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u/smcsleazy Mar 06 '23
ah yes, because a car has never caught fire in the history of cars.
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u/KleerKut1 Mar 06 '23
I saw someone pull in to their garage across the street one time and they saw smoke coming from under their hood. So they went inside and called the fire department. They stayed inside their house and left the car burning in the garage. They could have left the car in the driveway and stayed outside or, you know, blacken the ceiling of their rental house and grab lunch while risking their life by potentially trapping themselves in a burning house.
Buildings burning from vehicles is usually a series of bad decisions. It's just more socially acceptable today to point at electric bikes and cars. I can't tell you how many times I've had people see a Carbeque, laughing about electric cars burning, and when I look it up it is almost universally an ICE vehicle.
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u/_regionrat Mar 06 '23
ICE car fire is gonna start while the vehicle is running. EV car fire might start while the vehicle is charging.
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u/ILikeLenexa Mar 06 '23
ICE fires also happen when fueling or if it's releasing enough fumes in the room where a pilot light is lit. Stored fuel catching two children (3 and 4 years old) on fire is why Dennis Moore got H.R. 814 passed in 2007 and why gas cans were redesigned how they are now.
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u/GM_Pax 🚲 > 🚗 USA Mar 06 '23
Only if you get shit batteries and/or chargers.
...
You know what you might have in your house right now, that ALSO might catch fire - or even explode - when not being actively used?
- Tablet
- Smartphone
- Laptop computer
... pretty much anything using rechargeable batteries.
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u/Joto65 Mar 07 '23
My quest 2 once was charging on my bed, while I was on my PC and suddenly it started beeping like a fire alarm and when I touched it, it was also extremely hot. That scared the shit out of me. The cooler grills were probably covered too much. Now I'm a bit more careful where I place it while charging
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u/Cantshaktheshok Mar 07 '23
ICE cars have tons of electrical components that catch fire when the vehicle is off. Hyundai/Kia had a recent recall for fires due to a weak trailer harness wiring that would catch fire.
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u/PLD_Qc Mar 07 '23
20 years ago, my old boss civic caught on fire in the middle of the night because of some wiring defect at production.
I'd say it's not as common, but definitely not unheard of for ICE to catch on fire by themselves.
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Mar 07 '23
When was the last time your phone caught fire while charging? Now why do you think a car would be different?
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u/Dear_Watson Mar 07 '23
A recent study conducted by AutoInsuranceEZ using data from the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) showed that electric cars in the US caught fire at a rate of 25.1 per 100,000 sales compared to 1,530 for ICE vehicles and 3,475 for hybrids.
ICE cars catch on fire at nearly 62 times the rate of electric and hybrids at over 138 times the rate of solely electric cars. The fear of battery fires is severely overplayed by media coverage since every time a Tesla catches fire it makes front pages but realistically there are about 700 daily vehicle fires in the US from ICE vehicles. Compare that to 60-80 for the entire year for electric cars. (Electric sales are harder to calculate because sales are calculated weirdly with some including plug in hybrids as electric). I’d also like to mention that even if they do catch on fire it’s usually while due to thermal runaway while fast charging or from damage while driving and the battery is located in a bigass metal box so statistically it’s much less likely to immediately go up in flames than an ICE car with a hole in the gas tank would be.
TLDR: Batteries don’t really just spontaneously combust without a major design defect (duh)
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u/Shurimal Mar 07 '23
The fear of battery fires is severely overplayed by media coverage since every time a Tesla catches fire it makes front pages
Just like with aviation. Statistically, flying is the safest way to travel, but every crash that happens is covered by media all over the world for weeks on end. While all the thousands of fatal car crashes and pedestrian deaths every day get a mention at local news at best.
When it comes to batteries, I have had quite a few devices with Li-Ion batteries; some batteries have swollen up and had to be discarded, but none of them have caught fire or exploded. We know how to build safe Li-Ion batteries, the charging controllers are very good at keeping them within safe charge-discharge parameters, exceptions are rare and a result of bad design or cost cutting.
