Last weekend, a fire broke out at the Rivian assembly plant due to a faulty battery pack.
While a battery pack was being tested in an area of the Rivian plant in Normal, Illinois on May 28, it suddenly caught fire and registered, as the firefighters arrived, in a phenomenon of thermal runaway caused by the exceeding of a limit temperature beyond which exothermic parasitic reactions occur and feed all the more the fire.
Once the flames were extinguished, the pack was therefore transported outside the factory where it was necessary to continue to spray it with water to cool it so that the fire did not start again. Overwhelmed, the local firefighters had to call in reinforcements from those, more numerous and better equipped, from Bloomington, a neighboring town. Once the area was secured, nearly four hours after the start of the intervention, it was then necessary to ventilate the premises to evacuate the potentially toxic emissions and allow the personnel to return to work.
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A Rivian spokesperson clarified the incident: “No one was injured and production has resumed. Before assembly, each of our batteries undergoes a series of rigorous tests, this pack had already been declared defective and was completing additional tests when the fire broke out”. Physical damage is limited to the pack itself, its support and the test device.
Although the impact of the fire was very limited, this is the third in less than a year, after a first in October in the automated battery assembly area and a second in February when a completed vehicle caught fire, causing only minor damage and no injuries.
Last weekend, a fire broke out at the Rivian assembly plant due to a faulty battery pack.
While a battery pack was being tested in an area of the Rivian plant in Normal, Illinois on May 28, it suddenly caught fire and registered, as the firefighters arrived, in a phenomenon of thermal runaway caused by the exceeding of a limit temperature beyond which exothermic parasitic reactions occur and feed all the more the fire.
Once the flames were extinguished, the pack was therefore transported outside the factory where it was necessary to continue to spray it with water to cool it so that the fire did not start again. Overwhelmed, the local firefighters had to call in reinforcements from those, more numerous and better equipped, from Bloomington, a neighboring town. Once the area was secured, nearly four hours after the start of the intervention, it was then necessary to ventilate the premises to evacuate the potentially toxic emissions and allow the personnel to return to work.
Read also
In difficulty with its deliveries, Rivian fires its production manager
A Rivian spokesperson clarified the incident: “No one was injured and production has resumed. Before assembly, each of our batteries undergoes a series of rigorous tests, this pack had already been declared defective and was completing additional tests when the fire broke out”. Physical damage is limited to the pack itself, its support and the test device.
Although the impact of the fire was very limited, this is the third in less than a year, after a first in October in the automated battery assembly area and a second in February when a completed vehicle caught fire, causing only minor damage and no injuries.
