Ebike fires in the news!!! CBS NYC

This is not new. I saw a report in September that NYC was seeing 2-3 battery fires per month, and 4 people had died in that time.

I don't doubt that shrinkwrapped crappy batteries are the main reason. Cells glued together with no spacers. OK for a small battery, but when you get big ones, people drop them, the vibration scrapes off those PVC shrinkwraps. etc, You get a short between two cell casings, and it's all over,



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ebike4healthandfitness said:
Solid state batteries can't come soon enough.

You hold your breath for them, and I'll get along with things that exist. We can check in later with our status reports.
 
One thing to remember, is that the fire numbers are quite low, compared to the number of lithium batteries out there, including phones, laptops, shavers, drills, you name it.

Good assembly is good, particularly for minimizing mechanical damage problems. But if a cheap cell dies in a pack, then you try to charge it, its going to overheat. Most of the good power tool brands don't use shit cells, so they rarely light the house on fire. A quality bms then functions when needed to stop a fire from starting during charging.

Its basically a matter of the quality of the original cells. Cheap ass stuff like hoverboards or scooters that use cheap ass cells in the batteries are always a risk. Cheap ass bms just compounds the risk.

Happily, the risk is nearly always when charging. After my fire happened while charging, I started telling folks to charge the shit outside if at all possible. My mistake was being lazy, and charging on the bike, in my attached garage, then falling asleep with the charger still running. Likely my bms failed to stop the charging, but had I done this outside, or remembered to unplug the pack when it was due to finish charging, my fire would not have happened that night.

But the thing I really learned that night, was that a big battery makes a BIG ASS fire. I was charging 1000 wh on the bike, and another 750 wh was mounted fairly close. When it went up, it lit my entire garage up really fast. By the time we got out, the flames going out the garage door were 4 stories tall. By then a car full of gas and a motorcycle full of gas were also on fire.

Thats why I say charge outside now. Its such a small risk, but the fire if it happens is amazing in size.
 
dogman dan said:
Thats why I say charge outside now. Its such a small risk, but the fire if it happens is amazing in size.

I have this crazy idea of storing (and charging) batteries inside a metal container. Like an ammo box.

A battery fire should not burn hot enough, especially with limited oxygen, to melt steel, right?
 
Could charging amperage contribute to this? Would say a 10 amp charger be more prone to ignite bad batteries than a 2 amp charger?
 
Comrade said:
dogman dan said:
Thats why I say charge outside now. Its such a small risk, but the fire if it happens is amazing in size.

I have this crazy idea of storing (and charging) batteries inside a metal container. Like an ammo box.

A battery fire should not burn hot enough, especially with limited oxygen, to melt steel, right?

What you are describing is commonly referred to as a bomb. :wink:

Containing them inside a metal box is a good idea but you want some kind of vent or chimney that goes outside. Definitely don't seal flammable stuff in a pressure container.

As for these fires being in the news, its all relative to your perspective. As others have said there are tons of lithium ion batteries out there compared to the amount of fires caused by them. People need to stop and ask themselves how many fires are caused or enhanced by gasoline. I'm sure it has a worse body count than lithium ion batteries.

At the same time I don't expect the news media to not report these. Then it looks like some kind of coverup. There is just no winning these days.
 
DanGT86 said:
What you are describing is commonly referred to as a bomb. :wink:

I doubt an ammo box could maintain even 5 psi of internal pressure even without any holes for cables and such.

DanGT86 said:
As others have said there are tons of lithium ion batteries out there compared to the amount of fires caused by them.

Yes, but most small devices with lithium ion batteries are single cell pouch batteries. That's a different animal than chained cells in a tight large pack.
 
You are probably right. But then it becomes a flame thrower.

The smoke from battery fires is nasty stuff. You might save the structure from physically burning down but it would still make a huge mess.

I agree with you that it is definitely better to contain them to something metal instead of just sitting on a table.

I heard good advice here years ago that you should treat your large Lithium batteries like a can of gas and don't charge them anywhere you can't afford to have a fire.