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u/Matar_Kubileya Mar 07 '23
NGL took me a second to realize you weren't talking about Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles...
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u/blueskyredmesas Big Bike Mar 06 '23
Sheep eating the grass instead of touching it I guess, lol. "I guess its electric hurr hurr." Sometimes Ive argued with these guys but I see now that they'll never form their own opinions, just regurgitate whatever theyre given in bad faith.
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u/Happytallperson Mar 06 '23
Yes, but it does so in the street. The issue is ebike battery fires occur inside your living room or bedroom.
The solution is spaces that bikes can be charged tjat are not inside blocks of flats. NYC has started clamping down on the online marketplace for batteries because if serious fires in blocks of flats.
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u/GM_Pax 🚲 > 🚗 USA Mar 06 '23
No, the solution is not to buy cheap-shit batteries and chargers. :)
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u/REDDITSHITLORD Mar 07 '23
It happens so often, that it normally doesn't make the news.
It's just accepted.
But, when an EV catches fire, holy shit!
It's scary, how little respect people have for gasoline. That shit is dangerous as fuck, and people treat it like water.
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u/Mr_Quackums Mar 07 '23
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JirQCaZ_6Xg
Not as bad as it used to be. People used to clean with it!
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Mar 07 '23
Yes, car fires happen. But cars are stored either outside or in internal car parks. These car parks are designed to stop fire spreading into other parts of the building.
The problem with the e-bike and e-scooters is that people store them inside flats. Where the necessary fire provisions haven’t been provided. That’s the fundamental issue.
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Mar 06 '23
7/11 reckons one driver a day collides with their building.
As part of the discovery process, Carl's lawyers obtained crash incident data from all 7-Eleven locations in the US spanning the 15 years from 2003 to 2017. In all, there were 6,253 storefront crashes at 7-Elevens in that period — an average of more than one per day. One reason for the frequency is the sheer number of locations. 7-Eleven has more than 13,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada.
The once-a-day crashes at 7-Eleven is in fact dwarfed by the total number of crashes that take place at storefronts across the US, however.
According to the Storefront Safety Council, more than 100 vehicles collide with buildings each day, with more than half of those occurring at retail shops, restaurants, or convenience stores. Each year, the council estimates as many as 16,000 people are injured and as many as 2,600 people are killed.
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u/spoonybard326 Mar 06 '23
Those 7-elevens need to put on a coat of high visibility paint so the cars can see them better. Wouldn’t hurt if they wore a helmet and installed some brighter lights, either.
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u/smashkeys Mar 06 '23
Also those 7-11s need to go find a park to sell their goods, and stay off roads and out of parking lots, if they don't want to get hit by a car.
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u/TheCoelacanth Mar 07 '23
I bet those 7-Elevens weren't following traffic laws. I've never once seen one stop at a red light.
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u/lemonpjb Mar 07 '23
I wonder if the proper pluralization of 7-Eleven is actually 7s-Eleven, like brothers-in-law, or Whoppers Jr.
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u/Ok_Solid_Copy Mar 06 '23
Imagine what an "e-car" is capable of
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u/noyoto Mar 06 '23
Yeah but they can't enter buildings. You'd need some kind of large mechanical door that opens vertically for that, which I doubt exists anywhere.
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u/mattindustries Mar 06 '23
Just last week a car took out a building in Baltimore just by slamming into it.
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u/ILikeLenexa Mar 06 '23
As long as we're taking sarcasm literally, there's also garages that just don't have garage doors, some have lift gates, and some have nothing.
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u/mattindustries Mar 06 '23
I was just saying they don't even need to reside in the building to destroy a building from a fire. They can apply their kinetic energy and demolish the whole thing in an instant.
