On Monday, May 16, LG Chem announced that it developed a new plastic for battery products. The flame retardant plastic prevents fire from spreading.
According to the Korea-based company, it plans to mass produce the flame retardant plastic in 2023. LG Chem believes the plastic can be applied to various industrial sectors. It seems the plastic was made in response to the demand for battery components, specifically related to electric vehicles.
LG Chem owns the battery subsidiary LG Energy Solution (LGES). In February, LGES told Teslarati that it is working to diversify its cylindrical battery lineup and developing 4680 batteries.
In its recently released 2021 Impact Report, Tesla claimed that its fire incidents were ~11x lower than the average in the United States.
“When the media reports a story about a vehicle fire, it is usually reporting on an EV fire. This is likely a result of chasing clicks, rather than the prevalence of EV-related fires compared to ICE vehicle-related fires. The reality is, when compared to Tesla vehicles, ICE vehicles catch fire at a vastly higher rate. According to the latest available data, in 2020, there were almost 173,000 vehicle fires in the U.S. alone,” stated Tesla in the report.
Earlier this year, Elon Musk predicted that reports covering electric vehicle fire incidents would substantially decline. He believed that automotive companies that heavily advertise, like General Motors and Ford, would contribute to the decline of EV fire incident reports now that they are also producing electric vehicles.
According to the NFPA’s Fire Loss in the U.S. During 2020 report, released in September 2021, vehicle fires accounted for 15% of fires in 2020, 18% of civilian deaths, and 11% of civilian injuries. It reported 209,500 vehicle fires in 2020 out of 1,388,500 fire incidents.
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