I store mine in an old oven because I figured it might buy me a few minutes to get out of the house or attempt a fire extinguisher. I really want a metal box with a chimney so I don't have to think about them when I am out of town. An old wood burning stove or fireplace would work nicely.
 
Think we forget the battery is discharging energy, at runaway speeds. It's releasing heat, a lot of heat but not burning. Yes it catches anything around it on fire. You dump it in a tank of water it does not stop until spent.
 
ebike4healthandfitness said:
Solid state batteries can't come soon enough.
The SES technology sounds like a lark https://youtu.be/ekKyfh7t5uY?t=1975 rewind the video a bit to see their machines at SES gigafactory lol. they are partners with LG.

Year the ebike fires are almost all from retailers bringing in cheap OEM equipment to shops, there should be retailer insurance on all ebikes.
 
DanGT86 said:
You are probably right. But then it becomes a flame thrower.
A flame thrower eh? I guess all those flammable goods safety cabinets in the world are flame throwers too...

Nope.

I have a friend who is a huge RC helicopter devotee. He stores and charges all his batteries inside metal ammo boxes sitting on 24" x 24" patio stones on a charging station in his garage. Why? Because he has had more than on fire using pouch cell packs. No exploding boxes, nor flames shooting out the non-airtight seals of the box. The boxes do however contain the heat and slow the release of combustion gases so when if an event occurs he can get to his attached garage and remove a box before there is a risk of smoke infiltration into the home itself.

His experiences are why I wont use cheap RC packs to power any EV I plan to build no matter how temptingly inexpensive.

That said, aside from large packs I am not concerned with battery fires. I leave my charging cell phone on the back of the couch, or the bed because those are the two locations with convenient outlets
 
Are batteries self oxidizing when they are on fire? Could they be extinguished in a box with a fire extinguisher or flooding the box with CO2?
 
Today, shrink wrapped prismatic cells are a small fraction of battery fires. Most are round cells nowadays, and not always cheap round cells.

Many reasons for battery fires, but all runs around inadequate monitoring or physical damage. Nevertheless, one is more likely to set fire to a gas tank than any battery. The battery is a safer energy container, yet you should be just as careful charging a battery, as filling a gas tank. :idea:

That is a good reason for fast charging. Believe me, when you are feeding 60A to charge, nothing can distract you from your battery. Being there watching when charging, is the ultimate battery safety. But doing so has a cost: better batteries and bigger chargers.

My next project is a trailer with 5 kw/h battery floor container, that will charge at public EV charging stations. Then the bike itself will have little battery capacity, able to fast charge multiple times at the trailer, or hitch the trailer for long rides.
 
The batteries we use don't need oxygen in order to burn. That's why water or fire extinguishers won't put the battery fire out. They only put out the fires that the battery fire started.

Listen to Dogman Dan and only charge batteries where you don't mind a fire happening. It's also a good idea to store your bike and battery under a fire blanket. That way if a fire does start it might not spread so far or fast. Think of it as cheap insurance.

https://www.amazon.com/Emergency-Su...ocphy=9031738&hvtargid=pla-1395152932481&th=1

https://www.amazon.com/Welding-Blan...ocphy=9031738&hvtargid=pla-568632178213&psc=1
 
Found an actual video of a battery explosion inside an ammo box:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv_3vwSZmzA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnNId0mDnBo
 
nicobie said:
The batteries we use don't need oxygen in order to burn. That's why water or fire extinguishers won't put the battery fire out. They only put out the fires that the battery fire started.

Listen to Dogman Dan and only charge batteries where you don't mind a fire happening. It's also a good idea to store your bike and battery under a fire blanket. That way if a fire does start it might not spread so far or fast. Think of it as cheap insurance.

While googling before fire extinguisher purchase, read at a few places that Lion's have to complete the burning (fire extinguisher won't extinguish it burning inside) and keeping it in sand is a safe option to allow that. Trying to indirectly find out if some one does battery charging on a sand filled fire bucket & whether it can be counted as an insurance :wink:, perhaps no covering on the top might make it not that useful
 
Not sure how full the RC guy has his ammo boxes, but I bet it wasn't 35 pounds of cells in one box. That was my fire, 35 pounds of battery going up.

