"Conversion kits to blame in 40% of ebike fires, says London Fire Brigade"

[guerney]

Meanwhile we have to put up with the scaremongering, for example:

ITV on Thursday 31st at 8.30 PM have scheduled a program in the "Tonight" series titled:

E-bikes and Scooters: Trouble on the Road?

Sub titled: Adam Shaw investigates whether electric bikes and scooters are causing more harm than good.
.

Ebikes provide a whole host of new opportunities to attack cyclists. That's only a 30 minute programming slot, including commercial breaks, therefore I fully expect about 20 minutes of ITV's usual powerpoint presentation pitch turned rapidly into useless, badly researched and produced, sensationalist, fluff blighted TV with a terrible soundtrack.

 

[Forb]

Chinese factories build stuff for the whole world, from Apple iPhones to ..

I reject the idea that the high end stuff is "Chinese made". Apple stuff is made by FOXCONN who are Taiwanese working under contract for an American company. Likewise other good stuff made under contract for Japanese companies, like Shimano.

I just don't understand why, if let to their own resources, the old “Cha Bu Duo” (translated as “not far off” or “close enough”) mentality slips back in. I've sent back yet another Chinese crap bike tool because it didn't work, whereas replacing it with a Park tool worked straight away (about 85% still made in the USA).

Spec should have been 22.6mm, there's was 22.2mm including thick black paint to make it look like it was tempered. Total waste of time and energy from mining the metal to delivering to my home.

You should read up on some of the NYC Fire Department reports about battery fires. A chip pan you can extinguish with a wet dish cloth. Try that with a lithium battery fire, it's going to burn its way through your floor. They burn much hotter and it's not possible to get to the parts that are burning, so they don't stop.

I hear what they're doing is some cases is dropping them into baths or buckets of water.

* (113 fires this year killing more than 13 New Yorkers and leaving 71 injured.)

 

[flecc]

Ebikes provide a whole host of new opportunities to attack cyclists. That's only a 30 minute programming slot, including commercial breaks, therefore I fully expect about 20 minutes of ITV's usual powerpoint presentation pitch turned rapidly into useless, badly researched and produced, sensationalist, fluff blighted TV with a terrible soundtrack.

Yup, a perfect fit for a typical ITV audience.
.

 

[soundwave]

shitmano has 1 of the worst motors for ebikes out there as unfixable crap not even ebike motor center will touch them after being stung and had to replace every motor he opened.

m8 has a canyon ebike with a shitmano motor and Madison who deals with warranty ect says only warranty replacement available.

can i buy a new one for £1000 no!!! can i get one from Germany and use the shops software to install it no! regen locked.

can i buy parts to fix it,no!

it is this fantastic renewable energy you throw a 5k bike down the tip and go get a new one

the brose motors are a heap of crap as well tho peter can fix those but id never buy one lol.

 

[guerney]

* (113 fires this year killing more than 13 New Yorkers and leaving 71 injured.)

1 in 575:

" There have been 13 deaths in New York City alone this year, a city with an estimated 65,000 e-bikes on the streets. "

Why New York City wants electric bikes stopped at the border

New York City is enacting a ban on electric bikes that don't conform to UL standards in an attempt to eliminate e-bike battery fires in NYC.

electrek.co

 

[StuartsProjects]

I just don't understand why, if let to their own resources, the old “Cha Bu Duo” (translated as “not far off” or “close enough”) mentality slips back in. I've sent back yet another Chinese crap bike tool because it didn't work, whereas replacing it with a Park tool worked straight away (about 85% still made in the USA).

Please do tell.

If you have had such a bad experience with chinese cycle tools, why do you keep ordering them ?

 

[StuartsProjects]

1 in 575:

" There have been 13 deaths in New York City alone this year, a city with an estimated 65,000 e-bikes on the streets. "

One 'fire' death for each 575 eBikes ?

Sounds like a lot ...................

 

[saneagle]

One 'fire' death for each 575 eBikes ?

Sounds like a lot ...................

One fire could kill nobody or 1000 people. It just depends where and when it is.

 

[saneagle]

I reject the idea that the high end stuff is "Chinese made". Apple stuff is made by FOXCONN who are Taiwanese working under contract for an American company. Likewise other good stuff made under contract for Japanese companies, like Shimano.

I just don't understand why, if let to their own resources, the old “Cha Bu Duo” (translated as “not far off” or “close enough”) mentality slips back in. I've sent back yet another Chinese crap bike tool because it didn't work, whereas replacing it with a Park tool worked straight away (about 85% still made in the USA).

Spec should have been 22.6mm, there's was 22.2mm including thick black paint to make it look like it was tempered. Total waste of time and energy from mining the metal to delivering to my home.

You should read up on some of the NYC Fire Department reports about battery fires. A chip pan you can extinguish with a wet dish cloth. Try that with a lithium battery fire, it's going to burn its way through your floor. They burn much hotter and it's not possible to get to the parts that are burning, so they don't stop.

I hear what they're doing is some cases is dropping them into baths or buckets of water.

* (113 fires this year killing more than 13 New Yorkers and leaving 71 injured.)

