the devices explodes; two other devices parked side-by-side begin to burn – and no matter how much the fire is fought, the water isn’t much help putting it out.

What’s more interesting, perhaps, isn’t the fire, per se. It is the sight of all those devices plugged into all those very high-voltage “fast” chargers. It is a miracle only three of Amazon’s devices – at this particular location – went up in flames.

Also, how much power do all of these devices draw – and where does it come from?

At the Houston lot where the Amazon EVs burned to the ground there appeared to be at least 50 devices and at least that many high-voltage hook-ups for them. If even 25 of them are hooked up at once, it would take a lot power to charge them up. Enough to generate a lot of heat. And a lot of draw. Probably more than enough to power a small subdivision with each home running its AC and microwave along with the ‘fridge and washer-dryer. Is it coming from a “green” source, such as a solar array or wind-turbine farm? If it isn’t, why is Amazon allowed to “contribute” so mightily to “climate change”?

Well, for the same reason that the AC isn’t being turned off at the White House.

Joe Biden likes it cool.

The writer of the article referenced at the beginning of this article says “heat related issues are likely only going to get more common as the world heats up,” apparently unaware of the normalcy of Houston heating up in July – as well as the fact that high voltage electricity can get hot, too.

Never mind all of that.

“The EV transition is still worth it,” he writes. As if it were a “transition” similar to the one he undertook, which was a choice he made – as opposed to a ditkat (and damage) imposed by others.

Because the “transition” to battery powered-devices will, he says, “mitigate some of that temperature rise.”

Just not at Amazon EV distribution centers – where it’s been getting very hot indeed.

. . .

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Related posts:
  1. Battery Apologists
  2. More Fine Print . . .
  3. “Late to the Party”
  4. Don’t Buy a Used EV
  5. Automotive Dissonance

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44 COMMENTS

  1. The RC car racing crowd saw this coming….they had lots of fires when the RC cars switched to lithium batteries….

    They couldn’t believe it when people bought EV’s……people driving around sitting on top of a 1000 lb lithium fire bomb battery….and charging it in their garage….lol….that is insane…..

    Disclosure of dangers….the EV buyers aren’t informed of these dangers when they purchase the EV…

    Disclosure of dangers…like the huge EMF you sit in when driving your EV….or the huge EMF coming off the wiring in your house….sucking huge current through the wiring…. when the EV is charging at night….microwaved while you sleep….

  3. So glad the BP refinery fire department is local to me. They are the ones that end up putting out electric car fires round here. They know how to take care of chemical fires.

    Nearby in Chicago, people have been dumping rental Divy electric bikes into Lake Michigan. That should be good for the environment too, right?

    https://blockclubchicago.org/2024/07/02/so-many-divvy-bikes-are-submerged-in-lake-michigan-that-theres-now-a-group-dedicated-to-fishing-them-out/

    So sick of this stupidity.

  4. “We” truly are a gynocentric shithole…shitty Schools, TV programming, plant-based diet turned everyone into feebleminded and parasitic little women.

  5. Imagine the health impact on those firefighters, breathing in all of that toxic, heavy metal laden smoke. No amount of money would convince me to be around a fire like that.

  7. Jalopnik strikes again. Faux car journalists who are sucking the penises of the EV fanboys. “Amber” DeSilva … pathetic!

  8. Amber DaSilva’s Biography
    Your friendly neighborhood car, bike, boat, train, video game, anime, tech, and finance writer.

    So much expertise — rolling on floor hysterically

    • I wonder if she’s related to the late Howard DaSilva. Despite the “Portu-Geez” (Portguese) sounding name, as that was likely a Marrano family, DaSilva, described in “The Aviator” by Kate Hepburn as “The Old Phillistine” (who greeted her warmly at parties but did everything to stall her career, as likely Hepburn would no longer sleep with him), was most certainly of the Tribe. It’d be surprise if “Amber” also is, another HACK, promoted despite lack of talent and/or credentials by fellow members of the Tribe. Same infection that’s ruined Major League Baseball, at least as far as its so-called “Writer’s Association” is concerned.

