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Just frightening:
At least five people were left injured after a fire broke out in an 18-storey block of flats in Hammersmith.
The incident occurred around 8:40pm on Thursday in Great Church Lane, with flames primarily affecting the fifth floor.
The London Fire Brigade (LFB) was called after the “catastrophic failure of a battery pack on a converted e-bike” that was charging and the fire centred around the fifth floor.
Firefighters rescued three adults from the fifth and sixth floors, who were subsequently taken to hospital for smoke inhalation treatment. A woman and child were also treated at the scene for smoke inhalation by London Ambulance Service.
Always worth reposting the LFB advice:
A London Fire Brigade spokesperson said: "E-bikes and e-scooters are London's fastest-growing fire risk.
"The e-bike had been converted from a normal bike. Converting pedal bikes into e-bikes using DIY kits bought online can be very dangerous.
“They can pose a higher risk of fire. Get a professional or competent person to carry out the conversion and make sure to buy a battery from a reputable seller and that it is not second-hand.”
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And another one, fortunately no-one dead, possibly one injured person, though not seriously (the article doesn't make clear whether he was injured):
“This fire is yet another example in London of the dangers e-bikes and e-scooters can pose if the battery fails catastrophically and catches fire.”
He added: “Fires involving lithium batteries, which power these vehicles, can be ferocious, producing jets of flame. The blaze is also hot enough to melt through metal. This type of fire produces a highly flammable, explosive and toxic vapour cloud which should never be inhaled.
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Thanks--article here:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-fire-electronic-bicycles-1.7285333
Two dogs dead.
Wider Canadian context:
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And another ... you guessed it. Last night in Wembley.
The ground floor, first floor, and roof space of the house were all damaged, along with two vehicles that had been parked outside.
Nobody is believed to have been injured.
It's here:
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Someone kept 1,500 Li-ion batteries in a warehouse in south-west Germany, apparently to store energy. The warehouse burned down last night and is being levelled today. The cause hasn't been officially established yet, but I'm guessing that this one probably won't have an Agatha Christie-style twist.
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It was you, wasn't it? You look way too innocent.
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More on Sofia Duarte:
An e-bike or e-scooter battery has the same amount of energy as six-hand grenades, according to the Fire Protection Agency.
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Probably a bigger potential bomb. However, people don't tend to park Teslas in stairwells and bedrooms. I imagine it's also harder to duct-tape a cheap Chinese battery to one and make it work.
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They park them under buildings though.
So they ban ebikes from public transport (not distinguishing between "proper" ones and ebay jobbies and even though this fire was in a flat while the battery was being charged) and we're down yet another mixed mode transport option. Meanwhile over in car land...
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TFL allows e-bikes on public transport but not e-scooters.
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"Alda Simoes, 47, has called for Transport for London to ban e-bikes from trains and stations in the wake of Sofia Duarte’s death in a “ferocious fire” on New Year’s Day in 2023.
The 21-year-old had gone to her boyfriend’s home on Old Kent Road from her job at a nightclub shortly before a fire started in a lithium battery power pack for an e-bike which was placed near the front door of the building to charge."
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They park them under buildings though.
Not nearly as dangerous as exploding batteries in flats. Many 60s and 70s developments/housing estates (and at least one 00s development I know) had underground/souterrain garages, where many a car was set on fire, leading to most of them to be closed over time. Those fires were generally contained within the garages without damage to the upstairs. I don't know what would happen if a battery exploded in a Tesla when non-battery fires previously may not have included Hollywood-style explosions, but at a guess the car body would contain the explosion somewhat.
Hang on, let's do a quick search. Here some people took a small Tesla starter battery inside their house (leaving the Tesla and presumably the main battery outside):
Officials say a low-voltage, lithium-ion battery from a Tesla exploded, sending heavy smoke through a North Carolina home.
Cary Police say the owners of the Tesla removed one of the batteries from the car and took it in their house to charge it Saturday. While it was being charged, the battery short-circuited, and heavy smoke was released.
