05.2 EV ABC™ training
Do you work with damaged electric vehicles?
The EVABC™ identifies and reduces your risks
Did you know an electric vehicle battery can catch fire twice or multiple times while, typically while the vehicle is being towed or stored in salvage?
For EVs that have already gone into thermal runaway due to damage such as a road crash, our research indicates a 5% chance of a secondary ignition. For EVs suffering damage from bushfire or flooding natural disasters, there is a risk of delayed ignition, where the battery may catch fire days, weeks or even months after the initial incident.
Damaged EVs pose a risk to road, tow, salvage and wrecking operators, police crash and forensics personnel and fire investigators of off-gassing, ignition or vapour cloud explosion during handling, transport and storage.
To support everyone to manage their risk, we've developed the Electric Vehicle Assessment of Battery Condition (EVABC) which is a visual and thermal check to 'triage' a damaged EV and take appropriate safety steps.
What is the EV ABC?
EV FireSafe's EV ABC is a simple 'traffic light' system which was developed using:
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EV FireSafe's Department of Defence-funded research & global EV battery fire incident database
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An EV risk hierarchy, developed by our team
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Real world incidents our team have attended
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Case studies of real world incidents
The Green, Amber, Red EV ABC system is simple to follow and can be rolled into paper-based or digital platforms to track and monitor heavily damaged electric vehicles.
The EV ABC supports trained users to then develop internal safe working systems for quarantine, handling and responsible disposal of EV battery packs to reduce fire spread risk should a secondary or delayed ignition occur.
Who should use EV ABC?
Anyone working around damaged electric vehicles needs to be aware of the hazards of battery fire, high voltage, chemical exposure and silent, uncontrolled movement.
The EV ABC is essential knowledge for all responders including tow drivers, repairers, salvage & wreckers, fire investigation, forensics and impounding.
The EV ABC training course will be available through our dedicated training platform at www.evfiresafe.training