The car lost power, locked him inside, and started filling up with smoke.
The problem is big.
And its getting worse as more and more devices rely on lithium-ion batteries.
I wanted to better understand the problem, so Ive spoken to battery scientists, engineers, and experts.
Ive also interviewed several companies that offer a range of solutions to prevent fires from starting.
It’s free, every week, in your inbox.
To be clear, my core focus is on lithium-ion battery fires in escooters, ebikes, and emopeds.
Researchers at the EV Safe projectin Australialooked at global EV battery fires from 2010-2020.
They found a 0.0012% chance of a passenger electric vehicle battery catching fire.
But before we dig into why lithium-ion battery fires occur, lets understand the problem better.
How bad are the fires?
Its worth seeing the ferociousness of some of the fires.
Whats surprising is how quickly they alight.
Not my video, but passed to me by a former@LondonFirecolleague.
A house fire in East London a couple of weeks ago triggered by an e-scooter lithium battery.
The burning batteries flaring causes overpressure which looks like mini-backdraughts!!
July 2021:General Motors issued asecond recallof its 2017-2019 model Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles for fire risk.
An investigation found thatsome of the cells that make up the Bolts pack can have two simultaneous manufacturing defects.
September 2021:SpecializedBicycle Componentsrecalledabout 2,500 1st-generation battery packs due to a fire hazard.
April 2022:The Volkswagen Grouprecalledaround 118,000 plug-in hybrid vehicles worldwide.
It started out as random & sporadic but now cases of#ElectricVehicleson fire are surfacing with increasing frequency.
April 2022:Ola Electricrecalled1,441 Ola S1 Pro electric scooters (mopeds).
Arecall is likely,according to company management.
May 2022:Santa Cruz Bicycles issueda recall noticefor Heckler 9 electric bikes sold between January and March 2022.
But why do battery fires happen, and why are they still occurring?
Stay tuned for the next article to find out all about it.
Story byCate Lawrence
Cate Lawrence is an Australian tech journo living in Berlin.