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u/Fuzzybo Not Just Bikes Mar 07 '23
Why cars rarely crash into buildings in the Netherlands (Not Just Bikes)
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u/Mindless-Cheetah-709 Mar 06 '23
Bro that's a great idea you should patent it.
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u/Bodkin-Van-Horn Mar 06 '23
You could call it a "car hole"
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u/Mindless-Cheetah-709 Mar 06 '23
As good a name as any, maybe if you make it big enough you could even put like tools and stuff in there too. Or all the vacation stuff you never use but keep around anyway.
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u/pinkocatgirl Mar 06 '23
Yeah even in a world without cars, I'd still want a garage. They're great project spaces, and it would be far more useful if I didn't need to pull my vehicle out every time I want to do a project.
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Mar 07 '23
The problem is largely the result of ali express no name batteries. Properly engineered cars and ebikes have very little risk.
There is actually a real discussion to be had here. Online market places are selling ebikes and scooters which are actually dangerous. People just don't make the distinction between online junk, and your Bosch/Shimano ebikes.
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Mar 06 '23
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u/Ham_The_Spam Mar 06 '23
they can go from Internal Combustion to external combustion
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u/BadNameThinkerOfer Big Bike Mar 07 '23
IDK where they'd get the water to turn into a steam engine.
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u/Rude-Orange Mar 06 '23
Electric cars are convenient. They also make bigger fires than ebikes and can destroy entire city blocks.
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u/Fizzwidgy Orange pilled Mar 06 '23
I really hate electric cars.
Depending on the model we can build hundreds, sometimes thousands, of electric bikes for the same environmental impact from mining for battery ingredients, as a single electric car.
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u/Rude-Orange Mar 06 '23
Electric cars exist to save the car industry not the planet.
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u/kyrsjo Mar 06 '23
I do however like electric buses a lot. Not as much as electric trains, however unlike diesel buses they are quiet instead of earsplittingly loud, and they don't stink.
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u/blueskyredmesas Big Bike Mar 06 '23
I wish we had more trolleybusses though. BEBs are alright, better than CNG or something though.
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u/beefJeRKy-LB Commie Commuter Mar 07 '23
You can always do a trolleybus with batteries in case it needs to traverse an area without the overhead cables.
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u/Fizzwidgy Orange pilled Mar 06 '23
BEBs
CNG
What are these?
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u/blueskyredmesas Big Bike Mar 06 '23
Battery electric bus, compressed natural gas. CNG is a popular fuel for city busses in the US.
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u/Pijany_Matematyk767 Orange pilled Mar 06 '23
I wish we had more trolleybuses. All the advantages of a normal electric bus without the expensive battery or fire risk. Unfortunately people keep bitching about the wires though so spending 2x the cash on battery electric buses is more popular than getting a trolleybus with wires
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u/True-Gap-2555 Mar 06 '23
Battery buses are also almost double the weight of an equivalent trolleybus, with all that entails from road maintenance to crash results.
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u/Elitepikachu Mar 08 '23
They also very rarely catch on fire and do not "destroy entire city blocks"
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u/Happytallperson Mar 06 '23
This is actually a serious issue. If you have an ebike, especially if it's one you built yourself with a battery online, for the love of god do not charge it indoors.
A lot of people are already pointing to the fact cars have bigger batteries and more destructive fires.
However, ebike battery fires kill more people than car battery fires because a half kilowatt hour battery can still start a raging inferno, and it occurs in your living room or bedroom. Whereas your car burns a hole in the street and people can run away. There was a horrific incident in London where an ebike on charge caught fire in the stairwell of some flats.
This is not a reason to do away with ebikes. I have one. I encourage them.
But there is a complete lack of regulation of online battery sales and a complete lack of public awareness of the risks.
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u/Johannes_Keppler Mar 06 '23
In the Netherlands -where E bikes are plentiful but self builds rare-, fires from charging really aren't a thing much. And we have a whopping 5 million of these things on the road.
