Last week my new electric car was in the home stretch. One more day and she'd be on the road. Then a mysterious short circuit occurred during my lunch break. The lovely car caught fire, burned itself and the garage completely and skiis, bikes, boats, and tools of 50 years of tinkering. The loss still had me numb after a week.
I think there are two levels of risk in electric conversion or assist: one level is bikes, where power is less, things are often in the open, and the kits you buy have lots of sophistication built in. Electric car conversion is a much higher risk. I shudder thinking about those 4 Pacifica 2.4 KWH batteries I put in the car, wired thru circuit brakers in parallel. I was not plugging together parts of an E-bike kit, but setting up a complicated wiring system. Production electric vehicles are very very sophisticated, with many safety features. Most of us don't have an R and D division to build, troubleshoot, and get feedback on such a system.
Of course we crackpots will continue to do electric cars. I know my caution will only carry so far. But I just think most of us are on borrowed time. I hope our cars will be left in isolated structures, such as a portable garage. I hope they will have complete shut-off systems and that the wiring is fused and fused again. I hope all batteries have
BMS's and are charged slowly, so that no run-away heating is probable. When you see the fierceness of a large lithium battery on fire....it will change you. From that point on, you might see your miraculous little friend as a 20 gallon can of gas, nested in kitchen matches.
