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posted by martyb on Thursday August 11 2016, @02:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the Note-to-self:-do-NOT-overcharge-the-Tesla dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The Formula Student Germany competition includes both combustion and electric classes, small cars built by engineering students around the world. Their press release https://www.formulastudent.de/press-pr/news/news-details/article/incident-at-hotel-in-hockenheim/ says,

Yesterday a battery pack of one of the registered teams for FSG 2016 caught fire in a hotel room in Hockenheim. The incident injured 4 of the team members that were treated in hospital. 3 were released later during the day whereas one of the team members is still in treatment with burn injuries.

The fire substantially damaged the building and a part of the hotel had to be closed. The fire and the incident overall have been handled by the local fire department, ambulance service and police.

A local paper (in German) also has a story with photo of the burned out room, http://www.heidelberg24.de/region/hockenheim-zimmer-hotel-karlsruher-strasse-ausgebrannt-drei-verletzte-6649509.html
Google Translates at https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heidelberg24.de%2Fregion%2Fhockenheim-zimmer-hotel-karlsruher-strasse-ausgebrannt-drei-verletzte-6649509.html&edit-text=

Three hotel guests - members of a Chinese student group, the participants of the event Formula Student [strike]are probably[/strike] at the Hockenheimring - brought with suspected smoke inhalation in a hospital.

The cause of the fire and the amount of damage is not yet known. It remains unclear even if the occupied hotel can be based again on the same day.

Battery packs for these cars are typically in the range of 5kWh, for example see this student paper, http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/83741/864601926-MIT.pdf?sequence=2 (from MIT, not the same team involved in the fire).


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2016, @04:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2016, @04:01PM (#386627)

    My reaction to the story was...

    1) That's tragic. Hopefully there won't be a crackdown on science and engineering. Mistakes happen, especially at a student level.
    2) Wait, it was a Chinese team? Of course it was. Between the hoverboards and everything else, they seem to have a lot of shoddy workmanship and poor quality control. (Yes, they have great stuff too, especially for those willing to pay for it.)

    I'm not sure why, but I seem to give the benefit of the doubt for German students, but I don't give it for Chinese ones. I'm not sure what that says about me, and/or says about China and its reputation.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2016, @06:56PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2016, @06:56PM (#386731)

    Theresa May, is that you? [telegraph.co.uk]