Fires from Exploding E-Bike Batteries Nearly Doubled This Year in New York City (npr.org) 107
"Four times a week on average, an e-bike or e-scooter battery catches fire in New York City," reports NPR:
Sometimes, it does so on the street, but more often, it happens when the owner is recharging the lithium ion battery. A mismatched charger won't always turn off automatically when the battery's fully charged, and keeps heating up. Or, the highly flammable electrolyte inside the battery's cells leaks out of its casing and ignites, setting off a chain reaction.
"These bikes when they fail, they fail like a blowtorch," said Dan Flynn, the chief fire marshal at the New York Fire Department. "We've seen incidents where people have described them as explosive — incidents where they actually have so much power, they're actually blowing walls down in between rooms and apartments."
And these fires are getting more frequent.
As of Friday, the FDNY investigated 174 battery fires, putting 2022 on track to double the number of fires that occurred last year (104) and quadruple the number from 2020 (44). So far this year, six people have died in e-bike-related fires and 93 people were injured, up from four deaths and 79 injuries last year.
"These bikes when they fail, they fail like a blowtorch," said Dan Flynn, the chief fire marshal at the New York Fire Department. "We've seen incidents where people have described them as explosive — incidents where they actually have so much power, they're actually blowing walls down in between rooms and apartments."
And these fires are getting more frequent.
As of Friday, the FDNY investigated 174 battery fires, putting 2022 on track to double the number of fires that occurred last year (104) and quadruple the number from 2020 (44). So far this year, six people have died in e-bike-related fires and 93 people were injured, up from four deaths and 79 injuries last year.
Bike Messengers (Score:5, Informative)
Summary does not mention it but the article does - a lot of the fires are do to with owners who use bikes for deliveries cutting corners - using a charger not meant for the scooter or bike they have, or even getting super cheap batteries then not breaking off charging in time.
Another article I read some time ago said that some delivery people are even running custom electric motors on bikes that they assemble from kits, with all of the bits about cheap batteries and cheaper chargers with bad or no auto-shut-off in play.
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Re:Bike Messengers (Score:5, Insightful)
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No.. a lack of proper regulation and enforcement required for a large crowded urban center.
You can do what you want in West Texas... no one else is going to get hurt. But large densely populated areas need more regulation and enforcement.
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Good News Everyone! (Score:5, Funny)
Manufacturers of unsafe batteries need to be shut down and locked up at once.
Well the good news is they are in China, so chances are that in fact the cheap battery makers live in one of the many cities China has locked down due to the Zero Covid policy, thus in fact your wish has come true!
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How do you know they are in China? Did you ask Trump?
The cheapest batteries are the ones you make yourself, that is if you can afford a ticket to China, right?
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Well, most people aren't capable of building cells themselves.
That said, they may very well buy a bunch of loose cells and assemble them into a battery themselves (a battery = one or more cells) and they may do that themselves, but even so ... the lowest cost cells do often come from China.
Of course, if somebody builds their own battery, they may damage the cells by soldering directly to them, they may omit the protective circuitry entirely or not set it up properly or use the wrong stuff or something.
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Well thats the problem see. Lithium batteries are *inherently* unsafe to some extent. Its the entire nature of how they work. You get some air in contact with that chemistry and boom.
And we accept at least SOME of that risk , because the. benefits of lithium batteries on the whole outweigh them.
Re:Bike Messengers (Score:5, Informative)
1) These are lithium-ion batteries, not lithium batteries (which are commonly found as "button cells" and are non-rechargeable)
2) No, lithium-ion batteries are NOT "inherently unsafe". It's actually a diverse family of chemistries with very different properties. The manufacturer can choose the balance between cost, passive stability, energy density, power density, and other factors.
3) "Air in contact with that chemistry" has nothing to do with it. Fires are comprised of burning electrolyte (so first off, it depends on the electrolyte choice) fueled first by heating from a short-circuit, and then potentially from cathode outgasing of hot oxygen. But this depends entirely on the cathode chemistry - e.g. high nickel / low cobalt = outgases oxygen at proportionally low temperature, vs. say LFP which basically doesn't under realistic conditions.
