Have you had an eBike battery fire?
I'm working on a study of eBike battery fires and explosions. Please take this poll and let me know if you’ve had an eBike fire.
Dear Readers,
I've been doing a casual study of the number of eBike battery fires or explosions that have occurred in just the last few years. It appears that while the majority of eBike batteries are perfectly safe, there's a number of cheaply manufactured knock-off brands that may be prone to catching on fire while charging. Some would call it a battery explosion, and it's certainly close to that. You can find dozens of videos of "exploding" eBike battery fires with a Google search. This is just one eBike fire from a security camera in an apartment. Watch it HERE for an eye-opening video.
There were nearly 200 eBike fires in NYC last year alone
According to data from the New York City fire marshal: "Exploding e-bike batteries were responsible for 190 fires in 2022. These fires, triggered by poorly maintained or damaged lithium-ion batteries, have caused 10 deaths and more than 200 injuries in the five boroughs in just the last two years alone".
I’m going deep!
I'm collaborating with Tony Barthel and Keith Ward (both writing colleagues) to come up with valid ways to test eBike batteries. As you may already know, I'm pretty good at blowing up electrical devices and have a long background in battery chemistry and charging characteristics.
But we need your help…
Please take this poll about exploding eBike batteries and include the brand and model of the bike in the comments below. I'll begin gathering as much data as possible from a number of fire marshals around the country and ask them to participate in my study. I'll then contact a number of eBike manufacturers for some test batteries to evaluate. Hopefully, I’ll know enough by this spring to make recommendations about which brand and type of batteries appear to be safe and which ones to avoid.
Please take this poll on eBike battery fires and explosions!
Please include the circumstances of your eBike battery fire or explosion in the comments below, along with the brand and model of your eBike. And thanks for your help.
Share this important poll with everyone you know who already has or plans to buy an eBike.
Let’s play safe out there…. Mike
I’ll do a full article on this later showing my work, but my back of envelope calculations suggest that the energy stored in an eBike battery is the equivalent of 0.9 to 3.6 sticks of dynamite, depending on the battery’s watt-hr capacity.
That got my attention when I ran the numbers!
Two Treks with Bosch motors and batteries. Always charge the battery off the bike and on the concrete floor of the garage. They are only plugged in when charging. Once the charge cycle is complete, off the batteries they come.