As the ubiquity of e-bikes has grown, so has the frequency of fires and deaths blamed on the batteries that power them — sparking a push to better regulate how the batteries are manufactured, sold, reconditioned, charged and stored.
Wednesday, August 02, 2023
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I thought it was overreach when TPTB told us that kids had to wear crash helmets while tooling around the driveway on their Big Wheels. Now they gotta carry fire extinguishers and hazmat gear and soon will lose the ability to pedal with their legs, thanks to those flammable eBikes.
ReplyDeleteSomeone please put this genie back in the bottle.
TBC
Cheap Chicom battery packs and chargers.
ReplyDeleteThis story is gonna give them little Zimbabwe pickaninies an incentive to work harder and mine more Lithium.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the lithium and it's not in Zimbabwe. It's cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo and they're doing their best for Greta...
DeleteWhat about the Kryptonite mining on Krypton? That must play into this somehow.
DeleteI deal with lithium-ion batteries as part of my job and the one thing I constantly remind my co-workers about is that they are basically incendiary hand grenades with a loose pin.
ReplyDeleteEach has its quirks and precautions dependent upon which chemistry is being used. Two things they all have in common is that they do not like being abused. Improper charging profiles, particularly with batteries/battery packs of questionable qualities, is one way these things ignite. They also do not like high temperatures, particularly when charging. Li-Ion batteries will swell when they get too hot, with the worse being the Li-Pol batteries of the type used in smart phones, tablets, and other equipment where space is at a premium.
I have seen phones, tablets, and some of the equipment we manufacture which use those batteries damaged/destroyed when the battery swelled to two or more times it's normal thickness due to high temperatures.
I have been seeing news reports for the last week about how they are expecting a flood of cheap Chinese EVs to begin arriving in the near future. As if the risk of fire from the Chinese e-bikes, hoverboards, vape pens, etc. wasn't enough, let's import cars with even larger batteries to spontaneously combust.
ReplyDeleteGovernment regulations on how I charge my equipment is needed??
ReplyDeleteTo the author of that, you can fuk the hell right off.
TMF Bert
There are international standards which define safety standards lithium and lithium-ion batteries must meet in order to be shipped since they are considered dangerous cargo. But that doesn't mean shady manufacturers won't falsify testing reports.
DeleteIn general, Li-Ion batteries use the same charging profile though the charge current will be different depending upon the chemistry and battery pack configuration. Li-Ion batteries have a limited temperature range for charging without damaging the batteries. If improperly charged or charged outside the allowable temperature range the Li-Ion batteries can fail in a spectacular fashion including "rapid disassembly" and "rapid oxidation reaction". The cheap, poorly made cells/battery packs are particularly susceptible to both. Government regulation won't have any effect on this unless such regulations state something like "Don't charge these batteries in a closed space or leave unattended while charging" or some other such common sense precautions.
Knowing what I know I do not charge anything I have containing Li-Ion batteries over night. I don't leave them unattended when charging them. I don't charge them when it's either too hot or too cold. I treat them like they are hand grenades with only a loose pin keeping it from going off.
A couple years ago, the city I live in put in some those rent-a-bike pay stations trying to align the city with the green agenda. The program was eliminated when about half of the bikes ended up in the major river that flows under main street.
ReplyDeleteNemo
Nah, I'm good. Let them urban pussies burn.
ReplyDelete