4) Beyond issues of passive safety, there can also active safety (standard in EVs, not so much on e-bikes). This includes among other things cell cooling, cell containment, flame retardants, controlled pressure releases, controlled venting of smoke and fire in case all else fails, physical barriers, etc etc to limit / prevent ignition or propagation.
Nothing in a battery is as flammable of gasoline, and people ride around on a whole tank of the stuff in their cars with no fire suppression systems at all.
And for the record: the New York City Fire Department gets over 600k calls per year [wikipedia.org], so this is a pittance.
Re:Bike Messengers (Score:5, Interesting)
Just stop this junk battery market now. It's like importing ticking time bombs.
Re:Bike Messengers (Score:5, Insightful)
Requiring a UL listing isn't going to solve the problem where a lot of the unsafe batteries sold are cheap knockoffs of name brands that *are* designed/tested properly. I'm pretty picky about 16850s, and generally buy only Panasonics from a Panasonic-approved vendor even though they're more expensive. Vendors like Amazon need to have their feet held to the fire for this kind of thing. The average consumer isn't going to be able to discern a legitimate name-brand battery from a cheap Chinese counterfeit.
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Re:Bike Messengers (Score:4, Interesting)
This reminds me of the horse meat scandal. If you don't know, horse meat was being sold as beef in Europe. When it cam to light some journalists tracked down the factory producing the meat, thinking they had found the culprits. When asked about it the manager say "we are a horse meat factory, we produce horse meat."
Turns out it was actually the middle men who were mislabelling it. Very likely the same thing is happening here.
The batteries are probably fine. China has the best lithium-ion tech in the world, and undercuts everyone else on price too. They are that far ahead. It's just that if you don't charge lithium-ion batteries properly, according to the manufacturer's spec, they can go catastrophically wrong. It's also possible to buy unprotected cells, if you intend to provide your own BMS. Of course the knock offs often have the wrong BMS, or no BMS.
Even Chinese brands can't stop the knock offs. Xiaomi stuff gets cloned and openly sold on eBay and AliExpress. You'd think being in the same legal jurisdiction they could do something about it.
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UL only works if Amazon isn't selling Happy Millennium Sun Co, Ltd batteries cheaper along side the genuine ones while taking pains to obscure the fact so people keep associating Amazon with "cheap".
Just stop this junk battery market now.
I agree, there need to be better rules to prevent the fly-by-night companies selling them with protection from amazon who profit heartily from the counterfeit trade, while maintaining the air of distance. At least with fleabay it's a more obvious caveat emptor since they d
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The hair dryer should blow it's thermal fuse. As for the battery, it should stop accepting voltage once it is fully charged or hot. Does that require some in-the-battery circuitry? Yes, but that would be part of the safety design requirement, 1st rule: don't trust the power source.
Whether protection circuits are installed at the pack or cell level most of them are FET based and FETs have a tendency to fail closed.
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There are 18650 cells with button 'caps' on the top that do exactly that... But they're mostly just in single cell devices like phone chargers. Most lipo flat packs SEEM to have them but I'm not sure how many actually do that great at preventing them from becoming 'spicy pillows'
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2) No, lithium-ion batteries are NOT "inherently unsafe". It's actually a diverse family of chemistries with very different properties. The manufacturer can choose the balance between cost, passive stability, energy density, power density, and other factors.
The battery chemistries being used in these bikes is indeed "inherently unsafe".
4) Beyond issues of passive safety, there can also active safety (standard in EVs, not so much on e-bikes). This includes among other things cell cooling, cell containment, flame retardants, controlled pressure releases, controlled venting of smoke and fire in case all else fails, physical barriers, etc etc to limit / prevent ignition or propagation.
Nothing in a battery is as flammable of gasoline, and people ride around on a whole tank of the stuff in their cars with no fire suppression systems at all.
I just don't understand the whataboutism / at least x is not y arguments. I would think safety should be judged on the merits and availability of viable alternatives.
There is simply no good reason to continue to tolerate inherently unsafe chemistries. This business of being exceptionally careful in production, use and charge management in order to avert explosive disaster is inherently stupid, unsound and unnecessary. There a
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You get some air in contact with that chemistry and boom
This isn't even close to correct.
