[T]he lack of safety regulations and testing requirements has allowed cheaper, low-quality devices and batteries of questionable safety to enter the market.... These products of questionable origin also make it difficult for victims to sue. The batteries are often destroyed in the fires, and even when they can be recovered, they can lack identifying marks to trace back to a specific manufacturer or distributor who can be held legally responsible, according to lawyers and fire experts....
Are the words "questionable origin" there to avoid naming a foreign country? One commenter over there writes:
These low cost, low quality e bikes are built in China where safety regulations are lax. An import ban on all batteries that don't meet UL standards should be implemented immediately. We should consider an outright ban on direct marketing of products from China unless there is proof of liability insurance as well. We should not lower our standards and risk our safety for cheaper products.
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35 comments:
"From "How E-Bike Battery Fires Became a Deadly Crisis"
The real fun will come with big electric trucks and big backup battery stations. The green transition will also cull the human herd: two-fer.
EV car manufacturers have advised not parking your EV car next to something you value. Like your house!
China owns, or is constantly working to buy up, more and more of the Lithium mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. You know, the mines worked on by kids with sticks for pennies a day. They also own cobalt and lithium mines around the world. And they are the largest refiners of these rare earth minerals.
Electric vehicles make no sense. Not on a mass scale. There are not enough standards for mining or producing these needed minerals. Nor are the sources that we know of plentiful enough to drive the world for years to come. It doesn't even come close to working out, logistically. And I haven't even mentioned the needed power for the needed charging stations. We can barely power Texas today. How do we power a nation of EVs?
And these batteries tend to catch fire. More on bikes, but electric cars also catch fire. EV fires.
Soon, EVERY PERSON ON EARTH will be incinerated in a Massive, Horrible lithium battery fire!!!
This will wipe out ALL humanity unless we stop using lithium batteries over the next five years.
To those of you, that INSIST on using these Deadly monstrosities..
HOW DARE YOU???
$ENVX
a Deadly Crisis
Oooh! A crisis! We must act, because it's a crisis! Not just something bad. No. It's a crisis.
If you keep your laptop on and plugged in, you might wonder why the battery is low after a few months. It's because once the charger charges the battery, it turns off and won't start up again until there's some external change (like turning off the laptop or unplugging it). That's a safety decision.
Burnt offerings to the God of Climate Change.
gives auto-cremation new meaning [?auto-da-fe?]
This problem has been going on for quite some time. The problem first noticed with powered scooters/boards. You have to understand the culture of quality control in Chinese manufacturing. Quality can exist and maintained, but requires constant vigilance. Even when you institute systems for quality, cheating is like a challenge. It's up to you to catch them. It's not just China, but seems to be prevalent in communist or former communist countries and takes a lot to change.
I've seen lots of manufacturing and scientific equipment from China. I call it "disposable" since it when it breaks down, it is generally unfixable. I have an autoclave in my garage that one of my managers brought. It never worked, nor would the distributor allow a return. They wanted me to talk to an engineer in China to troubleshoot it. I have lots of other stories. The bottom line is that you never know what you are going to get.
Remember, this is the country that had manufacturers putting melamine in baby formula and massive amounts of formaldehyde in wood flooring. Do you really think that every lith-ion battery is made to proper safety standards?
No doubt there are varying quality of batteries (and all else).
But there are plenty of evidence of EV auto battery fires.
But, sure, deflect to China bashing w/o the guts to name China.
To coin a phrase, this is an explosive situation. There is no way to look at a battery and know if it's likely to cook off. There are millions of them in circulation. They're small and easy to smuggle around. They need charging all the time. The people charging them are mostly clueless about electricity ("It comes out of the wall, right?"). There are thousands of spots in any city where charging is going to occur, and where the e-bikes are going to be parked and stored, and most of those spots are not monitored 24/7 for incipient explosive fires from that innocent-looking e-bike, and even more of those spots will not have fire suppression systems. And many of those spots will be in, or adjacent to, high-density housing. Where unsuspecting people live, eat and SLEEP.
Oh? And by the way? I believe lithium-ion battery fires burn very very hot and produce copious amounts of toxic fumes.
And another thing? Most fire departments and EMS teams are not trained or equipped to handle this situation very well.
Yeah, this is going to get worse. Much, much worse. But...hey! No CO2 emissions, right?
I thought of UL too but don't know if they certify batteries.
I used to sell machinery to ge, Bryant, Westinghouse and other electrical manufacturers. UL certified their plants and processes along with the products as part of the process of getting the right to use the UL logo.
They were about as strict as the FDA to deal with.
A private organization, no legal power at all. But if they withheld certification you were dead.
If UL were to regulate lithium batteries and states were to require certification, I would feel much more comfortable.
I don't know how states would enforce it, though.
John lgb Henry
I thought of UL too but don't know if they certify batteries.
I used to sell machinery to ge, Bryant, Westinghouse and other electrical manufacturers. UL certified their plants and processes along with the products as part of the process of getting the right to use the UL logo.
They were about as strict as the FDA to deal with.
A private organization, no legal power at all. But if they withheld certification you were dead.
If UL were to regulate lithium batteries and states were to require certification, I would feel much more comfortable.
I don't know how states would enforce it, though.
John lgb Henry
“We should not lower our standards and risk our safety for cheaper products.”
This is by design. Companies love China because they can get cheap steel and products at low cost that don’t meet specifications. Low trust societies with unpredictable law enforcement leads to manufacturers that cheat consumers, so US companies are eager to buy Chinese, what are your racist or something? China is great!
Taiwan, on the other hand, produces great stuff that meets every requirement.
