USA. Procedure For EV Fires - Cover in Wet Sand for Weeks

An autonomous I-Pace electric vehicle (EV) that caught fire at a US Waymo facility may take weeks to extinguish.

Fire crews in Arizona say that their official procedure for EV fires is now to cover them in wet sand for weeks after the fire has been put out. What started the fire in the first place is still not known, but the event started at one of the company’s facilities in Phoenix. Owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., it is used to download data collected by test vehicles during their daily operations.

Though the situation was alarming, the facility’s sprinkler system was able to contain the blaze, preventing it from spreading to other vehicles. Fire crews arrived on the scene and worked to extinguish the fire. No injuries were reported in the fire, and all employees safely evacuated the building.

However, due to the potential nature of the incident, more than 60 firefighters were dispatched to the location. Hazardous materials experts were also sent to assist, a response that according to the crews who spoke to Fox News, will be standard for any future EV fire.

Since electric vehicle batteries are so energy dense, they burn extremely hot, and are very hard to put out. Given the nature of the fires, and the relative novelty of EVs, representatives with the department said that they are constantly developing new fire-fighting strategies. A spokesman said that the fire actually provided the Fire Department with an opportunity to test its latest “wet sand” response tactic for EVs.

In this case, crews worked to douse the flames with water. Once the blaze subsided, the burnt out I-Pace was moved outside and covered in wet sand. Waymo advised that they are working with firefighters to monitor the situation and identify the root cause. .

USA - Confused Waymo I-Pace’s Cause Traffic Jams

Police tried to unstick a cluster of confused autonomous I-Pace Waymos in Arizona this month, but to no avail.

The jam occurred in Downtown Phoenix and saw 12 Waymos get “confused” and ended up clogging the road. According to one user, police attempted to intervene, but as there were no human drivers behind the wheel, the police weren’t exactly able to tell the befuddled Waymos where to go.

A Waymo spokesperson said, “Our driving technology prioritizes the safest driving path with the information it has at any given moment. Sometimes, that means our vehicle will pull over or come to a stop if it’s assessed to be the safest course of action in that instance, as happened here. We identified the software glitch that contributed to this situation and made appropriate updates across our fleet within 24 hours.”

However, the incident is the latest in a long line of run-ins with authorities for driverless cars. While no injuries have been reported, it’s not the first time that the behaviour of autonomous cars when being directed by first responders has been called into question. In San Francisco, a fire department official claimed that incursions of autonomous vehicles have now become a “daily occurrence.” In one such incident, a driverless car kept creeping towards a firefighter who was yelling at it to stop and would only do so when those at the scene smashed the car’s window.

How driverless cars should respond to human instructions - particularly from those in law enforcement - is a concern that evidently has room for improvement. Whether such a solution can be found in the near future is another question. .