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Custom electric motors don't contribute to safety issues for batteries and there is nothing inherently unsafe about assembling from kits.
What are "all of the bits about cheap batteries and cheaper chargers"? Making up your usual shit, SuperKendall?
LiIon battery chargers typically do not have "auto-shut-off". These chargers are relatively easy to make, in fact some hobbyists don't even use chargers but instead use simple power supplies. Significant over voltage is a concern, though.
It's not clear from read
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Custom electric motors don't contribute to safety issues for batteries
Thanks for the contribution but what you said is unrelated to what I typed, you may want to check where I mentioned chargers and batteries and not motors - just kits with cheap batteries and chargers.
I'm sure you'll do better a job reading next time! Just keep practicing and you can get it! I believe in you!
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"you may want to check where I mentioned chargers and batteries and not motors - just kits with cheap batteries and chargers."
How about this part:
"Another article I read some time ago said that some delivery people are even running custom electric motors on bikes that they assemble from kits..."
CUSTOM ELECTRIC MOTORS.
"I'm sure you'll do better a job reading next time! Just keep practicing and you can get it! I believe in you!"
Perhaps you should read what you write for the first time ever.
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How about you finish the quote?
"assemble from kits, with all of the bits about cheap batteries and cheaper chargers with bad or no auto-shut-off in play."
This puts the context clearly back on the batteries and chargers.
After all, a "custom electric motor" is going to be around the safest thing around if you don't hook up a way to power the dang thing. For an ebike, that generally translates to "batteries". And to keep the batteries charged, you need a charger.
The whole set often comes as a kit that you ca
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"How about you finish the quote?"
Because he claimed to not talk about motors!!!! I only needed to quote to prove that he did. Duh.
Also, go back and read my post, I commented on the rest of the quote already.
"This puts the context clearly back on the batteries and chargers."
Yes, AFTER DEMONIZING MOTORS.
"After all, a "custom electric motor" is going to be around the safest thing around if you don't hook up a way to power the dang thing. For an ebike, that generally translates to "batteries". And to keep the
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You still need to check your reading comprehension. He mentioned custom motor kits - and specified the batteries, chargers, and lack of automatic cutoffs for safety.
He never "demonized" the motors. He said that he read about delivery people running them. He then, again, targeted the batteries and such in said kits, not the motors.
Okay, first part of the statement:
"Another article I read some time ago said that some delivery people are even running custom electric motors on bikes that they assemble from k
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Custom electric motors don't contribute to safety issues for batteries
They do if they pull more current than the battery can safely provide.
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This is being pedantic. Of course a motor is going to accept all the current that's available, but when we're talking about "a motor", we're generally also talking about its control mechanism too. Open that rheostat up all the way, and now your battery has no current limiting.
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need to crack down on gig work some real 1099's (Score:2)
need to crack down on gig work some real 1099's may get put out of work / forced to go W2 But the abuse / blame shifting / tax issues needs to be fixed.
Or the gig works need to have more control over there rates even if that means an bid meter on your order fee
Re: Bike Messengers (Score:2)
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Just to defend kits, there's nothing inherently wrong with "kit" e-bikes, nor are they necessarily cheap. There's kits you can get that are safe and reliable. Buy a cheap kit off Amazon drop-shipped from China, on the other hand, and you might end up with a fire.
T
Explosive eh? (Score:4, Informative)
You mean like what happens when fuel and oxidizer mix in stoichiometric ratios and exchage electrons?
Kinda pretty much describes what happens in a battery cell, doesn't it?
As for enough force to blow out a wall? Yeah. All the energy that comes out of the drive wheels on those things is stored in the battery, ain't it? When it's all released at once, how's that different from taken an equivalent amount of gasoline, aerosolizing it, and lighting a spark?
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So you think that if the battery is discharged there isn't any energy to "blow out a wall"? Funny how a lead-acid battery, no matter how large or how fully charged, doesn't do that. Neither does a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery.
