Cfalk From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Posted (10 years 6 months 2 weeks 5 days 3 hours ago) and read 1096 times:
I heard on French radio that an LPG car suddenly blew up last night while parked in the garage of a home. The family that lived there are all in the hospital, the father in critical condition. The house was destroyed and several nearby house were damaged.
It kinda calls into question the wisdom of putting large, highly pressurized gas (or hydrogen, in some of the newer concept cars) bottles which have the power to cause such an explosion. It's amazing that nobody was killed. Just imagine a spontanious explosion in traffic. Who needs terrorist car bombs if you have a few more of these things...
Alessandro From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 1, posted (10 years 6 months 2 weeks 5 days 3 hours ago) and read 1070 times:
Well, LNG/LPG are dangerous, same goes for home use. I would prefer batteri powered cars, but still the range is too short and it takes too long to re-charge the batteries...
Victech From United States of America, joined Jun 2000, 546 posts, RR: 2 Reply 3, posted (10 years 6 months 2 weeks 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 1018 times:
LNG/LPG/H2-powered cars are dangerous in case of leak. But so are gasoline powered vehicles (heck, even diesel is flammable in the right circumstances). Remember that gasoline fumes are more explosive than straight hydrogen (sparks can easily ignite gas fumes, but it usually takes a flame to set hydrogen off); not to mention the fact that the tanks that hold compressed gases are usually "beefier" than those used to hold gasoline...
Even batteries aren't the safest things in the world--NiMH batteries have hydrogen gas inside when they're charged, Li-Ion batteries and Li-Poly batteries can explode really easily if the charger's on the blink, and PbAc (lead-acid) batteries usually use sulphuric acid as an electrolyte. In terms of carrying energy around, it's all pretty dangerous...
Cfalk From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 4, posted (10 years 6 months 2 weeks 4 days 21 hours ago) and read 994 times:
Well, when was the last time a gasoline-powered car spontaniously exploded? They don't, except in Hollywood, where they have to help out with a little TNT.
Jwenting From Netherlands, joined Apr 2001, 10213 posts, RR: 21 Reply 5, posted (10 years 6 months 2 weeks 4 days 20 hours ago) and read 975 times:
This too was a freak event Charles. I've never before heard of an LPG powered vehicle spontaneously exploding.
I rather suspect there is more than meets the eye here. Maybe the tank was just overfilled and the pressure regulator didn't work properly leading to severe overpressure when the car was parked in a heated garage (rather than a cold driveway outside).
I am sure the exact cause of this accident will be determined (or at least every possible effort made to determine the cause) in order to make the systems even safer than they are today.
Those tanks are designed to not explode when being hit by a truck in an accident, they're not going to explode when sitting still in a garage for no reason.
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