Battery Violence
If off topic delete. But you implied the article wanted to avoid offending China and this is part of the reason why.
For a recent article I researched offshore pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Did you know that 200,000 lives are saved in the United States annually by penicillin and other antibiotics?
Did you know that almost all is imported, mostly from China?
Did you know that of the 94 drugs that fda considers "critical" 71% have no US source? Most comes from China with India 2nd.
And that is why we can't afford to annoy China. They could have "problems" in their pharma plants. "so sorry. No penicillin for you. Come back 2 years"
John lgb Henry
Article
https://www.packagingdigest.com/pharmaceutical-packaging/reshore-pharmaceutical-manufacturing-puerto-rico
John lgb Henry
Article
https://www.packagingdigest.com/pharmaceutical-packaging/reshore-pharmaceutical-manufacturing-puerto-rico
John lgb Henry
@ Professor Althouse
IIRC you have an E-bike. I was considering getting one myself. As an E-bike owner, has this fire hazard issue been a concern of yours? Do you ever worry about a battery fire happening when you're away? If you're not concerned, why not? Are there steps you have taken to mitigate the hazard that give you peace of mind?
13 deaths, some by culpable stupidity, is not a large problem for a city the size of New York. The total number of deaths in Q1 from all fires in NY City was 45.
Every child and most adults could benefit from watching a video of how to put out a grease fire in a pan, and how to get the hell away from runaway lithium batteries.
Are the words "questionable origin" there to avoid naming a foreign country?
Well no. The Chinese can make perfectly safe and serviceable lithium ion batteries (the batteries and tools for my Ryobi One + are made in China and are UL and CE--the European Equivalent--certified).
Unfortunately, because of lack of regulation, fly-by-night manufacturers and recyclers are selling cheap batteries and charging stations that tend to explode.
But most of your commenters want less safety regulations, not more. You know, Freedom and Liberty.
"We should not lower our standards and risk our safety for cheaper products."
A comment by someone with no interest in or understanding of basic economics. Levels of risk vs. impact on efficiency is a topic that fans of regulatory systems rarely pay attention to, but it's always present -- the ubiquitous speed limits are a case in point (a speed limit of 10 MPH would drastically lower the risk of highway accidents, but would also be hugely inefficient). Life is full of compromises like that. Not a surprise that the comment showed up on the NYT website.
As more and more larger Lithium Ion battery powered devices come online, the risk of battery fires are going way up. The insurance industry is going to have to raise insurance premiums for home, auto, and renters insurance to the point where is it worth it for someone to be able to afford the property insurance. The manufacturers of the batteries are going to at least need to program the software of the charging unit to cut off the charging after it hits a certain threshold of charge to cut down on the chance of a fire. I would be very wary of charging and storing an EV in my attached garage until these systems are made safer.
To me, the Biden Administration is turning a blind eye to the fire dangers of Li-ion batteries because this gets in the way of their head long rush into “green” energy. If there were any other product with this type of safety issue, they would be all over it to either shut it down or heavily regulate it. This, along with the recent unexplained deaths of whales (remember the environmentalists’ battle cry of “Save the Whales” from the 1970’s and 1980’s? I do.) and other marine animals that appear to be related to offshore wind turbine farms, means for the greenies “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” for the not-so-green technology that they are pushing at all costs.
So how much CO2 is saved by vehicles powered by lithium-ion batteries versus how much is released by the fires they cause?
For me, the more than one hundred thousand Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities being subjected to forced labor in China* is reason enough not to buy anything from China. That, and the lack o quality control and the profits supporting the CCP come in at a close second and third.
It's really easy not buying Chinese products. I have yet to find anything they make that you can't source from another country.
* Do you think a hundred years from now that Chinawood (Hengdian World Studios, the largest film studio in China) will be cranking out at least one Uyghur slave movie a year like Hollywood does here in America? Highly doubtful.
Ordinarily, something which kills people is a big deal. What am I missing?
I think that Trek makes some of its ebike batteries in China. It's not the country of origin that makes the difference; it's quality control and certification
https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/ebike_faq/
"a blaze that started in an e-bike store"
A lot of irony in that.
“ IIRC you have an E-bike. I was considering getting one myself. As an E-bike owner, has this fire hazard issue been a concern of yours? Do you ever worry about a battery fire happening when you're away? If you're not concerned, why not? Are there steps you have taken to mitigate the hazard that give you peace of mind?”
Yes, I do worry. I do think the manufacturer of the battery, Bosch, is high quality.
I see Freder is tiptoeing back in after his latest faceplant.
Does Bosch actually make the battery or do they have someone else make it and put the Bosch name on it?
More importantly, is it UL certified?
I have no idea about either. You'll need to check the label on the battery
John lgb Henry
Even carefully manufactured large batteries present a higher fire risk if used properly, more so when severely heated or deliberately damaged. 13 people in one city in one year is just a start. Larger sacrifices willl be needed for the green transition.
Yes, I do worry. I do think the manufacturer of the battery, Bosch, is high quality.
Apparently, they make various fire-proof charging/storage bags and boxes for E-bike and other lithium-ion batteries. A little research regarding specs and which products meet them would be necessary. Looks like they don't cost very much. Available through the Althouse portal.
Another tip I saw that makes sense is to plug your charger into a shut-off timer so if the charger fails to shut off when the battery is fully charged, the timer will act as a back up. Many of these fires occur due to overcharging.
When I bought batteries for my telescopes, which are necessarily stored in the house, I did a lot of research as to battery chemistry. One reason I went with lithium iron phosphate is its greater stability vis a vis fire.
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