      • Actually, my “Bad”, the late ACTOR Howard DaSilva portrayed Louis B. Mayer. Did a great Ben Franklin in the 1972 musical, “1776”, which also starred Blythe Danner as Martha Jefferson, and was the first “film” featuring Gwyneth Paltrow, as she was in utero.

        Of course, Mayer was most certainly of the “Tribe”, but give him THIS: He self-censored his films, believing that MGM should produce no film he wouldn’t have his grandchildren watch. Even a J-O-O can have ethics and principles.

  9. It’d be one thing if Amazon were making a purely MARKET decision to use EVs as delivery vehicles. I’m all for their right to do that. What I’m NOT in favor of is Jeff Bezos and his greedy ex getting huge tax breaks from Uncle Sugar for doing so.

  10. Cars haven’t created meaningful pollution in more than 40 years. How much no-shit pollution did those burning batteries just launch into the atmosphere? Furthermore, what’s the disposal protocol for the corpse? I have to believe that it’s still a toxic nightmare.

    The world just keeps getting dumber.

  11. “Amber”, LOL!

    Trannies writing about trannies, it sort of makes sense right? 🙄

    I was on a very large conference call with a fairly high ranking member of NASA who controls a multi-billion dollar budget. “She” looked like Admiral ‘Rachel’ Levine’s cousin. If you want some of your taxpayer money back in the form of federal contracts with this agency then you better play make believe with this large man with a 5 o’clock shadow and square jaw wearing a ridiculous wig and makeup.

    These are the mentally ill mutants who are now running large parts of our nation and are in corporations and academia. And they DEMAND you address them as “ma’am” because they are oh so tolerant, dontcha know?! Today, not playing make believe with them will at least get you a trip to Human Resources, at worst, a loss of your job. If we continue on our current path? They would gleefully put you against the wall without a second thought and probably wouldn’t offer you a cigarette first because smoking is bad for your health you know.

    • If we had the Navy that I knew, “Admiral” Levine would have been taken to the highest floor at Bethesda Naval Hospital (“It” is actually a three-star admiral, but in the Health Services, one of the other uniformed services of the United States, but “serviced”, no pun intended, by the Navy for personnel purposes) and “accidentally” shoved out a window, as was done to SecNavy Forrestal in ’49.

      However, there’s a saying which, unfortunately, has come to pass: Iron men in wooden ships have been replaced by wooden men in iron ships.

      • > Health Services, one of the other uniformed services of the United States,
        Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service
        https://www.usphs.gov
        Original mission was to prevent diseases from entering the country on naval vessels. A commission in the USPHS is considered equivalent to a commission in any of the Armed Services. In the Vietnam era, it was a little known legitimate route to avoiding the military draft, for those who qualified.

        Some employees of USPHS are not commissioned, but are civil service. A friend and college classmate signed up after completing his MS in Chem Eng, and served his term at a lab in Gig Harbor, WA, where there was a mixture of commissioned officers (“The Corps”) and civil servants (“Silly Serpents”).

      • When I served it was IRON men on iron ships! Seriously, when we were in GITMO, our guys went into the Marine club there, started a fight, and RAN the Marines out! One of the guys involved got a broken arm out of that one. Our guys were so bad that we almost got kicked out of GITMO; you have to work pretty hard to accomplish that! Our ship was notorious up and down the east coast for being a bunch of troublemakers… 🙂

  13. ‘Heat-related EV issues are likely only going to get more common as the world heats up, but … the EV transition is still worth it.’ — some mannish tranny named ‘Amber’

    As Eric rightfully protests, this is pure editorializing embedded in an ostensible news article. It’s sleazy. Unprofessional.

    But we are dealing, of course, with the Lügenpresse. Recall, if you will, the saga of Dementia Joe. Anyone who has watched video clips of “Joe’s” erratic behavior and incoherent mumbling with their own lying eyes has been aware for months, if not years, that ‘Biden’ is mentally incapacitated.

