All-electric Google bus causes multi-car pileup after losing power
An all-electric employee shuttle bus operated by Google caused a multi-car wreck in San Francisco’s Castro District Monday, injuring at least one person and causing heavy damage to several vehicles.
According to bystanders who first reported the crash on social media, the bus — which had the words “100% Battery Electric” on its side — was driving up Castro Street when it lost power. It reportedly slammed into nine vehicles as it rolled downward.
A person who was in one of the vehicles was hospitalized with injuries.
"The safety and wellbeing of everyone involved is our highest priority while we work with local authorities to understand what happened," Google told KTVU.
Google is not the only company experiencing power difficulties with EVs.
Ford CEO Jim Farley in August said he faced a “reality check” when he took Ford’s new electric F-150 Lightning on a road trip across several western states.
“Charging has been pretty challenging,” Farley said, explaining that at one stop it took 40 minutes to charge the truck’s battery to just 40 percent. “It was a really good reality check — the challenges of what our customers go through.”
EVs have also been known to experience power issues during extreme weather. Winter’s cold can affect an electric vehicle’s driving range between 20%–41%, reports Axios. According to University of Michigan Energy Institute Director Anna Stefanopoulou, EVs “prefer the same sort of temperature range that people do. Anything below 40 or above 115 degrees Fahrenheit and they’re not going to deliver their peak performance.”
The Wall Street Journal also notes that EVs are severely hampered by extreme weather.
“When temperatures drop to 5 degrees Fahrenheit, the cars achieve only 54% of their quoted range,” writes the WSJ. “A vehicle that’s supposed to be able to go 250 miles between charges will make it only 135 miles on average. At 32 degrees — a typical winter day in much of the country — a Tesla Model 3 that in ideal conditions can go 282 miles between charges will make it only 173 miles.”
And while undercharging an EV can lead to predictable power loss, as may have been the case for Google, overcharging can cause the car to explode.
Insurance corporations have been trying to analyze increasing reports of EVs spontaneously combusting, with some insurers hiking premiums on EVs or refusing to underwrite them altogether.
Reports of exploding EV batteries following collisions are also growing, leading authorities to recommend extra safety measures for EVs. UK government guidelines, for example, require repair shops to “quarantine” EVs that sustain even minor battery damage by separating them from other cars by at least 15 meters. Government officials have proposed requiring wider car spaces for EVs in parking lots due to their risk of combustion, as well as installing thermal monitoring cameras to detect when an EV goes into “thermal runaway.”
