Hi, this is Hot Mike and I am Nidhi Razdan.
You must have seen the spate of reports of electric scooters catching on fire in India in the past few weeks. The incidents are a cause of concern not only for India’s fledgling auto industry, but for all those who have switched or are thinking of making the switch. Now this year the sales of electric scooters have more than doubled. But at least for some potential buyers, this fire is now making them think twice. Concerned Road and Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has now sent a warning to electric vehicle manufacturers or EV manufacturers through a series of tweets. The first was that “in the last two months several accidents involving electric two-wheelers have come to the fore. It is most unfortunate that some people lost their lives and many were injured in these incidents.”
“We have constituted an expert committee to look into these incidents and make recommendations on remedial steps,” he said. The minister had also said that the government would issue quality centric guidelines for electric vehicles. He tweeted that “heavy fines will be imposed and all defective vehicles will be ordered to be recalled if any company is negligent in its procedures”. He had also advised companies to take “advance action for immediate recall of all defective batches of vehicles”.
Now, as a result of this warning from Minister Mr. Gadkari, reports say it prompted heads of electric vehicle companies to meet the minister recently as they feared action as well as punishment. Scooters that have caught fire in India include those made by SoftBank-backed Ola Electric.
India wants electric scooters and motorbikes to account for 80% of total two-wheeler sales by 2030. At the moment they are just 2% today. The government is very keen to have these locally manufactured and is also giving many incentives to the industry for the same. But these fires have the potential to set it back for many years.
Now, the first video that went viral on social media was that of the Ola fire incident in Pune, where one of its popular black colored S1 Pro scooters was first shown emitting smoke before it caught fire on a busy road. Almost a day after the incident, another e-bike burst into flames due to an electrical short circuit accident in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore. Due to this two people died.
However, e-scooter sales are leading India’s clean mobility revolution, which is why the sector is so important. According to industry data, annual sales are expected to cross one million units by March 2023, up from 150,000 a year ago. Ola Electric, worth $5 billion, is making 1,000 scooters a day and plans to locally manufacture electric cars and battery cells.
Now EVs are powered by lithium-ion batteries that are considered safer and more efficient and lighter than their counterparts. However, these batteries are prone to fire if they are manufactured improperly. Some have attributed these fires to a combination of rising temperatures in our cities as well as the poor thermal management system of EV batteries. However, there are experts who disagree with this. For example, there is Arun Vinayak. He is the CEO and founder of Exponent Energy, a Bangalore-based startup with battery packs and charging stations. He recently wrote a blog saying that this was a misconception. An EV with a lithium-ion cell, he says, needs a few hundred degrees Celsius before it can actually fire. So while hot weather conditions and a battery’s inadequate thermal management system can negatively affect its performance and perhaps shorten its life, they do not actually cause a fire. So, this is important.
Manufacturers of most modern batteries of this type ensure that they automatically shut down at around 45-55 °C. Experts also say that 99% of battery fires are caused by short circuits leading to uncontrolled current and the only scenario in which the cells heat themselves beyond 100 degrees Celsius is a short circuit. Now, for a lithium-ion battery to ignite, you have to reach a few hundred degrees Celsius first. So no matter the outside temperature, short circuits are caused by poor cell quality, say experts, as well as shoddy battery design.
In the meantime, more importantly, here are some tips to keep yourself safe if you’re using an electric vehicle. Use only original and genuine chargers for specific battery types. Keep the batteries at room temperature and do not charge the batteries within one hour of use. It is also advisable to let the batteries cool down for some time before charging them. So use them, let it cool down before charging again. But remember to keep a gap of one hour. Protect your vehicle and battery from extreme temperatures. The battery and charger should be stored in a clean, dry and ventilated place. Avoid keeping the batteries empty or completely full. Essentially, they should be kept between 20-80%. Here’s hoping we get to the root cause of these fires soon and that they are able to stop them, but until then, here are some basic tips to keep yourself safe.