If you are as old as I am, you will recall that batteries have always had problems – a small percentage “deteriorate” and overheat. Although this applies to any batteries, I am thinking mostly of the kind that are found in laptops, media players, phones and the like – not the old cylinder ones used in torches.
In the past, batteries did not contain as much power as they do now – it is something that is gradually increasing over time, and of course we want more power in our batteries so that our gadgets run for longer. Or do we ?
In the past battery problems would do things like melt the case of a mobile phone, but now we hear of laptops bursting into flames, and media players exploding. Seems that the effects of a problem are getting worse at the same time that batteries are holding more power.
Of course this makes sense – the more powerful the battery, the more powerful the effect when it “lets go”. So what happens when batteries become yet more powerful ? What happens when such a battery fault occurs in a large electric vehicle ?