Flooded Roads and Electric Cars

[Johncc]

Rain is of biblical proportions down south these last few days and it's like fording a small river on some roads.

Am I right in thinking electric cars have no problem with flooded roads unlike ICE which stall when the water is too deep?

 

[Roldorf]

Water? Batteries? What do you think?

 

[Johncc]

I think the batteries must be protected or no one would drive an electric car when there is a cloud in the sky

 

[Alb]

All of the important connectors will be watertight in principle but you can never be 100% certain. Flooded roads are just best avoided.

 

[Roldorf]

One of the biggest factors in the failure of electric car batteries is water ingress into the battery, even without driving it through flooded roads. It degrades the battery terminals on the individual cells and also the BMS. Watch this youtube video:

 

[TheArcher]

ICE cars take a risk if the water is high enough to go into their exhaust pipe. While the EV battery may be well waterproofed to a required standard (IP68 is submersible, for example) there's no guarantee it's 100%. Other bits and bobs will be open to water ingress too, like door shuts.

 

[Hairyfool]

The problem with deep water wading is a) waterproofing, b) flotation and c) terrain

c) You cannot really see what is under the water. One of the local roads was always prone to flooding and one local yokel came a cropper. Of course he knew the road, no problem. What he didn't know was the flood had lifted a manhole.

b) when you take a vehicle into deep water it in the short term is liable to float and when it floats it has no traction. Some years ago a driver drowned crossing a flooded ford. The ford wasn't the problem, the running water washed the car off the ford into deep water because the wheels had no traction.

a) when you prepare a Defender for deep wading you have to go over it with a fine toothcomb making sure everything electrical is watertight. Also engines, gearboxes and diffs have breathers which have to be protected. The original Defender leaked like a sieve so b) wouldn't be a problem but the new one might be completely different.

A BEV wading

 

[BugEyed]

Water? Batteries? What do you think?

All ICE have a battery so presumably they all stop when the roads get wet?

The HV battery pack is sealed on the MG4 so that's not an issue. But there are breathers elsewhere (such as the gearbox) that need to be kept out of the water.

 

[Hairyfool]

Quite a few vehicles have in their technical specs the wading limit which as a rough guide tends to be when the bead seat of the tyre is under water. My Freelander had two depths, the figures I can't remember but one was a low speed depth at around the centre of the wheel. You could go slightly deeper if you established a bow wave on the front as it reduced the water depth in the engine bay.

 

[Alb]

Have a look at this thread:

Flooded ford, where do we stand?

Just had this pop up on my feed (Flooded ford) which got me thinking where do we stand with driving through a ford? Well the manual shows the traction motor has an IP67 rating which is basically waterproof! No need to fear them then but wouldn’t race through. I cannot speak for the other...

www.mgevs.com

Along with hydrolocked engines, one of the regular failures filmed in the YouTube series was destruction of the Undertray. MG4 owners take note!

 

[tsedge]

If you’ve seen any videos from Rufford Ford, you’ll know that driving through a ford quickly frequently destroys plastic parts including bumpers, number plates, under trays etc… due to the impact of water at high speed.

Best avoided.