A Chinese prototype throws a battery pack clear of the car in under a second.
Picture the scene: You're sitting in a parking lot doom scrolling through your favorite algorithmic feed. There's a nondescript SUV parked across from you. Nothing of note is going on. Then, all of a sudden, the floor of that SUV bursts out sideways, and its entire battery pack skids across the ground and comes to a stop, well away from the SUV.
That scenario describes an ejectable EV battery pack system that Chinese researchers have been working on. Clips of the strategy in testing have made the rounds online, demonstrating a plan built to sense a battery fire as it starts and fling the pack clear of its vehicle in about one second. When this idea first spread across Chinese social media, as Yicai reported, it was presented under the banner of a body that calls itself the "China Collision Repair Technology Center."
This feature is still very much in its infancy, with the team behind the test having admitted as much. I mean, it's all well and good firing a smoldering battery away from one vehicle, but what if it lands near another? Still, automakers are keen to find a solution to combusting batteries. Stellantis' US arm recently published a patent application for a quick-release system that drops a burning pack, and Hyundai and Kia have jointly held a patent on a similar idea since 2024.
The ejection prototype reportedly uses a gas generator much like the one that inflates an airbag.
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