These experimental EV batteries can eject themselves during a fire

Picture the scene: You’re sitting in a parking lot doom scrolling through your favorite algorithmic feed. There’s a nondescript SUV parked across from you. Nothing of note is going on. Then, all of a sudden, the floor of that SUV bursts out sideways, and its entire battery pack skids across the ground and comes to a stop, well away from the SUV.

That scenario describes an ejectable EV battery pack system that Chinese researchers have been working on. Clips of the strategy in testing have made the rounds online, demonstrating a plan built to sense a battery fire as it starts and fling the pack clear of its vehicle in about one second. When this idea first spread across Chinese social media, as Yicai reported, it was presented under the banner of a body that calls itself the “China Collision Repair Technology Center.”

This feature is still very much in its infancy, with the team behind the test having admitted as much. I mean, it’s all well and good firing a smoldering battery away from one vehicle, but what if it lands near another? Still, automakers are keen to find a solution to combusting batteries. Stellantis’ US arm recently published a patent application for a quick-release system that drops a burning pack, and Hyundai and Kia have jointly held a patent on a similar idea since 2024.

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The ejection prototype reportedly uses a gas generator much like the one that inflates an airbag. When the battery management system detects that a fire is about to start, the generator pushes the pack out sideways. It then comes to rest around 10 to 20 feet from the vehicle.

A staff member on the project told the Chinese outlet iFeng that the hardware grew out of research into side-loading battery swaps, a relative of the Chinese-style EV battery swap stations that are coming to Europe. According to that staffer, the system is supposed to stay locked in dense urban areas and anywhere pedestrians and different sorts of traffic mix, but 36Kr reported that the software to make those distinctions hasn’t been developed yet.

The buzz-worthy video credited the system jointly to the China Collision Repair Technology Center and Joyson Electronics, a Shanghai-listed car parts supplier. Interestingly, Joyson told Yicai that it has no cooperation or joint development agreement of any kind with the center. iCar, the Chery brand whose 03 SUV the test car resembles, also said on Chinese social media it had nothing to do with the demo. Yicai also found no business registration for the center, and a source told the outlet that it belongs to Maite Group, a car repair and aftermarket company that didn’t answer its calls.

A lithium-ion cell in thermal runaway generates heat several times faster than it can lose it. According to the UL Research Institutes, that runaway state is when the temperature climbs by more than 20 degrees Celsius a minute toward peaks of above 300 degrees Celsius, with gas, smoke or flames venting from the cell. The US National Transportation Safety Board studied four Tesla fires for a report back in 2020, including the case in which a Model S battery caught fire twice after a Florida crash. The safety board reported batteries reigniting multiple times after firefighters initially put them out, and one fire reportedly took more than 20,000 gallons of water to extinguish.

When UL’s Fire Safety Research Institute burned 18 EVs for a study published in August 2026, it found that none of its suppression techniques could stop thermal runaway once it started. Moving a dangerous battery pack away from people in the vehicle is therefore one of the few credible ideas that don’t depend on extinguishing the fire.

Stellantis’ US arm currently has a patent application for a release system triggered by a switch in the cabin or trunk. When triggered, sliding frames or explosive bolts drop the malfunctioning pack to the ground and a 12-volt battery powers a motor to roll the car clear. In contrast, Hyundai and Kia’s 2024 patent does use a temperature sensor, but the car has to be stopped, and the driver has to pull a lever before the pack falls under its own weight.

Others are addressing this battery conundrum from different angles. China implemented a mandatory standard in July 2026 requiring that a pack doesn’t catch fire or explode when a cell goes into thermal runaway. French automotive company Renault offered the entire industry free licenses on a port that lets a fire hose flood its battery packs with water, allowing emergency crews to reportedly extinguish an electric vehicle fire in about the same amount of time as a combustion vehicle.