Bald Paul

FDNY Wants Feds to Ban Faulty Lithium-Ion Batteries From Entering U.S. – Streetsblog New York City

blacknbluebikes 

The intention is good, but the probability of success is tiny.

Calsun

This is city politics and nothing more. Who exactly is going to inspect all the batteries arriving at U.S. ports which are in the billlions of units? Most home fires are still caused by smokers.

KenCT

Most house fires in the USA are cooking related followed by heating systems and intentionally set. Smoking is a distant 4th cause of home fires.

Fire Causes

One issue with the cheap batteries is they go from looking fine to shooting a large jet of flame and creating heavy smoke in a few seconds. These fires burn hotter and faster than a cooking grease fire. In NYC there have been many fires where the e-bike or scooter battery ignites where it is plugged in, by the front door of an apartment. This prevents the occupants from escaping and has resulted in several deaths in apartment high-rise buildings.

7up

Those non Lifepo4 batteries are seriously scary.

cat0020

After nearly a decade of converting & riding ebikes, I have yet to witness a single battery fire issues myself.
I've heard of them in the news, interwebs, etc.. just not witness any.

In the early days for ebikes, they were lead acid batteries that cause fires.
Nowadays with lithium battery fires; I suspect they are just poor wiring job or charging practices.

Personally, I feel that strapping a container of flammable fuel on to a vehicle and travel at 50-60 mph isn't much safer.
How many car fires occur daily? fuel tank explosions in the news?
I'm sure there are plenty of those occurring every single day, just don't get as much attention and don't reported all over the interwebs.
Regardless how much you regulate with laws, doesn't change the fact that gasoline is flammable fuel that is meant to burn while the vehicle is in operation.
The sheer number of gasoline engine operating in the world allow us mankind to feel that gasoline cars are safe and okay to be used in the billions.
If the same number of ebikes are operating (as gas vehicles) & ebike batteries are exploding at the same rate of gas tanks explosions around the world; would you feel any safer?

2old

As stated above, how would this be policed especially since some of the "bad" batteries are contained in bikes, scooters etc? I agree that something is necessary since any fly by night supplier can start a "company" by buying a skid of bikes, scooters batteries, whatever?

KenCT

Gasoline tanks really don’t explode. I’ve been a firefighter for 40 years and have been to a couple hundred car fires. On a rare occasion a tank may rupture and dump gasoline on the ground. It makes an impressive fireball. This is very rare.


New York and other cities are having the problem with knockoff batteries failing inside homes or apartments. As previously posted, banning knockoffs is nearly unenforceable until after a fire occurs.

GhostRider62

I used to pour gas on rolls of caps and ignite with a hammer. Lite up a couple of 2.5 gallon cans as a 6 year old. Wish I knew there was no danger, might have saved me a beating.

I only buy quality Li batteries and still charge them in the garage on the concrete floor with a quality charger. Am I too cautious? I just feel afraid to charge them inside the house.

KenCT

I have several Li batteries, all OEM and correct chargers, no worries when charging. Many of the failures seem to be from a combination of knockoff batteries, modified devices (more speed) and improper charging.

speedy25

While there have been many incidents, I have yet to see ANY real details, and nobody connected to these incidents has ever answered an email to get details.

If you dont know what really caused it you cant fix it.

I'm guessing this is just another knee jerk reaction. There werent any fires reported until the last year. The UK is also having a problem. (Based on news in a UK trade mag) but once again they are unresponsive too.

NY and the west coast can make all the rules they want, as long as they dont end up anywhere else UNTIL they reveal cause.

cat0020

This new law in NYC will likely impact the ebike shops in Brooklyn that I use for electrical troubleshooting.

Usually they are good with fixing stuff while you wait, lots of knowledge in getting ebikes back on the road.

These ebike shops cater to delivery folks that depend on their ebikes to make a living,
I wonder how it might impact the local economy beyond just the ebike shops.

https://www.bicycleretailer.com/reta...e#.ZAX91HbMJhE

VegasTriker

Maybe the message is because of this fire https://nypost.com/2023/03/05/e-bike...and-injures-7/ yesterday. It was a scooter, not an e-bike. Either one can be equipped with batteries that have substantial capacity compared to the single 18650 battery used in my flashlight. It's a lot more difficult for fire departments to deal with because pouring water on a lithium battery doesn't put it out but may accelerate the fire. One scooter took out an entire store. It might not be a bad thing to have minimum standards for these batteries. Think of this happening inside a home or garage.

2old

I'm 100% in favor of Li battery regulation, but without control of direct to consumer transactions, it'll be futile. A friend ordered a battery from a supposedly reputable company in China and, although they charged for it to be shipped properly, it came in a box marked "battery charger" which allowed it to be sent much more inexpensively. It seems (to me) as though we don't have recourse to penalize a Chinese company.

spelger

Not sure if you will be able to read this since it is behind a paywall but it is an interesting read...

not too surprising considering the phone, e-cig, and other similar fires. it was just a matter of time until enough occurrences happened.

from the article:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/e-bike-...-york-a3c1e45c

FBOATSB

No need for WSJ, there's tons of similar articles.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...livery-workers

shelbyfv

In E-bikes E-bike fires

FBOATSB

Here's one on NPR.
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/30/11302...etimes-fatally
So much power packed into such a small package, aftermarket batteries, then sketchy charging practices.

FBOATSB

Yup, read that one as well. This could probably moved/merged.

shelbyfv

Probably soon be moved. They're pretty good about keeping Ebike threads where they belong.

cb400bill

Merged dup threads

cat0020

Amid fire concern, NYC banning sale of electric bikes without UL-listed batteries

https://electrek.co/2023/03/07/nyc-b...tteries-fires/

"So yes, I definitely support the idea of improved e-bike safety. But let’s all keep the scope of this problem in perspective.
At risk of some type of moral relativism here, I’d say there are some significantly bigger threats to public safety rolling around that we could be committing this type of energy and legislation toward fixing.
Around 300 pedestrians are killed by cars in NYC every year.
So far this year NYC has reported two deaths from e-bike fires. While each is a tragedy, the difference in scale is obvious."

Bald Paul

Yes, we do have recourse. Refuse to do business with them. If they are mis-labeling shipments to avoid paying extra for potentially dangerous cargo, report them to Customs. Maybe they will begin inspecting every shipment from that company as it arrives in the ports.

2old

And cows will fly someday. Read the accounts and see if this has ever happened. Endless Sphere has a report from one of their mods whose house burned down (fortunately his dogs alerted the family so nobody died) and the company had already gone out of business (or more likely, changed names); even his insurance company had no chance of collecting.

Bald Paul

If no one bothers to make a report, the cows will never grow wings.
I stopped buying from one particular Chinese battery company after the Li-Po battery I purchased new from them for an electric R/C plane swelled badly during the initial charge. I used a cell-matching charger, and it shut down when it saw how bad the battery was, thankfully. Otherwise, a potentially catastrophic fire in the house could have occurred. (As a precaution, I always charged my batteries in a fire-resistant charging bag, just in case.)