One of the shops that went up was an ebike shop that might have been making their own amateurish bateries. Are you implying that the batteries were made in China? If so, where did you get that from?

 

[guerney]

One 'fire' death for each 575 eBikes ?

Sounds like a lot ...................

I in 575 fires, 1 in 5000 fire deaths.

 

[StuartsProjects]

I in 575 fires, 1 in 5000 fire deaths.

Thanks for the correction.

So in New York, how many so called 'battery fire deaths' have there been compared to the number of eBikes in use ?

 

[guerney]

You can do something about both, buy only batteries made with properly QC cylindrical cells which have steel case and built-in anti-explosion device, and keep your bike in a shelter.

What is the "built-in anti-explosion device" you are referring to, and how does it work?

 

[guerney]

One fire could kill nobody or 1000 people. It just depends where and when it is.

Whole lotta high rises in New York! Of course, London isn't anywhere near as multi-level.

 

[guerney]

So in New York, how many so called 'battery fire deaths' have there been compared to the number of eBikes in use ?

13 New Yorkers killed, and there are an estimated 65,000 ebikes in use. Escooters aren't mentioned in the article I linked, which probably caused some proportion of all battery fires quoted by @Forb from somewhere. There's no mention of how many non-New Yorkers were killed. Tourists don't matter.

* (113 fires this year killing more than 13 New Yorkers and leaving 71 injured.)

 

[StuartsProjects]

What is the "built-in anti-explosion device" you are referring to, and how does it work?

USB powered black hole ?

 

[Woosh]

What is the "built-in anti-explosion device" you are referring to, and how does it work?

quote:

The safety valve is standard for every 18650 battery and is the most important explosion protection barrier. When the internal pressure of the battery is too high, the top safety valve will open the exhaust decompression to avoid the explosion.

 

[flecc]

quote:

The safety valve is standard for every 18650 battery and is the most important explosion protection barrier. When the internal pressure of the battery is too high, the top safety valve will open the exhaust decompression to avoid the explosion.

But not stop the fires, as witness all the Teslas burnt out with their 6000 to over 7000 x 18650s.

I prefer my safer prismatic cells. Incidentally took it off the slow charger this morning with 172 miles range indicated, not bad at 5.5 years old with a nominally 168 mile WLTP battery indicating 164 miles summer range when it was new.
.

 

[guerney]

Using cutting extinguishers:

See Swedish lithium-ion battery expert Per-Ola Malmqvist explain how to safely extinguish EV-fires with minimal water
" in only 15 minutes and using only 750 liters / 200 gallons of water, a full scale electric vehicle fire was put out. "

https://ctif.org/news/see-swedish-lithium-ion-battery-expert-ola-malmqvist-explain-how-safely-extinguish-ev-fires

 

[Forb]

The proportion of fires I'd be looking at is relative to the proportion of bikes kept in houses. If they go off in the street, they're unlikely to hurt anyone.

Guess how the neighbour who lives in the flat below you is going to feel about 200 gallons of water in their living room.

Just out of interest, as my first question related to Lime bikes batteries, I note they have a heavy duty aluminium case with what looks like an escape valves facing into the void of the frame. It would appear to a double safeguard design.

They do, however, live on the street and not house sharer's bedrooms.

If you have had such a bad experience with chinese cycle tools, why do you keep ordering them ?

Not just tools but components too.

Wishful thinking? Lack of any quality alternatives? Sometimes because I know the Chinese reseller fold so easily, that I'll get a full refund, but use the bits I can. If they're going to be unethical to us, it's fair game to do it back to them.

Try and find a proper tool shop in any British city these days. Even the stuff they sell in Lidl is better (because it's been screened by the Germans).

The Chinese don't make real things. They make visual analogues that look like real things the purpose of which is just to fool foreigners [us] into parting with foreign currency, all made possible by subsidised internal postage, that we also pay for, at the same time destroying the possibility of foreign manufacturing (domestic from our POV), by undercutting the market.

I think the whole system works on the presumption that most people won't complain or demand their money back but just chuck the item away and buy a new one, hence the cycle repeats.

So I do it just to complain and get my money back.

shitmano has 1 of the worst motors for ebikes out there as unfixable crap

Yeah, but every other high quality component on most bikes is made by them. The best stuff being the stuff they make in Japan. Although the Malaysian stuff is not bad.

 

[Forb]

I in 575 fires, 1 in 5000 fire deaths.

So far. The bikes are still in use and so still have a potential to do so. I'm presuming there's going to be a curve that gets steeper as they age, then there's going to be the joys of fly tipped dumped ones, and exploding landfill.

Thing is, what with the Tories cutting 1/3rd of the Police budget and firing 23,500 staff members who is going to police illegal e-bikes and how?

Can I volunteer to join a special "Mounted PCSO" squad and carry a big shepherd's crook to catch them?

There's needs to be a way of tying the manufacturer in to be responsible for the units' final processing, otherwise it's just another chapter in neoliberalist capitalism, of companies making profits by dumping all of the external costs onto tac payers who never benefitted from the production.