1/29/2024 0 Comments Battery guardian![]() In the event of a battery fire, it says, “do not attempt to extinguish the fire. It warned against charging batteries while asleep, while advising people to always to use a manufacturer-approved charger and to fit smoke and heat alarms where batteries are being charged. The NFCC said that on occasion, “batteries can fail catastrophically, they can ‘explode’ and/or lead to a rapidly developing fire”. “Manufacturers must ensure their products, especially the batteries that power them, abide by product safety regulations before being placed on the market.” “All goods sold in the UK, whether online or on the high street, must meet some of the strictest safety laws in the world,” a government spokesperson said. The government’s Office for Product Safety and Standards is understood to be increasing its focus on e-bike batteries through checks at ports and by trading standards. He said it was hard to regulate the “countless” manufacturers, many from China where battery cells cost a fraction of the price of those provided by larger household-name companies in Korea, Germany and Japan. “Lithium-ion is quite an innocent material until you abuse it, but if you abuse it it is going to bite you,” he said. Jimmy Rusetm, who runs the specialist company E-Bike Batteries, said batteries could overheat and explode causing rapid fires if the wrong charging device was used and if wires in the battery management system shorted while the battery was plugged in. “Especially the one whose battery it was. “The moment we heard there was someone inside it was for all of us,” Shahadat said. Namush Shahadat, who survived east London fire. Everything happened in four or five minutes.” “Soon the whole flat was engulfed,” he said. Within seconds, “it was behaving like a rocket”, he said, describing “a spurt of white and black smoke”. He told the Guardian a courier living in the overcrowded two-bedroom flat had put the battery on to charge in a bedroom and at about 2.30am Shahadat heard it spitting. Namush Shahadat, 25, who witnessed a battery fire in east London in March as part of an incident, still under investigation, that killed Mizanur Rahman, said neither blankets nor water would extinguish the powerful chemical reaction. In January, Zurich Insurance said it had recently received a £225,000 property claim, while last year Axa paid out more than £500,000 in just two months on lithium-ion battery fire claims. Insurers have been dealing with substantial claims from e-bike fires. “ large number of fires already, we clearly have a problem.” “Some of the batteries that people get online don’t conform with UK safety regulations and people are charging them incorrectly,” he said. The Lib Dem peer Don Foster, a former government whip, is calling for a review and update of safety standards. ![]() The Bicycle Association trade body said: “Reputable e-bike suppliers conduct extensive testing to ensure that good quality e-bike batteries are extremely fire-safe and we would reassure users of good quality e-bikes that in normal use these are very safe products.”īut it added: “We are aware that some suppliers are placing products on the market which may not meet these high standards.” The UK is on course for close to one e-bike or e-scooter fire a day this year, up from just over one a week in 2020. UK fire brigades have been called out to at least 565 e-bike and e-scooter blazes since the start of 2020, according to Guardian FoI requests answered by 38 brigades. There have been 50 e-bike and scooter fires recorded in the capital already this year, half of which caused injuries, including two deaths. They are widely used by gig economy food couriers, but experts say that cheaper unregulated batteries, people using the wrong chargers and being left plugged in unattended overnight means more people are getting hurt. With e-bikes allowing riders to zip along at 15mph with minimal pedalling, sales have risen to about 165,000-a-year and account for nearly one in 10 new bikes in the UK, according to industry research.
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