You have a serious misunderstanding of what happens when these batteries fail. Ever drop Lithium metal in water in middle school/high school? That's far more informative than "all the energy that comes out of the drive wheels" is.
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Discharged lithium batteries are much safer, yes. https://youtu.be/ZcO5BkGSxE4 [youtu.be]
Lead acid batteries can release hydrogen when charging.
Re: Explosive eh? (Score:2)
All energy storage and transmission equipment requires respect. Pressure vessels, fuel tanks, loads slung from hoists and cranes, spinning or moving machinery, fast cars, all of it.
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Perhaps, but that doesn't mean that LiIon batteries are explosive because of their state of charge. You were blatantly wrong and are now changing the subject.
Re: Explosive eh? (Score:2)
Let me put it to you this way: I wouldn't take a torch to a battery regardless of its state of charge. But I'm more worried about a charged battery than a discharged one if said battery gets banged and knocked around in its normal use case.
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"Discharged lithium batteries are much safer, yes. "
BUT CAN STILL EXPLODE.
"Lead acid batteries can release hydrogen when charging."
BUT DO NOT EXPLODE BECAUSE THEY ARE CHARGED.
It is amazing how people will argue for arguing's sake without even understanding what was said.
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Lead acid batteries certainly can explode. It takes more abuse than Li-ion, but it's not unknown. A place I worked at long ago had an issue with lead acid batteries used for battery backup of some safety systems. They needed a lot of batteries because the system was so big, and packed them in a bit too tight, and then a short basically blew up the whole utility cabinet. Door came flying off the hinges.
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Except that metallic lithium isn't present [sciencedirect.com] in modern LiIon batteries. For much this reason.
Remember, if you drop metallic sodium into water it also catches fire, but sodium chloride(table salt) will merely dissolve into solution.
Danger is also a factor of energy density. [sinovoltaics.com] At roughly 1/3rd the energy by weight and 1/2 by volume, lead-acid batteries are definitely less energetic than LiIon. But then, 1/3rd the energy by weight would give you much shorter ranged cars, make a hybrid bicycle too heavy to be us
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"Danger is also a factor of energy density. [sinovoltaics.com] At roughly 1/3rd the energy by weight and 1/2 by volume, lead-acid batteries are definitely less energetic than LiIon. But then, 1/3rd the energy by weight would give you much shorter ranged cars, make a hybrid bicycle too heavy to be useful for most, etc..."
Solid state LiIon is just as "energetic" yet much safer. Your observation is not inherent, but merely the case as of the moment.
LiFePO4? (Score:3)
Different Chemistry (Score:1)
Is this happening with LiFePO4 batteries?
Pretty sure the super cheap batteries these guys are running are DeAthPOS.
The article mentioned the fires so totally consume the batteries that the police and fire fighters that handle these fires can't opine on brand or kind of batteries that might be safer than others.
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You have utterly no idea what you are talking about, as usual.
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I thought it was something you can smoke, I mean the battery's name sounds like Life Puffer.
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LiFePO4 is not used so much any more because they can't hold as much power. They are one of the safest chemistries but can still heat up and cause problems if abused. Originally e-bikes often used these but now people want more range and more power. These can be discharged deeply and recovered.
Nowadays almost everything is "Lithium Ion" style which is a generic term for multiple different but similar chemistries. It's what they use in laptops, EV's, etc. As far as safety these are "middle ground" safe and d
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Is what happening? No one here knows with any certainty if anything is actually happening. You're asking a question that can't be answered by anyone here.
LiFePO4 is safer than LiIon. It is unlikely that e-bikes or scooters with LiFePO4 batteries are having explosion issues. It could certainly be the case that someone would claim there are.
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A question for anybody who knows: Is this happening with LiFePO4 batteries? I've heard that they're relatively fireproof compared to other lithium battery chemistries, and that's why you'd want to use them for stuff like this where you'd expect the battery to take some abuse.
They can leak and the electrolyte can burn like everything else if it gets hot enough. The key difference is they can't turn into a fucking bomb / flame thrower like the lithium ion batteries.
LFP, LTO and solid state lithium are all safe technologies.. Lithium ion is inherently unsafe and hopefully will stop being used entirely as LFP breaks into the EV market and solid state takes over in the medium term.
