If you happen to needed an ideal description of the idea of irony, meet the British firm that makes 6×6 variations of the favored Toyota HiLux, designed to go the place common fireplace vans don’t dare and due to this fact combat the form of fires that ignite and persist when an electrical car catches on fireplace.
Prospeed Motorsport (based mostly in York, UK) has created an all-new firetruck out of Australia’s finest promoting ute, the Toyota HiLux. The corporate is at the moment testing the car in Europe within the hope that it might develop into a suburban fireplace preventing system to deal with trendy fires like these brought on by electrical automobiles.
Appropriately named the HiLoad, the mini-firetruck is surprisingly compact at simply 1850mm tall, which means it might get out and in of procuring centre automotive parks the place EVs could doubtlessly run into points.
Most EV fires begin small then hit what scientist name a “thermal runaway” occasion, whereby the broken lithium-ion battery modules generate a lot warmth in a chemical response that the fireplace turns into extremely intense, in some circumstances taking days to place out. As such, the HiLoad carries particular instruments to stop this from going down.
Whereas it additionally carries a lot of the common gear {that a} full-size firetruck wants, it additionally comes with a ColdCut Cobra fireplace suppression system which the corporate claims makes use of an “extremely excessive strain lance” to blast abrasive materials suspended in water at 4,350psi.
Based on Prospeed, the literal liquid spear can break by even the hardest of battery casings in order that firefighters can get water immediately on prime of the battery modules which are on fireplace in virtually any electrical automotive and put out the fireplace with round 227L of water (60 gallons).
In case you’re hoping to purchase a 6×6 Toyota HiLux in your personal private use, it’s good to know the car has a payload-carrying capability of three tonnes and as long as you may get the car complied, it’s certainly out there in right-hand drive.
