AS HEARD ON: WGAN Mornings with Ken and Matt: Lithium Ion Battery Dangers and Tesla design and more

Good morning everybody!

I was on with Ken and Matt. We talked about Tesla's designs and why it can be dangerous and the huge amount of energy of Lithium-Ion batteries and why they are extremely dangerous when damaged.  

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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Hey, good morning, everybody. I was on with, Ken and Matt, but this week Eric Lusk sat in for Matt. And we talked a lot about this whole Tesla thing and a little bit about vehicle testing what's happening out there, and my major concerns about some of these electric car designs that are at this point starting to take lives.

You know, it's one thing to be cool as in the hip kids, or what do they call it nowadays? Sick, right, which doesn't make any sense to me. But it's one thing to be cool or sick. It's another thing to be unsafe at any speed. I made reference to that as well.

And hey, I am going to be out in Phoenix, Arizona, on at a big conference and have some meetings and things I'll be out there for a couple of a week and a half, I guess is what it boils down to. So I am going to be a little spotty In some things I'm doing, I'm going to try and while I'm going to do the regular radio show and videos for this weekend, my lives and stuff, we're going to change format obviously, because I'm going to be on the road.

And we'll kind of, well, we'll take it as we go. I just got a lot to do. And here we go with our friends in Maine. Here we go.

On the WGAN Morning News, and what happens every Wednesday when it turns to be 730 or Saturday when it's one o'clock. We talked to Mr. Peterson, this is no exception. Good morning, Mr. Peterson.

Hey, Good Morning Ken and Eric

Eric is subbing for Matt, so happy to have you on again. You know, I'm so in tech news. I'm so Tesla has a futuristic door handle in their car and they were responsible for a death in a fiery wreck. 

Yeah. It isn't a whole lot of fun man technology is everywhere nowadays it's you know people are taking pictures there you are talking about revenge porn earlier today and it just been entering our lives without really a whole lot of fun other than isn't this kind of cool and you know I love this tech and you know I really love high-tech right and although in some cases I avoid it like the plague. For instance, in my car.  I have a 1980 Mercedes Benz diesel. So it's almost you know, zombie apocalypse proof right there. The it's the exact opposite of his Tesla that you're talking about. And we saw just a man about a month ago. I think the video came out of someone supposedly driving sleeping down the mass pike in their Tesla. And it's you know, that's become a bit of a problem. It's almost a meem nowadays that we're seeing.

Tesla's use basically the same batteries that are in your laptop. And you've, you've heard about all these different battery problems, right? The Samsung Galaxy phones, for instance, have had serious problems with catching fire people have had them catch fire at night in the evening when they're asleep in bed at night. And they have it right there next to their head on the charger and they catch fire. And, you know, I don't think anyone died from that yet. But it very, very dangerous. Apple had a problem with some of their batteries in their phones that were started to swell and potentially catch fire and there's some photos of a couple of those online airlines do not allow you to bring your lithium-ion batteries which are in our laptops and in our phones into the checked baggage on airplanes. You might have seen videos of these phones I just mentioned have in fact those Samsung's I was talking about completely banned from all planes because of the dangers involved. These lithium-ion batteries contain a lot of power. And what ends up happening with the batteries is that if they get too hot or if they get physically damaged, bad things can do happen. Because internally inside the bones inside these batteries, the the the electrodes the wires if you will and find the batteries short out, and when they short out and all of that power is released. All of a sudden you have a tone of heat due to all that power, think how long laptop so last month, my MacBook Pro that I have my new laptop, it goes eight hours on a battery. And the thing has 16 cores in a 16 CPUs. It has a 32 gig, I think it is a ram. It's got a graphics processor in there. And it requires tons and tons of power. Now, if I'm doing video editing and rendering, then I'm only got about an hour of power. But I think back to my very first laptop that had a battery that only lasted me about half an hour. And that was a course a couple of decades ago. And it's just amazing. So here's what's happening with these. Tesla's two things. First of all, they're using the same basic battery technology that's in your laptop that's in your cell phones. And the myth busters did a great little thing on this and that is you guys might have heard about this These trash trucks catching on fire. And they go around the neighborhood, of course, they collect the garbage. They have the compactor, compact and what MythBusters did is they took one of these lithium-ion batteries, they put it into a rigged up trash truck, so that it was guaranteed to damage that battery when it was compacted. And of course it's caught fire. So, a big problem with lithium-ion batteries in cars, if they are in an accident, what can happen is those batteries of course deform. And now all of that power is released. So in this particular case, we're talking about a 48-year-old anesthesiologist in South Florida who was in a car accident. And sure enough, those batteries lithium-ion batteries in this Tesla caught fire and the fire department had to put the fire out multiple times. Because again, there's so much power and it just shorts out. Now you were talking about The handles, the door handles on his car if you look at them  if you have one, you know that it has little handles, car latches that are called auto-present handles so that when you walk up to the car and you have your phone with you, you have your key with you the Tesla sensors that and it presents the door handles they pop out of the car door so you can pull them out. Well police officers showed up on the scene could not open the door because of the failure that occurred because of the accident and no door handles and all were present. Now can you know that I spent 10 years and I was a volunteer in emergency medicine right? I was an EMT, I had received TP id you know all these different certifications and because of that experience I will not buy a car It doesn't have a big solid door handle on it. Like my Mercedes, for instance, you know you can use and pull laughing like crazy and it'll open because sometimes the first responders have seconds to get you out of that car. And you need some leverage, you have to have something to pull on. Well, I've had cars in the past, made by a US manufacturer or major one that those little handles you kind of stick your fingers underneath and pull them out and pops a door open. Those are useless in the crash for the emergency responders. So this poor guy, 48-year-old anesthesiologist, he's in a car wreck slammed into a car into a palm tree. And now there is a wrongful death lawsuit filed because his car filled with smoke. He was helpless inside. The coroner's report said that he wasn't injured in the crash. And you know, Tesla's are great for that. They're the crash test. They did on the Tesla show it was they had to change the test because it did so well. But what the test didn't account for is those lithium-ion batteries with all of those power in the back, and those batteries catching fire that could not be put out by the fire department for hours. And in this particular case, those door handles that could not be reached and could not be used for leverage is that police officer watched the doctor align inside of you know, apparently he died of smoke inhalation won't get any more details. But this is stuff we have to consider. When we're looking at vehicles. We're looking at electric cars, which by the way, are never zero emissions. That might be zero mission from the car while you're driving it. But there are all kinds of poisonous chemicals that are used in the manufacturing and studies that I've looked at that I agree with looking The science of all show that they are more polluting than anything else almost on the road, even more so than my diesel, Mercedes. So depending on the type of pollution you're worried about, anyhow,