Do not charge indoors. (Score:3)
Literally every ebike, escooters, ewheelything I've ever read the manual for has a section that you should NOT charge these indoors and only with the provided charger.
People are being stupid.
I'd be curious to see how many more of these things are on the street in comparison to the increase of these fires.
Re:Do not charge indoors. (Score:5, Insightful)
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It doesn't because it's fine to charge indoors. The OP is making a totally unsupported claim.
Re:Do not charge indoors. (Score:5, Insightful)
The manual probably states that, don't know, I don't own an electric bike. But "do not charge indoors" at least is an unreasonable requirement for anybody living in a New York apartment to adhere to, Where exactly are they supposed to charge their bikes? I live in a house in a suburb I don't where I would charge a bike like that without exposing it to the elements and rust, it would require me to build something to house the bike, even a garage is "indoors". Clauses like that are just to protect the manufacture from liability. I get the off brand charger part but the could be fixed by having standard interfaces for batteries and standards, that all charges and batteries have to adhere to. Also some of these bikes are catching fire while being ridden what proportion is unclear.
What the article doesn't state is are these bikes getting less safe. It states that the number of fires increasing but is it more than the usage of these bikes?
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I own 4 e-bikes, two I built myself and 2 commercial e-bikes. The commercial ones do NOT limit charging to outdoors. My custom e-bikes are charged indoors. My commuter has countless charge cycles over years of use and over 10K miles, it's battery I made myself by hand. There are utterly no issues, but then I built it properly and use a quality charger.
I have had to throw away a "cheap" charger whose voltage drifted out of spec in the wrong direction. The problems, as I am aware of them, are that there
What if usage is exploding? (Score:3)
I agree completely.
First, the "don't charge indoors" is probably a liability escape for the manufacturers. You can charge cars inside, phones, laptops, and such. All have LiIon batteries. Charging inside shouldn't be a deal breaker.
Second, the easiest explanation for doubling numbers of fires regarding them, even if the bikes aren't getting more dangerous, is simply that usage is exploding - you have twice as many fires because now there's twice as many bikes as last year. And 4 times as many as the yea
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People are being stupid.
Wahhh? No way! Why would you ever say such a thing?
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Manuals state a lot of pointless bullshit. But in general the real answer is don't be stupid. The ebikes blowing up here are not some brands name units with the included charger. They are used indirectly or home made out using cheap aftermarket batteries.
You get what you pay for. Maybe the few dollars you save by going to China can be spent on home insurance.
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Nonsense. Charging indoors is fine and commonplace. I wonder how many such device manuals you have even read. Zero?
Laptops often have LiIon batteries upwards of 100 Wh. Are people "being stupid" charging those indoors? You're a moron.
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I suggest that you stop insulting people, especially when you post stuff that can make the same label apply to you.
Sure, laptops have batteries "upwards" of 100Wh. A quick google search suggests that ebike batteries run around an order of magnitude larger.
100 Wh is probably the max for laptop batteries, for that matter, I'm seeing a lot more at 30-60. Same with ebike batteries - they seem start at around 500 Wh and go north of 1kWh at the top end.
I've seen a few videos of cell phones and laptops catching
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"I suggest that you stop insulting people, especially when you post stuff that can make the same label apply to you."
LOL as if you've never participated on /.
"Sure, laptops have batteries "upwards" of 100Wh. A quick google search suggests that ebike batteries run around an order of magnitude larger."
If you need to do a "quick google search" to know this, then you are ignorant on this subject. A serious battery fire can occur with batteries FAR smaller than 100 Wh. Every e-bike battery is big enough, so is
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As you can see from my userid, I've been here longer than you. Doesn't mean needless insults don't detract from the discourse, so are to be discouraged.
You have a serious problem with reading comprehension all around, it looks like. Which makes calling other people names, well, make you seem inadequate.
For example, I never said that a serious battery fire can't occur with batteries "Far smaller than 100 Wh" - that's your strawman. Try to avoid constructing them. Indeed, I mentioned that I've seen eviden
Don't charge indoors in the manual? Let's check (Score:2)
Well, I decided to check to see how common this disclaimer would be.