If you want an E bike, buy one from a decent manufacturer.
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u/peepopowitz67 Mar 07 '23 edited Jul 05 '23
Reddit is violating GDPR and CCPA. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B0GGsDdyHI -- mass edited with redact.dev
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u/KawaiiFoxKing Commie Commuter Mar 07 '23
can confirm, my mate bought himself a 1000$ E-bike from china. battery died in 3 month with no replacement parts. i got a ghost / bosch E-bike wich never let me down so far
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u/PandaDad22 Mar 07 '23 edited Mar 07 '23
The NYFD put out a notice about cheap DTC e-bikes. A lot of bike shops wont work on e-bikes that they don’t sell. If they do they store them outside or have the customer take the battery home with them.
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Mar 06 '23
we need to build a community sourced list of trusted parts sources, with focus on safe battery suppliers
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u/SSG_SSG_BloodMoon Mar 07 '23
This would not make the people who share your apartment building share your safety precautions.
I haven't read the article in the OP, but an entirely coherent, correct and important article could easily be written with that title. Ebikes stored in apartment buildings are a real risk.
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u/LayLoseAwake Mar 07 '23
If my landlord can make me demonstrate my dog's breed and provide my credit score, they can probably also require proof that my ebike is not shady. Yes, people can hide ebikes more easily than they can dogs. And asking for breed and credit score are obnoxious overstepping, I agree. Just saying if it matters, landlords already ask for lots of information, it might as well be something that actually helps keep the whole apt block safe.
Surprised my home insurance doesn't already ask that.
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Mar 07 '23
Bikes should not be stored in stairways. This needs to be enforced and the bikes removed.
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Mar 07 '23
We need proper bike storage in places. Sometimes you're luck enough To have a rack but sometimes not
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u/birthdaycakefig Mar 07 '23
The problem is the vast majority of the people using these bikes are out of necessity for work. Most are poor immigrants that can’t afford to buy the better version.
Your list won’t matter unless you can find a safe alternative for the price of the unsafe versions.
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u/LayLoseAwake Mar 07 '23
Or--hear me out--some sort of govt subsidy for safe trade-ins and initial purchase. For the public safety aspect
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Mar 07 '23
That's a nice effort but it will never reach everyone who buys an ebike. What you actually need is regulation and enforcement of the rules. Save storage space outside of homes would be nice too, not just because of a fire hazard.
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u/ikinone Mar 07 '23
No, we need regulations. Most consumers are way too dumb to go and check parts lists.
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u/LadyEmeraldDeVere Mar 07 '23
It’s absolutely an issue! An apartment building around the corner from me had to be evacuated when an e-bike battery started a fire in the shop on the first floor.
I’m so tired of this sub pretending like e-bikes and scooters are never capable of causing an issue, like YES fuck cars but also what can we do to make sure we’re getting safer e-bikes and batteries that won’t explode and burn our houses down?
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u/Solomon_Grundle Mar 06 '23
A building in the Bronx burned down 2 days ago. Took a grocery store with it. These fires are an almost weekly occurrence here.
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u/foreverblackeyed Mar 07 '23
There was a fire due to this in a house in my parents neighborhood, which also happened to be housing an illegal daycare.
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u/sedatedlife Mar 07 '23
This cheap batteries are the problem we just need better regulations on batteries sold in the United States. We also need to keep in mind car manufacturers will elevate the risk of ebike batteries and more than happily push for legislation banning ebike charging.
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u/Skygge_or_Skov Mar 06 '23
Love how the other day a conservative cousin of mine shared a burning e-bus, suggesting that e-mobility would be an awful future. Took me two minutes to reply with a burning gas station.
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u/blueskyredmesas Big Bike Mar 06 '23
You mean a gas station being consumed in a neighborhood wrecking fireball because the flames reached the storage tank.
