Toyota battles Tesla, Ford with own residential energy storage battery

Japanese automaker Toyota has become the latest car company to repurpose its electric vehicle batteries for home energy storage.  The O-Uchi Kyuden System, which is on presale now and will roll out in August in Japan only, mainly consists of a trunk-sized battery and two-way vehicle charger. O-Uchi Kyuden is also able to store …

[elsergiovolador]

Fire

How did they solve a problem that if such battery catches fire, it is next to impossible to put out and then you get all the toxic smoke to deal with?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Fire

Each battery has a lot of electronics, aka. Telemetry measuring the health (charge/internal resistance) and temperature of each cell, with the ability to flag errors and remove defect cells from the overall battery. Like anything that is potentially flammable, you have to work with the product you have, in terms of safety, and mitigate the risk.

Let's not ignore the elephant in the room regards your comment, petrol is far more volatile and explosive than any lithium cell, if handled incorrectly.

[ecofeco]

Re: Fire

Excellent explanation. I do not understand the downvotes.

Luddites?

[EricB123]

Re: Fire

I'm not a Brit. Can you explain exactly what is a "Luddite"?

I already up voted the post, so no worries.

[Return To Sender]

Re: Fire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

[Inventor of the Marmite Laser]

Imagine having 2000 litres of kerosine in a plastic tank in your back garden, or 2000 litres of LPG in a high pressure steel tank.

[Stork]

Or moving 60 litres of highly flammable, toxic and carcinogenic liquid around at more than 30 m/s, only contained by 0.8mm mild steel, controlled by an operator with a dozen hours of training several decades ago.

[tmTM]

Hate to be a pedant, but the main issue with Lithium battery fires is putting them out.

Yes petrol/diesel etc catches fire well, but fire crews can put it out and keep it out. Lithium is a pig to put out, and there's every chance it can re-light itself hours later.

I remember a Tesla catching fire after a wreck in LA not too long ago, after being extinguished it re-lit several more times in the junk yard.

[KSM-AZ]

Physically Damaged vs

Did not see the Tesla re-ignition thing. Perhaps if you squash LiON batteries at 50Mph it might take damage that should be handled differently. A bunch of batteries in a shed in the back yard is not as likely to sponaneously catch fire, or cause as much damage if it does.