When my fire happened, it was the "safe" bms attached round cell packs that burned my garage. My highly hazardous RC cells, 8 pounds per ammo box, were in my fireplace. My boxes had some holes drilled in the ends, and that end pointed into the fireplace. I charged em in the open, in the fireplace, and watched them as they were charging fast.

So my refrain now is,,, don't think your shit is "safe" and ignore it like I did while it ran a 7 hour charge. It was like a 4th of july accident in my garage that night. It was like 35 pounds of firecrackers going off.
 
Pretty interesting videos, the ammo box worked better than I had hoped it would. I kept a flat shovel nearby too btw. I knew for sure I could not go grab a hot box with hands without losing my face. And I always was nearby charging the lipo.

Show of hands who wants that much smoke in the living room.

After the fire, I ran the wolf battery and my lipos for a couple seasons. The wolf battery fully potted, I hoped it would slow the reaction down. But I still charged it outside, and stored it in an old oven.
 
The better batteries have better construction than they did seven years ago when I got into ebiking, A lot of my older packs didn't use cell separators, and they could eventually short circuit if the pack was dropped. Spot welding techniques are also better, STill, I have bought $99 shrinkwrapped packs from China that are made the old fashioned way. Cells glued together. Haphazard strips of nickel connecting them, Cheap BMS. Probably cheap cells that don't have venting under the positive terminal.

I'm thinking some of these NYC fires are because of user error. The most recent report said one apartment had seven or nine ebikes. Probably some guys sharing a place, Sharing chargers. Someone may have plugged the wrong charger into the wrong bike. Maybe some bikes had XT60 charge ports, and the guy plugged a 48V charger into an XT60 36V output. I've made that blunder myself. The BMS can't help you if you do that. All BMS should be single port for that reason.
 
dogman dan said:
It was like 35 pounds of firecrackers going off.

Did you consider going lifepo4 after this event?

I think Tesla is switching to lifepo4 later this year.
 
Sadly this forum is the central collecting spot for fire safety with a product with almost no standards for care and use.
Thank goodness it's here.
It's not something that should be relegated to anecdotal care.
If you do fire or food safety you get to see what standards look like, and what zero tolerance means.
It may take a Chicago fire or Station nightclub fire before something is done.
and if insurers get in on it it could compound that already looming pressure on use.
Insurers are already redlining ebikes by exclusion from general coverage of home and liability polices,
mandating hard to find and expensive separate coverage, and as the generous coverage we previously had
gets more expensive, I would expect to see more of this as they tighten restrictions to limit risk.
Places like NYC may likely get it first, since impact in multifamily units will focus the issue
 
Sadly,, what I really did is go back to gas, and pedaling. My e bikes gather dust, or got the motors taken back off them. Long before the fire, I was already doing most of my street riding on a 400 cc scooter. I simply had less scares with cars by keeping up in the lane, than riding in bike lanes.

I seriously considered going back to ping lifepo4, the best batteries I ever owned. But also, expensive, delicate, and heavy as hell.

But right after the fire I continued to use my lipo, which did not get fire damage. They were in the ammo boxes in my fireplace. The fire consumed the garage, but good choice of houses put me very close to a fire station. So the main house fire wall held long enough to get the firemen there. The following summer, longtime ES members hooked me up with the fully potted Wolf battery from Luna. This was a really great battery. Since it was free to me, I put it to the most extreme road testing I could, much like the motor testing I used to do. It was the high discharge rate version with the best possible cells inside. I ran it on a 2000w system, 52v 30 amps.

Really performed great, but the way I hammered it, caused an early failure of the pack at 18 months. At least one cell group got weak, and it lost about 30% of the capacity almost overnight. But no hint of a cell got hot. The BMS worked flawlessly, shutting off the charge when the weak cells got full.

I was charging with a grin satiator, after the fire. At a pretty high rate, which also put a hard test on that pack.
 
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