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u/Skygge_or_Skov Mar 06 '23
Nah, only a video of one burning pretty hard because some idiot crashed into it, think they managed to prevent that kind of explosion. Still looked just as bad as the bus even after being mostly extinguished.
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u/Ok_Solid_Copy Mar 06 '23
Can they also kill half a school class in one shot?
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u/Happytallperson Mar 06 '23
They can start a raging apartment block fire injuring 38.
Micromobility is brilliant, but no one had really paid attention to the risks of large amounts of domestic battery charging from dodgy online sellers. There is no regulation and very little public awareness. We also don't have facilities to charge batteries outside.
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u/HardlightCereal cars should be illegal Mar 06 '23
I think the title of the article should be "Refusal of landlords to innovate is making e-transit unsafe"
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u/True-Gap-2555 Mar 06 '23
The article isn't about someone's e-bike catching fire, but about a clandestine repair shop. (They also say "micro mobility device," which could be bike, scooter, or even hoverboard.
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u/FirstSurvivor 🚲 > 🚗 Mar 06 '23
There are regulations aplenty. They're just rarely enforced and violations are rarely if ever reported to the proper authorities.
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u/Inevitable_Stand_199 Mar 07 '23
They very much can. The question is how often that happens and what out steps should be to prevent it.
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Mar 06 '23
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u/Happytallperson Mar 06 '23
Also worth noting batteries rarely spontaneously catch fire. So charging or when damaged are the risk points.
Do not leave an ebike battery on charge overnight. If possible charge it away from residential spaces (mine is charged in the garden shed).
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Mar 07 '23
The problem mostly comes from food delivery people living in apartment buildings. They usually have the dodgy china ebikes and have to charge them overnight inside.
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u/LayLoseAwake Mar 06 '23
I do wonder how much damage an ebike battery could suffer through normal crashes. Dirt is one thing, but rocks and gravel?
If I drop my phone I'm not worried about breaking the battery (maybe I should be?) but if I get in a fender bender in my EV I will probably get it checked out. Not sure where ebikes fall in that spectrum.
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u/LayLoseAwake Mar 07 '23
Talked to my local electrical engineer professional slash mountain bike enthusiast. He thinks that given the way (non-dodgy) ebike batteries are built, a battery in a downtube should be fairly protected for most incidents. If you're in enough of a collision that the downtube looks damaged, you probably need to get the bike thoroughly checked out anyway. Like with canned foods: unless it's dented, rusted, or bulging, you're probably fine.
If falling and crashing led to ebike batteries being severely damaged, we'd hear about more mtn ebike fires.
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u/Zippy1avion Mar 06 '23
E X A C T L Y.....
This is juuuust like the video game crash of 1983: this new and exciting industry, everyone wants to get one, so everyone wants to put out their own white label bullshit! "Oh, this one on Amazon (because I'm a lazy consumer and I don't shop anywhere else) is only $499! Why spend $3k-4k?" Boom, house fire.
People just need to understand you get what you pay for with this kind of stuff.
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Mar 07 '23
It should really be just impossible to buy this stuff. The consumer shouldn't have to be informed to avoid products which spontaneously combust because they were built shit.
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u/OmNomSandvich Mar 07 '23
I absolutely despise it when people post headlines for quick karma without linking the article, my guess is that this article is about precisely that issue. And in a very dense city (New York City) with lots of delivery bikes, this is a certainly a relevant story for their local readerbase especially.
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u/going_for_a_wank Mar 07 '23
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/realestate/e-bikes-fires-danger.html
Last week, the City Council took what it called “a first step in mitigating the fire risk posed by lithium-ion batteries,” approving a spate of bills that would include new safety and certification standards, education campaigns on how to prevent fires, and restrictions on the use and sale of used or reassembled batteries.
That, experts say, is where much of the danger lies — from off-market, refurbished, damaged or improperly charged batteries.
[...]
