What’s happening with electric truck fires

Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) has expressed concerns about the rising rate of Lithium-Ion battery fires as crews responded to an incident at a truck EV conversion facility north of Sydney recently.

Nine fire trucks attended the Janus Electric facility in Berkeley, on NSW Central Coast, just after 5:00pm on March 14 when an electric vehicle charging station was ablaze.

Crews established a defensive perimeter around the business, fearing multiple lithium-ion truck batteries were at risk of catching fire. The blaze was extinguished without further incident.

This was the third documented incident involving Janus batteries since the Australian battery-swap start-up's official launch in April 2022.

In the first incident, one of the company's trucks caught fire in the same Janus depot on July 14, 2022.

The fire was brought under control by the local fire brigade and Janus CEO, Lex Forsyth said that from initial investigations it was suspected that the fire was caused by “an engineering challenge” which he says has been since engineered out of the company’s latest prototypes.

“It is fortunate that the impact of the fire has caused minimal disruption in hitting our milestones as the Kenworth T403 was the first in kind never to be repeated prototype,” he said at the time.

The Janus Kenworth T403 was the first truck to be fitted with the original Janus interchangeable battery system used the original front-loading battery design more than two years ago.

The next incident was the very public destruction of a converted Kenworth prime mover on loan to Cement Australia. The fire occurred inbound on the West Gate Freeway near the Bolte Bridge in Melbourne on November 30 last year.

The fire was so intense that it partially melted the road and firefighters basically had to let the fire burn itself out before they could attempt a cleanup.

The fire closed part of the West Gate freeway and bridge for around seven hours and totally destroyed the prime mover.

Janus Electric CEO Lex Forsyth was contacted by trucksales and said that the fire in March was part of testing for a new design

“This was part of prototype testing and there was no damage to the site and no persons were injured,” said Forsyth.

“The testing unfortunately resulted in a failure,” he said.

Forsyth went on to say that in all forms of testing and development there were some risks and that contrary to the report from the FRNSW there were no other batteries in the area that were threatened.

To date, there have been no fires or dangerous issues with any OEM trucks in Australia.

OEMs have been reticent to comment publicly on the issue of the converted truck fires.

Speaking as background to trucksales, one OEM engineering source opined there are reasons why established brands have had fewer problems.

"A modified diesel truck really falls through the cracks when it comes to current regulations, which is concerning," he said.

"Unlike OEM production electric trucks, it [a converted truck] doesn’t need to meet the ECE R100 standards. All the OEMs carry out a huge amount of tests in the lab and on the road after investing vast amounts in research and development to ensure these trucks operate safely.”

EV FireSafe is an Australian company funded by the Department of Defence to research electric vehicle high-voltage battery fires and emergency response.

We approached them for comment and found some interesting statistics regarding fires in electric trucks.

According to EV FireSafe, of 10 “documented fires” in electric trucks around the world since 2022, only one was an OEM electric truck – a Volvo that was hit by a freight train in the USA.

Of those 10 incidents three were Janus Electric: July 14, 2022, Converted Kenworth, Berkeley Vale, NSW; November 28, 2023, Converted Kenworth, Port Melbourne, Victoria; March, 14 2024, Battery pack for an electric truck, Apprentice Drive, Berkeley Vale, NSW.

Three were Nikola trucks: June 23, 2023, TRE BEV Truck, Arizona, USA; September 4, 2023, TRE BEV, Arizona, USA; September 8, 2023, TRE BEV, Arizona, USA.

Then on February 10, 2023, there was a fire in a Terminal Tractor, Kalmar Electric, California, USA; August 2023, the Volvo Truck incident in California, USA; February 14, 2024, Phoenix Danmark electric garbage truck, Rodovre, Denmark and on March 2024, an unknown brand of Yard Truck in Kansas, USA.

EV FireSafe said that electric truck battery fires are rare, and based on its research, typically occur in prototype vehicles or following a major collision.

A spokesperson for Volvo Group Australia said that the incidence of fires in electric trucks was disappointing for the industry as a whole as it tries to transition to zero-emission transport.

“Clearly not all electromobility solutions are created equal,” he said.

“It is extremely disappointing to see events such as this paint zero emissions transport in such a negative light.

“I can only emphasise the need for the federal government to enforce ECE R100 regulations here in Australia to restore confidence from both industry and the wider community that OEM BEV solutions are safe and reliable.”