An electric car burned in Hebertshausen on Thursday evening. It took the fire department one and a half hours to extinguish the hybrid BMW. With petrol engines, it usually says after just 15 minutes: fire out!
BY KLAUS RABL
AND THOMAS ZIMMERLY
Hebertshausen - The fire departments in the Dachau district have had almost no experience with burning electric cars. It's been different since Thursday night. The colleagues from Hebertshausen had to extinguish a BMW 330 E Hybrid. And that was anything but easy.
According to information from the Dachau police, several Hebertshausers dialed the emergency number at around 10 p.m. after they observed that flames were beating out of a car in the parking lot of the town hall. The BMW, which belongs to a man from Hebertshausen, was connected to a charging station there. The Hebertshausen fire department was quickly on site and tried to get the fire out, which was extremely difficult. The fire flared up again and again.
"We contacted the BMW factory fire department via the control center," says Hebertshausen's fire department commander Matthias Reinhart. The factory fire brigade brought a so-called "trough", a large water tank in which burning electric cars can be immersed to extinguish them. "We didn't need the trough after all, because we were able to extinguish the vehicle with two nozzles and a lot of water," said Commander Reinhart. However, the 16 firefighters were employed for an hour and a half. With gasoline engines, the commandant said, the action would have been completed in about 15 minutes. What also made the operation dangerous was the fact that the BMW was hanging on the charging station. "The problem is: Then everything locks. We were therefore unable to disconnect the car from the power and it was charged again and again. ”
In the end, the vehicle, which was as good as new, suffered damage of around EUR 85,000.
The police assume a technical defect, but the exact cause is still being determined. The hybrid vehicle was towed to BMW.
But why is it so difficult to delete an electric car? The lithium-ion battery consists of many cells. If one is damaged, there is a chain reaction, i.e. persistent short circuits, which constantly light the fire again and again. Actually, experts say, there is only one effective remedy: an immersion bath in which the electric car rests for several days. Such a pool, ie "Mulde", does not yet have a weir in the district.
In connection with this, the electric car manufacturer Tesla has calculated that 11,000 liters of water are needed to extinguish a burning Tesla car. It is not clear whether the Hebertshausen fire department used so much water. On the other hand, one thing is certain: When the 16 forces moved away, it was Friday morning, 1.30 a.m., and everyone was "one experience richer," said Commander Matthias Reinhart.