"... ah, it burns, it burns!". Local firefighters posted about it, and even AutoBlog did a piece about it.
So, big takeaways here: one, people vastly overestimate how much their vehicle can tow. I have seen people in Tacomas and Colorados try to haul 8-10k+ pounds, and ruin their vehicle doing it. Yes, it says you can tow that much in the manual... but that's on flat, dry ground on a cold day.
Two, Tesla apparently has a "BAIL OUT" alert for when their vehicles begin to slide down hills or towards bodies of water (listen to the YouTube video, apparently the driver told people that the car was warning her to exit the vehicle the entire time it was rolling into the lake).
Lastly, these lithium fires cannot be good for the environment. Even more so when it's happening in bodies of water that people swim in, drink out of, and fish in.
If you've seen how they refine lithium, it's absolutely not good for the environment. It's a metallic/salt. Nothing will ever grow on or after a lithium evaporation site. Maybe some exotic fungus or something, doubtful.
It looks pretty though, just super deadly/toxic.
Are you talking about the salt evaporation ponds used in mining? The same pond is used over and over so it's not really a big deal. There are potash and bicarbonate mines all over that do the same thing, also brine disposal from desalination plants.
Compare to the results of mining tar sands where you need to continually fuck over new areas.
Yeah. I'm talking about the big lithium flats. It leeches into aquifer. Yes, it is better than setting up new sites everywhere.