Four people suffering from smoke inhalation were evacuated from the home.
The battery involved in the accident was not a large, high-voltage battery that serves as a motor for an electric vehicle, according to firefighters. It was a 12-voltage battery similar to what is used to start a gas-powered car.
https://www.wsfa.com/2024/01/30/tesla-battery-explodes-home-while-owners-try-charge-it/
And that was a small-ish battery.
On the freeway:
A Tesla car battery "spontaneously" burst into flames on a California freeway Saturday, and firefighters needed 6,000 gallons of water to put it out.
The Metro Fire Department said in a series of tweets that "nothing unusual" had occurred before the Tesla Model S became "engulfed in flames," but the agency said the car's battery cells "continued to combust" while the fire was being extinguished.
Here someone is recording all the cases:
232 confirmed cases | Fatalities Involving a Tesla Car Fire Count: 83
83 fatalities!
So they ban ebikes from public transport (not distinguishing between "proper" ones and ebay jobbies and even though this fire was in a flat while the battery was being charged) and we're down yet another mixed mode transport option. Meanwhile over in car land...
Well. As I've said elsewhere, I don't think 'micro-mobility' is beneficial (even if it's a small part of, and a consequence of, larger historical development). Its main effect is to fill the gaps between existing forms of motorisation, e.g. you used to walk to the station, now you ride your e-scooter. My impression is that the TfL ban must have reduced e-scooter usage again (I don't think I see as many of them as a couple of years ago, but may of course be wrong), in part probably because people can't leave them at stations or bus stops and can't take them on public transport. I think this is, quite simply, a good thing.
The problem has always been that the more motorised options are available, the more travel is required. It's a self-perpetuating issue, e.g. employers can close down sites and force their employees to travel further if there is public transport, integrated transportation, or the employees are quite simply forced to use their cars.
Ironically, commuting distances in larger cities, which tend to have better public transport, tend to be shorter than those for people living in smaller places--because those smaller places have probably lost their employment sites to larger ones and people need to travel overland to another, larger city--, so that public transport provision in larger cities causes more of a need to travel, not less. That's the bigger problem, and 'micro-mobility' the smaller, but it increases, and complements, the bigger problem.
(Naturally, a politician or owner of a large business will say that it's beneficial for the economy if businesses can draw on people living dispersed over a larger area, but historically cities were mainly more economically powerful because their population density was much greater over a smaller area.)
Anyway, for the above reasons, I think 'micro-mobility' makes the problem worse. Active travel, a very valuable aspect of travel, is under siege from all sorts of things including the above, and 'micro-mobility' targets mainly trips formerly made by walking or cycling--naturally, the propaganda is that it'll replace lots of car trips, but that's not the case.
I'm well aware, by the way, that individuals wanting to get from A to B don't think much about strategic transport policy, and will be caught up in and unable to escape the difficulties caused by the total disorganisation of space that individualised mass motorisation has brought about, but there you go.
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They are also, despite some overactive speculation, less common than fires in ICE vehicles.
See for example: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/mythbusting-evs/mythbusting-world-evs-are-electric-cars-susceptible-catching-fire
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You are perhaps assuming that newspapers (and other more modern media) choose stories just on the basis of where they think their public's interest lies. However, Mark Twain's view was:
"Newspapers consist of as many of their owner's opinions as his advertisers will allow him to print"
Do you think people decide to buy a particular new car because they have seen one of those full page adverts in the paper?
The same applies to the Harrods/ Al Fayed scandal.
Of course, fires are not the only EV problem, but the other faults don't get much coverage either.
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want sure to post here or on the news thread or eBay thread...
eBay to ban private e-bike sales over fire fears
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5ywq8xgkkyo
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About
Battery danger: Read this if you have an e-bike or e-scooter
Posted by
@Oliver Schick
Came here to post this:
A battery fire above Cycle Stop in West Green Road, thanks to @aggi for posting about it. It's thought the fire started above the shop and that later batteries kept there ignited, too.
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/17450044/
Fortunately no fatalities or reported injuries.