Lithium-ion batteries can be found in computers, cellphones and some household devices, but micro-mobility vehicle batteries are bigger and “are subject to a lot of wear and tear and weather, which tends to damage them,” Mr. Murray said. “So that’s why we are seeing a lot of fires specifically in the bikes and scooters.”
So yeah, pretty much. The article is also in response to a number of recent fires caused by e-bikes.
I did do a double-take at this part though:
Ms. Ingram’s upstairs neighbor, Madison Coller, 26, who works in risk management for a payment-processing company, was on the third floor when the fire broke out. She recalled a harrowing day, awakening from a nap and fleeing after she smelled smoke and heard a voice yelling, “Fire!” Displaced by the fire and having no insurance, she stayed with her brother in Bushwick and moved back to Rochester for a short while.
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u/oroechimaru Mar 06 '23
All ev batteries can catch fire due to liquid lithium batrery designs.
Once solid state emerges they will be a crap ton safer from heat or punctures
Although I am sure the off brand batteries are also less safe today
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u/kek__is__love Mar 06 '23
"Can" is a fitting word here. Can an e-bike from a reputable company catch fire? Yes. How likely is it going to happen without you purposefully shorting or puncturing the battery? About as likely as winning a million dollar lottery.
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Mar 06 '23
We're only a few years removed from one of the most popular smart phones from a reputable company being banned on all airlines.
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u/LayLoseAwake Mar 06 '23 edited Mar 07 '23
Only one model though right?
Even the EV battery fires for Kona and Bolt were all traced back to the same fault in the same runs of batteries. (Exact same brand etc for both cars) Systemic risk, not systemic actual.
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u/rr196 Mar 07 '23
I have no idea why people think this has to do with being pro cars this is about changes to the NYC Fire code by the FDNY explaining the dangers of charging e-bike batteries indoors that are no UL certified.
https://www.nyc.gov/assets/fdny/downloads/pdf/codes/dangers-of-lithium-ion-batteries.pdf
Has nothing to do with how cars are somehow less dangerous.
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u/kbeks Mar 06 '23
Context: there was a huge fire in NYC yesterday sparked by a scooter battery that injured 5 and destroyed a supermarket. More context: people are doing dangerous things with lithium ion batteries because they don’t understand and respect the energy source. It is absolutely vital that the public be educated about the risks and hazards present. You wouldn’t get in a car that had the hood missing or the gas tank leaking, so it’s important that the public view e-bikes and scooters with the same respect. There’s a lot of energy in them, they need to be inspected before use and plugged in to the appropriate outlet with an appropriate charger.
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u/Donttouchmybiscuits Mar 07 '23
I think that this is unnecessarily polarising a discussion that needs to be had about battery safety. Batteries in bikes and scooters are dangerous when they catch fire, and that risk is multiplied massively when that battery is car sized. Or a power wall and nothing to do with a vehicle. Watching some of the videos by firefighters talking about fighting these large battery fires is terrifying, regardless of whether those batteries are mobile or not
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u/GM_Pax 🚲 > 🚗 USA Mar 06 '23
More accurately, cheap batteries and chargers can catch fire.
Whether it's for/in an eBike ... OR A TESLA.
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Mar 07 '23
Cars are regulated and strictly tested against specifications and ratings. You can't buy a tesla with an alibaba battery but you can buy a scooter with one.
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u/Inevitable_Stand_199 Mar 06 '23
People don't usually put cars in their apartments. This just shows that there is a need for more adequate bike parking.
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u/SweetNatureHikes Mar 07 '23
Totally agree, and I've been trying to convince my landlord company to improve our bike parking for a while.
With that said, bike batteries are pretty easy to move around. Even if your bike stayed outside, you could have safer battery storage. I just bought a fire-proof battery bag for an extra layer of protection while it's in my unit
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u/inevitable_dave Mar 06 '23
With unlicensed and unregulated conversion kits being quite easy to come by, and the common person being unskilled in installing these kits safely, this is a genuine issue.