    Yet until last week, the Lügenpresse circled the wagons and steadfastly maintained that rumors of “Joe’s” incapacity were a far-right conspiracy. Then the dam broke: Emperor Joe was revealed to have no clothes and no brain. Now listen to these perfidious commie snakes-in-the-grass:

    Biden’s Lapses Are Said to Be Increasingly Common and Worrisome — NY Slimes headline, today

    Orwell nailed this deep dishonesty in 1984, when the Ministry of Truth shifted seamlessly, without explanation, from Oceania to Eastasia as the enemy of the state. Jalopnik’s leftist catamites regard 1984 not as a warning, but an instruction manual.

    Death to the Lügenpresse.

    Wasn’t that a man?
    I spell M
    A, child
    N
    That represent man
    No B
    O, child
    Y
    That spell mannish boy

    — Muddy Waters, Mannish Boy

    • Now the Lügenpresse delivers the left hook out of nowhere to take down Old Broke Joe:

      Biden Told Ally That He Is Weighing Whether to Continue in the Race

      And he’s gone …

    • >But we are dealing, of course, with the Lügenpresse.
      Exactly.
      Fearmongering from the L.A. Slimes:
      https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-07-02/wildfires-grow-across-california-as-heat-wave-builds
      > California braces for a dangerous, prolonged heat wave that’s expected to last through next week,

      Not where I live (western Riverside County, east of the Santa Ana Mountains).
      Inland SoCal, which is always hotter than the beach areas.
      According to today’s forecast from Weather Underground,
      Predicted high of 95F is well below record high for this date of 109F, and 2F above historical average of 93F. IOW, normal temperature for this date.
      Predicted high temps for this week do not even break 100F.
      Heat wave? What heat wave?
      We doan’ have no steenking heat wave here.

      • We’re getting roasted ATM up near Sacramento. But, hey, it’s JULY.

        Just run that A/C, and if you gotta go outside, drink plenty of water, and wear headgear to keep “Mr Sun.” away.

  14. @Eric – Dig the crazy mix of toll roads and freeway on/off ramps in the background of the picture.

    That’s modern Texas. Dallas, Austin, and Houston all look like that. San Antonio is getting there slowly.

    • The UPS truck, I believe, was based on a Ford chassis similar to their Econoline “cab over” vans, and came standard with the 300 cubic inch Six-banger, one of the most durable engines ever produced. One advantage of this staid but very sturdy design was that it lent itself to propane or CNG conversion, something you’d see used in a UPS depot.

  16. The sell for EV delivery vehicles is that they’ll charge at night. Even if it takes 16 hours, that’s ok because they run for 8 hours, then sit for 16.

    Problem is, delivery jobs have a lot of exceptions to the 8 hour day and 40 hour work week. Big gift holidays, closeout sales, a new gadget. All exceptions. I imagine there’s a lot of build up of packages that would normally have been delivered on a Monday holiday now doubled up on Tuesday. Long days. Overtime, more miles than “usual.”

    Will the van have enough charge? Will you get back soon enough to charge up overnight? Who’s going to run out and pick up the new guy (since new guys are, as a general rule, slower and less productive until they get used to the grind) when his busted hand-me-down truck’s battery suddenly gives up before noon?

    “We’ll learn as we go. Growing pains.” They’ll say. Meanwhile the economic flow we’re all trained to expect starts to grind down. And not just delivery. Field techs use their vehicles as rolling offices. Construction crews. A good bit of sales is still face to face. Trades in general go to the job site, not a building. And they’ve all become very dependent on the ultra-reliable transportation we have now. What happens when that dependency rolls back?

    Not to mention that when the tech van burns, you lose all the tools, test equipment (I used to have a 20K spectrum analyzer in my truck), and any notes/paperwork that the tech might depend on to do his job. Back to square one. What’s that going to cost? Just an insurance claim? Better get ready for higher premiums too.