Craig, I'm sitting here looking at a picture of a Ford Pinto, which I had this I had a really reminiscent my father had one and I used to ride in the backseat in the bucket seat, which was great. Yeah, I was sitting right behind the driver with the gas can right underneath me.

Yeah, exactly. It was leaked into the passenger compartment. Eric, Eric. You know, the gases even a rear-end collision and the Pinto would lead guests right into the passenger compartment. You're right. huge problem. You remember GM with the gas tanks in their trucks and the shuttle tanks and I think it was MBC they were showing the You know, of course, you are going to have a big explosion of here an accident. Mind you they rigged that they put explosives on it, but that Pinto was very dangerous. And then Ralph Nader's career started up and can probably remember, with the unsafe at any speed, the Corvair. Exactly a very cool car but not safe.
Tragically, my grandmother died in a Corvair although the absence of a motor in the front of the car didn't have anything to do with it. It will
my Yeah, yeah, well, and then Porsche Volkswagens will were in those back in the day, right, the little bugs, and again, nothing upfront, and then back in the 50s. And earlier, the engine, if you were in a head-on that engine would come into the passenger compartment, which is not a fun thing to think about. You know, we've come a long way. And one of the things that have been done electric cars Bocsh has a device and many of them are starting to use forward hasn't been all of their electric cars. I think Audi is using that now and others. And what happens is if you're in a crash, one of the first things that happen just like the airbags, you know, the airbags go off with the sensor. It has an explosive in the back, that severs the power connections. So at least you're not going to get electrocuted and those first responders are not going to get electrocuted.

But I think this is a major design flaw in Tesla as I said, I thought that sort of thing since I wasn't involved in emergency medicine you should not have a door that you can't grab that handle and yank and pull to get someone out from inside if there's a fire Craig.  

Don't tell me something here is there and is there an argument to be made that at some point, Apple Computer winds up merging with
Tesla?

You know I don't think I've really heard any good arguments for that. But they could. Apple basically killed it, autumn autonomous car project. So they're almost certainly looking for someone to partner with. And they've got their own maps and everything else now. So, Erica, I wouldn't put it beyond the two of them to live a little bit of a merger. But I think that, of course, the CEO of Tesla is a little headstrong. I'm not sure. How about the might take that he is a hot ticket, isn't he?

He is, absolutely!

Our tech guru joins us every Wednesday at 730. Thank you so much. We will talk to you next Wednesday.

Hey, gentlemen, take care. Bye-bye.

Okay. We're gonna take a quick break. When we come back. We're gonna take your calls

 

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