I didn't think we'd ever see this particularly dangerous lithium battery variant in a production car, but it turns out the Hyundai Ioniq has them:
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2017/02/hyundai-ioniq-first-drive/
AFAIK, RC toy manufacturers still recommend putting these batteries in a bucket of sand when charging. I for one hope none of them go up in flames for no good reason, because it's a great battery type performance-wise. The pack on this car, which can carry it for 124 miles, is about the same size as a typical ICE gas tank:
Edit: Compare to the Nissan Leaf's conventional Li-ion pack, which carries it 107 miles at most:
Ever see a Li-po fire? Its like Wu-Tang Clan.
Appleseed wrote:
Ever see a Li-po fire? Its like Wu-Tang Clan.
I have, but on the other hand I own a number of Li-Po powered RC toys and gadgets and none have lit up yet...
We had a one in the early days, without a case, puff on us. Damaged cell. So we poked it with a stick. Blowtorch.
This is an evolution of the Kia Soul EV battery pack that started being sold in late 2014. There are thousands of these cars on the road and no reports of fires... yet? 
The Soul EV has polymer pouch type cells, lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) cathode, a “special” ceramic separator with improved thermal resistance properties (presumably a wet separator by SK Innovation), high-capacity silicon/graphite (Si-C) anode and gel electrolyte additive materials. Each 40Ah battery cell has energy density of 200 Wh/kg
http://www.mykiasoulev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=565
The Hyundai/Kia hybrids have always used Li-Po batteries. They've been in production since 2012. We've never had a fire.......yet. The new plug in variant has two of them.
Side note I think is funny, The manufacturer calls fires "thermal events"...always makes me chuckle.
Turns out that both the Soul EV and Ioniq have air-cooled battery packs, so the packs probably wouldn't fare well as-is if you were to increase the power draw on them by more than 3x as I have in mind...but the cells could be reused in a liquid-cooled pack.
The blowers are very small, think undersized HVAC blower. They also use logic programmed into the Control Unit to monitor temps and change available power accordingly. I'm not sure about the full EV batteries but each Hybrid battery has 72 cells that are grouped in 6 blocks. Not sure what your plans are but I know each block is removable. I also know that these particular Li-Po cells do not like much voltage variation between cells. That's why you can't get each cell individually from the manufacturer.
The new Niro hybrid has a few more cells and operates about 40 volts higher than the "old" setup. It also has the vehicle's 12v battery built in with another 12v Li-Po battery. Its about the size of a lawn mower battery.
Interesting...I wonder what level of discharge these could handle if that little HVAC blower were swapped for a big brushless ducted fan.
I'm thinking these could be a good junkyard source for DIY performance EV batteries in the future.
I dont know about the discharge rate but the engineers tell us that discharged anything below 10% capacity and the battery can't be recharged.
If the red tape doesn't get in the way these battery packs could be used for a lot of things especially making future hotrod EV's.
In reply to GameboyRMH:
The illustration you show is for the 8.9 kWh plug in Hybrid battery, not the full 27kwh Battery for the EV version. I'd be interested to see the size of the actual EV battery.
The battery pack occupies a recess under most of the passenger compartment.
Airflow cooling diagram:
Will wrote:
Appleseed wrote:
Ever see a Li-po fire? Its like Wu-Tang Clan.
It's for the children?
Ain't nothing to Berkeley with.