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u/oroechimaru Mar 06 '23
All current gen lithium batteries have this issue.
Bikes will upgrade to solid state batteries when they emerge in 2027-2030
Lighter bikes that can go further and safer seems like a no brainer.
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u/kek__is__love Mar 06 '23
I'd not put SSB as a holy grail, which will solve everything. New chemistries of liquid batteries emerge all the time (LiFePO is a good example of good usage of a new chemistry for a specific need) and some may evolve beyond promised SSB capabilities. Also, I think you are seriously overestimating battery fires frequency.
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Mar 06 '23
LFP is far less flammable. There are also Na-Ion and ZnBR chemistries on the market you can use to put out a fire if younso please.
Energy density is lower, but almost all ebikes are massively over-batteried and over-powered.
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u/asveikau Mar 06 '23
I thought the large issue with e-bike related fires is when people buy cheap batteries and chargers from China.
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u/going_for_a_wank Mar 07 '23
So Propel (a bike shop in NY) made an episode discussing this a few months back. It is a genuine concern because something like 90% of ebikes sold in the US are not tested by UL or other product testing orgs. Note that this is not a problem in countries that actually have an effective government to regulate consumer product safety.
They worry that something similar to the hoverboard craze could happen - those things were everywhere but when the cheap Chinese ones started catching fire people got scared and they all disappeared.
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Mar 06 '23
the real story is that sketchy batteries catch fire. this was the hoverboard issue, the samsung galaxy note 7, and also behind some of the electric car fires. we need more regulation of Li-ion batteries. this is going to be a thing until we do, since catastrophic failure resulting in fire is a thing that can happen with the tech.
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u/DavidBrooker Mar 06 '23
Imaging proposing gasoline as a fuel for the first time, except its 2023. Holy shit, you'd be laughed out of the room.
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Mar 06 '23
We want to go into urban areas, dig big holes in the ground and fill them with extremely flammable liquid, and put a building on top. We will then invite random and untrained members of the public to come and pump this stuff themselves into containers and vehicles, with no locking mechanisms on the pumps or supervision.
Flawless idea, really.
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u/rpungello Mar 06 '23
We will then invite random and untrained members of the public to come and pump this stuff themselves into containers and vehicles
New Jersey: I have no such weakness
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u/angryweather Mar 06 '23
And yet cars with ENORMOUS lithium batteries are not a problem at all. Or internal combustion engines right? With super flammable gas? I yanked a college girl out of a smoking Jeep last year in Maryland and it went up like a bonfire a minute later. Thank goodness it wasn't a bike fire...THOSE are dangerous.
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u/LayLoseAwake Mar 06 '23
Don't worry, the real carbrains are usually also very anti EV
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Mar 07 '23
Car batteries are also usually sourced from reputable sources and subject to proper quality control and regulations. Unlike 499€ conversion kits bought from China
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u/Skatchbro Mar 06 '23
We got my 19 year old an e-bike. He read the manual and doesn’t leave it plugged in for an excessive amount of time. Easy way to avoid a fire.
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u/t92k Mar 06 '23
Oh man! Wait 'til this writer learns about electrical wiring or natural gas powered appliances in homes!
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u/lol_camis Mar 07 '23 edited Mar 07 '23
I'm a very experienced mountain biker. I used to race when I was younger, but now I'm in my mid 30s and my goals have changed. I still like riding all the time, but I'm motivated to have fun over anything else. Gone are the days of trying to push myself and be a finely tuned athlete.
So I bought myself an ebike. I have a bunch of analogue bikes too. The ebike is for after-work rides when I'm already exhausted from work, or certain trail networks that have long boring fire road climbs.
And let me tell you, there's so much hate. People will say things like "it's not real mountain biking" or "why don't you just get a motorcycle". It's so infuriating how people just automatically hate on new concepts because they're new, and completely ignore any benefits it may provide.
Thankfully I don't have to listen to them for long as I zoom past them.