Happy Ebikes [happyebikes.com] does NOT recommend against charging indoors, though their thing on removing flammable objects from around where you're charging is a bit scary.
Gen3 [bbystatic.com] actually specifies charging it indoors - but near a smoke detector and NOT in a bedroom. Also has the old thing of completely discharging it every so often - which you DON'T want to do with liIon type batteries.
ebikekit [ebikekit.com] doesn't specify indoors or outdoors.
So I'm at 0/3 for manuals
Think of it as evolution in action (Score:2)
People who can't differentiate between chargers, will die out.
"Number of E-Bikes in NY nearly doubled this year" (Score:5, Insightful)
The headline implies that NY e-bikes are becoming more and more dangerous, but isn't that just because there are more of them?
The NY Post suggested in May 2022:
the number of e-bike rides in the city more than doubling from 2.7 million in 2020 to 6.7 million last year
https://nypost.com/2022/05/14/... [nypost.com]
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So the fires doubling means that relatively fewer of them actually explode.
Re: "Number of E-Bikes in NY nearly doubled this y (Score:2)
the joy of cell choices (Score:2)
Do you choose a cell in a metal can, which explodes if the vent fails (or if it was cheap crap that wasn't vented) or do you choose a pouch cell which is like a capri sun full of electrolyte paste, or a prismatic cell which behaves like a post-apocalyptic pres-to-log?
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If you're making this choice you're going to burn your house down. If instead you buy a reputable e bike and use the charger correctly without concerning yourself on battery design.
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I'll use LFPs and a decent BMS (or just balance charge like I do with my hobby packs) and I'll be fine. Batteries aren't that hard really, if you just don't buy crap. I've got this K2 MTB frame that has a hole through the middle of the pivot point for the rear suspension arm, and I want to put a jackshaft there. Because it will be located at the same point as the pivot, I don't need any kind of spring tensioner, so I can easily use a cogged belt. I have three 4S 5aH LiPos that would do a decent job of provi
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Correct. Buying a complete e-bike from a reputable manufacturer (not hobbyist, LunaCycle) and you will get a properly designed battery. OP's comment is ignorant. Cells are NOT batteries.
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Nice false choice. Built in is your assumption that proper engineering is never done.
Chargers are the first thing mentioned (Score:5, Interesting)
But shouldn't it always be the battery's circuitry that controls whether it's drawing current or not?
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Should I suppose is the operative statement but that also shows there probably needs to be a regulated charging standard for these bikes that should pretty much mimic EV's.
Charge circuitry on the vehichle, stndard port, standard range of charge voltage, negotiated amp draw, temperature monitoring, cell balancing, etc. Hell I am pretty sure the batteries for most cordless drills integrate some of these features already and some of those are getting pretty beefy nowadays.
Maybe this exists but most I could fi
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Yes. But you're implying that the circuitry is in the battery package itself. That's a big assumption. It can be in the battery (like laptop batteries), it can be in the bike (like a phone charger), or it can be in the charger (like a cell charger).
Which place has the the "circuitry" in the hobbled together Chinese imported examples from TFA? Two part question
a) can you guess?
b) does it matter?
Are all battery fires e-bike battery fires? (Score:2)
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Phone battery fires were a thing a few years ago. About every week the local news had some FUD about the "dangers of smartphones" and showing pictures of a random room that'd been torched...usually accompanied by some kid who it caught fire on. The part they never told you was the phone had been refurbished with a random battery from the guy at a kiosk that was cutting corners...while simultaneously sleeping with it under the pillow.
I don't know many people that own e-scooters...they just rent them on their
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"More people have more chances to be cheap stupid idiots with ebikes."
No. Scooters have the same DIY market that e-bikes do, and scooters are far more often thrown into lakes and rivers. You definitely have this backward. Also, if you lived downtown where younger people live you would see personally-owned scooters. I have seen more of those than owned e-bikes where I live.
"The part they never told you was the phone had been refurbished with a random battery from the guy at a kiosk that was cutting corne
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Scooters have the same DIY market that e-bikes do.
