Germany’s top business daily Handelsblatt here reports that although lithium-ion batteries promise to become efficient someday, they continue to be plagued by technical problems, calling them “unreliable and a fire hazard“.
Video: Electric cars continue to be plagued by safety and technical issues (not featured in Handelsblatt story, for illustration only).
The Handelsblatt cites expert battery consultant Karl Nestmeier, who travels across Europe and advises companies on the use of lithium-ion batteries. According to the Handelsblatt:
What Nestmeier has seen during his travels as an expert, not only makes him shake his head, but also infuriates him.”
Nestmeier has seen metals twisted from the intense heat generated by the batteries, calling them a “technical-safety disaster“. If used for homes, they could cause fires, or produce dangerous gases that would damage lungs. Nestmeier believes that some of the batteries should be illegal due to their high potential hazard.
Handelsblatt writes that as the solar boom continues, there’s a correspondingly increased high potential for danger, and that companies have done too little to improve safety. One reason behind this, Handelsblatt writes, is the “insufficient product liability laws“. Many companies refuse to accept any liability for malfunctions in their general terms and conditions, and get away with it.
A number of manufacturers, some from Asia, offer budget quality cells along with unrealistic “lifetime and safety promises” that make them almost impossible to resist.
German Environment Minister ditches electric car
In other news, the Environment Minister of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine Westphalia, has decided to ditch her e-car, Bild reports here. The reason: According to Bild, Christina Schulze Föcking says her Tesla lacks the necessary range to make it practical.
Hypocrisy…Green party candidate opts for diesel
In Austria Green Party candidate Ulrike Lunacek has been using a small bus for travel between her campaign stops, according to the Kurier.at here. You’d think the vehicle would be outfitted with an electric drive and batteries so that it could run on the clean, green energy that they constantly preach about.
Wrong!
It turns out that Lunacek is using a diesel-engine-powered vehicle – the very type that all European greens have been blasting since the German diesel scandal broke out. An electric one, the Kurier.at writes, would only have a range of under 200 km, and so not enough to get around in any practical manner.
Hypocrisy among Greens knows no limits it seems. Obviously even the Greens themselves are not even sold on what they preach. That sort of low grade technology is good enough for the masses, but not for government officials.
via NoTricksZone
August 19, 2017 at 08:44AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 