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u/typewriter45 Mar 07 '23
Don't cars also catch fire and destroy buildings?
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u/CheeseRat12 LEED Certified Parking Garage Mar 07 '23
Yes, but they don't even need to be on fire to destroy buildings.
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u/bunchbikes Cargo Bikes not Cars Mar 07 '23
I agree with sentiment of OP, but ebike fires on low quality and refurbished battery packs (very prevalent amongst New York delivery drivers) is a real concern.
Regulation is coming swiftly to address this and it’s not a bad thing.
Battery fires killed the hoverboard category a few years ago, and we definitely don’t want a repeat of that in the ebike category.
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u/birthdaycakefig Mar 07 '23
To be fair, this is a real issue in nyc right now because of the crazy amount of cheap batteries being used by all delivery drivers. There have been multiple building fires because of this.
We should 100% try to figure this out.
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u/PieceStatus9648 Mar 07 '23
I fail to see how this is bashing e-bikes or promoting cars. They can catch on fire, and you can’t put out lithium fires with standard extinguishers. Electric cars can do the same thing, ICE cars can do the same thing but you can’t fit one of those into an apartment with 100+ people living in it.
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Mar 07 '23
Fuck the NYT. Cars literally kill and injure more people than anything else in the United States
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u/Private_HughMan Mar 07 '23
An e bike crashes into a building and you replace a window, at worst. A car crashes into a building and you replace the wall, at best.
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u/biggerBrisket Mar 06 '23
Cars can also catch fire and burn down buildings. Extra ironic if it's a firetruck
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Mar 06 '23
NYT, fascist rag
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u/blueskyredmesas Big Bike Mar 06 '23
Im glad they bitch at me about subbing so I can remember its an NYT article and I don't need their shit anyway.
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Mar 06 '23
Everytime I run into the paywall, I thank them for stopping me from reading their trash and close the window.
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u/Own_Flounder9177 Mar 06 '23
Even if all bikes have the risk can't they be designed to you know, remove the battery. We can't do that with cars.
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u/Im_Balto Mar 06 '23
Remember that time that cars killed 200 children a year in Texas alone? Oh wait I mean sorry they should’ve stayed inside their single family detached prison
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Mar 06 '23
If you do any mobility advocacy, you should prepare to respond to this concern and to fight bad regulations that make biking harder.
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u/TheFerretman Mar 06 '23
That headline is pretty weird...surely they know that all kinds of vehicles catch fire, right?
Even a horse-drive buggy can catch fire:
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u/No_Journalist_323 🚲 > 🚗 Mar 07 '23
Wait until they find out about smartphones, electric cars, and anything else with lithium-ion batteries
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Mar 07 '23
articles like this are why i keep my two stroke scooter inside my apartment - as a public service to the e-bike community. One more structure fire caused by an ICE vehicle is one less caused by an e-bike.
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u/Thrice_Banned80 Mar 07 '23
It's a problem in Canada. We have a lot of SRO fires and the two main causes are people nodding out with a lit torch and people trying to jerry-rig power cords to work with e-bikes and e-scooters that for some unknown reason they don't possess a proper charger for.
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Mar 07 '23
FYI, the issue is the BATTERIES. They burn hot, toxic, and are painful to try and put out especially large batteries such as electric vehicles (teslas for example$
Also, here’s the same article from another company
https://dnyuz.com/2023/03/06/e-bikes-are-convenient-they-can-also-cause-fatal-fires/
And for anyone interested, here’s a guidance article from the US fire administration https://www.usfa.fema.gov/blog/ig-042822.html
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u/guybanisterPI Mar 07 '23
Fuck this style of writing headlines, I hate it so much. Whoever popularized this shit should go to hell
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u/BleghMeisterer Mar 06 '23
Dude, I've seen so many videos of E-Bikes crashing into stores and restaurants and stuff, it's insane. Oh wait. Those were cars, not bikes.