    • Amazon, like Fedex and UPS, have detailed telemetry about how the vehicles get used over the course of the day so they know about all of the issues which you raised.

      That said, EV delivery vehicles are about agenda, and the kabuki will continue as long as Amazon holds 16% of Rivian’s stock, the largest single institutional holder as of this morning.

      The usual suspects, Vanguard and Blackrock, are in there too along with the ever mysterious Ballie Gifford, the largest single stockholder of Moderna.

    • > Field techs use their vehicles as rolling offices.
      Yep.
      My youngest brother, now retired, spent most of his career as a claims specialist for State Farm. He traveled the country as part of their “National Disaster Team, and did have a company provided “rolling office” from which to work. “Eight hour day” is not part of the vocabulary when disaster strikes, whether it is hurricanes in Florida, football sized hail in west Texas, or forest fires in California. Having the battery die part way through a long day in a long several weeks is just not an option. Let alone having your office catch on fire.

  17. I know conservatives who would never drive an EV but hold TSLA stock partially on the basis of the “greater fool” theory but also because they rationalize that what Elon Musk does with the money in regard to advancing space flight is important to “the future of humanity”.

    • They’re just as much “rent seekers” as is Mr. Musk. Of course, wouldn’t anyone that invests, say, in Raytheon or Lockheed Martin-Marietta be the same? Or Booz-Allen-Hamilton, AECOM, or Jacobs Engineering?

    • Another homosexual and former Latter-Day Saint now reaping the reward for his wickedness, even though Word Perfect was probably the best word processor, ever. (I Cor 6:9). Like anyone that’s forsaken his baptismal covenants and the Gospel, he’s facing the judgement of God. But I’ll let “Gawd” take care of HIS business, thank you very much.

  19. It’s only three electric vans, not a thousand of them. There will always be some bumps in the road when you are developing new forms of transportation. The use of batteries, stored electricity, an auxiliary input, to be the fuel to provide the juice for the motors, has its limits. A fire now and then should be expected.

    One way to look at it is there will be three brand new Amazon delivery vans in use, so no big deal, it’s not that bad.

    Plus, the fire department gets some practice, a few EV’s auto-immolating now and then keeps fire departments on their toes.

    Might want to re-think it all and quit while they are behind.

    Make some wise choices, the future of EV’s everywhere is not looking too good, the picture appears grim.

    Replace the vans with new ICE vans, problem solved.

    • It’s sorta an application of the Kensyian broken window theory. Except in the case of EVs the window is actually broken –charbroiled actually.

    • It’s what you “Auto” (ought to) not do, but you do ANYWAY”.

      It’ll be one sad day when comedian Mel Brooks finally kicks the bucket.

      • “Can’t you see that man is a nig…” – Gov, Blazing Saddles

        Mel Brooks was the Indian Chief who could speak German.

        “There’s an oven for you, Jew” – Don Rickles, heard him say the words on the Tonight Show ca. 1980 or before.

        Rickles was irreverent at times, a sane Jew. Plenty of comedic value.

        Netanyahu flew over the cuckoo’s nest a long time ago.

        Euthanize the fool, deport him to Canada.

        Please pray for the Jews, they need all of the help they can get.

        They can’t avoid the hell they have created for themselves, not my war, not my problem.

        They do it every time.

        Have to still pray for them, there is hope.

        Hamas might just stop killing IDF once they are all gone, war is what it is.

        Finish it or something. I don’t care who it is, just stop it.

        Pray that Gazans are relieved of Jewish hate and scorn, it will help some.

        Why are the Jews always picking on Gazans? It’s not fair!

        Give it all some food for thought. If Jews even can think, does remain a mystery to this day.

        Tell me what you know, you got a minute?

        To hell with Satan, be good for him.

        Miracles can happen.

        God can’t help Satan, nor Satanyahu.

        Good luck to the Jews, they need it big time. Anyhow, time to get out of Dodge.

        It’s a mostly peaceful war.

        It just starts, just like a self-immolating electric vehicle.

        Mowing the lawn or something.

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