That seems like a reasonable assumption. However, it's also reasonable to assume that couriers and delivery persons are more likely to use e-bikes than e-scooters, and are more likely to unintentionally abuse the batteries by deeply discharging them because they don't have the time to do periodic, lighter re-charges during their working days. The effects of that abuse may be exaggerated by the use of cheap or improperly refurbished batteries and crappy chargers.
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I have to ask because the article says "battery fires." Every single cell phone has a battery. I also like that e-bikes make the headline but e-scooters don't. Someone doesn't like e-bikes.
I would hazard a guess that in the case of New York City, the reason e-bikes make the headline but e-scooters don't is that couriers and delivery people use bikes, not scooters. Those are the people putting lots of miles on their e-things and performing lots of charge cycles on deeply discharged cheap 3rd party batteries using the wrong chargers in their apartments.
Louis Rossmann bike goes up in flames. (Score:4, Interesting)
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That guy is an idiot. The dual batteries and the "isolator" are foolishness. Also, the guy is running 46A during the ride, literally thousands of watts, on an e-bike. It is a shame to see a fire like this, but it is totally NOT a surprise to see someone like this guy behind it.
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The good thing about low quality after market crap is you have more money available to spend on fire insurance.
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Not sure which moderator modded this down, but they really need to watch the video. The battery that went up in flames was low quality after market crap. The video even goes into detail about it.
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The schematic he posted shows he put a bridge rectifier before the batteries, meaning the charger was seeing at least a 0.6V difference from what the batteries were actually at.
I mean, not catching that alone should be enough to disqualify him from working on lithium batteries.
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Yeah, well, but (Score:2)
"So far this year, six people have died in e-bike-related fires and 93 people were injured"
That's terrible. But I mean, I don't have to peddle a bike now, so it's probably worth it
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Yes, it is. People die every year riding non-assisted bicycles also. Worth it.
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Yes, it is. People die every year riding non-assisted bicycles also. Worth it.
True, but they don't tend to burn down their apartment building in the process.
I wondered - in 2020, smoking was double this (Score:2)
anti-freedom liberals (Score:2)
Of course no one would outright say they don't care about children burning to death, but that is what Freedom is!
Don't be taken in by liberals promising you the false security of not burning to death because your neighbors are dumbfuck cheapskates who bought a charger from wish and then duct-taped it back together the first time the casing melted.
Every alleged death caused by these fires (if they aren't in fact staged by Big Fire, which everyone should ask questions about!), is a heroic sacrifice to Trade a
Re: (Score:2)
I am reminded of early in the Trump administration when they thought that allowing e-bikes on federal lands would troll environmentalists so they ordered the reversal of e-bike prohibitions. Then they found out that e-bike opponents were their base so they let it quietly die. Progressive e-bike supporters actually got excited, LOL.
All that matters for one political group is who burns to death, not that anyone burns to death.
uh (Score:2)
"These bikes when they fail, they fail like a blowtorch," said Dan Flynn, the chief fire marshal at the New York Fire Department. "We've seen incidents where people have described them as explosive — incidents where they actually have so much power, they're actually blowing walls down in between rooms and apartments."
so, like a blowtorch...that blows a wall down?
Re: (Score:2)
Hmmm... 40,783 fires in 2018 (Score:1)
174 battery fires in 2022 (out of a likely 40,500 fires).
27,053 Structural, 13,730 non-structural
Okay... don't ignore it but... the population is roughly 8,930,000 today.
safety standards (Score:2)
This is why we have safety standards. Stop buying cheap crap that has no standards in mind when it was built. You need to have a bulletproof BMS and a proper charger, in addition to quality cells.
Exploding Batteries (Score:2)
This always happens happens when consumer grade idiots start tinkering with shit they don't understand.
The same thing happened when similar idiots started modifying their vape systems to increase the coil output to create denser vape clouds.
They would exceed the discharge rate of the battery causing it to go into thermal run away. the battery would detonate in the idiots pocket.
The situation is not helped by the common practice of Chinese OEMs to cut corners, using out of spec batteries, and removing over-