EV batteries. Well this is interesting..yikes

crunchman

elstoof said:

They have a habit of catching fire because there is currently no way to buy an e-scooter that has a CE mark. If/when that changes they will review the policy

I doubt that will change things much.  You can get legal electric bikes, but there are very large numbers of illegal e-bikes on the roads.

People aren't generally going to want to take e-bikes on the Tube anyway, so that's a bit of a moot point.  It's quicker to use it as a bike.  The last 5 offices I've worked at in London have all been quicker to cycle to (without any electrical assistance) than get public transport.

elstoof

Plenty of people take their folding bikes, electric or otherwise, on public transport, and they’re welcome to provided it meets legislation. Illegally modified bikes arent strictly allowed in public so shouldn’t be on the tube either

DuploLicks

I think the bigger conversation is around the wider risk of poisonous gasses, explosions and shoddy/lack of QA on batteries getting churned out in China making their way into all sorts of places like homes, public transport, shops. 

There does need to be a BSI/ISO quality standard on batteries to stop this kind of carry-on with fines for shops selling unregulated crap

S56035

How do you know if you're buying a decent or dodgy one though?

I have no idea, so when I recently got rid of all the phone/tablet chargers in the house I bought them from Argos rather than Amazon as at least then, if one goes tits up at least there's a shop I can rant at. Amazon is more and more like eBay lately.

S56035

DuploLicks said:

I think the bigger conversation is around the wider risk of poisonous gasses, explosions and shoddy/lack of QA on batteries getting churned out in China making their way into all sorts of places like homes, public transport, shops. 

There does need to be a BSI/ISO quality standard on batteries to stop this kind of carry-on with fines for shops selling unregulated crap

I can't believe there isn't already. I'd assumed there must be like to be honest.

FastEddie

DuploLicks said:

I think the bigger conversation is around the wider risk of poisonous gasses, explosions and shoddy/lack of QA on batteries getting churned out in China making their way into all sorts of places like homes, public transport, shops. 

There does need to be a BSI/ISO quality standard on batteries to stop this kind of carry-on with fines for shops selling unregulated crap

The answer is to get rid of them all.
Terrible idea, poorly executed.

Sadly the crooked politicians have shoved these down our throats so the market is chock full of utter dross whilst their backers are coining it. 

Awful idea.

DuploLicks

S56035 said:

DuploLicks said:

There does need to be a BSI/ISO quality standard on batteries to stop this kind of carry-on with fines for shops selling unregulated crap

I can't believe there isn't already. I'd assumed there must be like to be honest.

If there is then it needs to be enforced. My feeling is unchecked, unregulated products are flooding the market through eCommerce sites. As mentioned above, at least buying from Argos gives you an accountable business. Some random shop on Amazon or eBay is not going to get dragged to court because your house had a fire in it thanks to a shonky battery. 

tone1

https://youtu.be/AIXTP-TgPEw?si=9VTTPc_qZFqtP4W7

chris78

Thank fuck petrol isn’t a highly flammable substance and petrol stations don’t go up in flames

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/maidstone/news/van-inferno-at-petrol-station-278657/

or cars

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/live-union-street-closed-after-9078988

STOP LISTENING TO OIL INDUSTRY PROPAGANDA

goldtop

^ The channel posted by the OP is pure clickbait-for-reactionaries. (Take a look at MGUY's video list; he can't monetise nuance or balance, so...)

I really don't know why otherwise sane people have to be nutso-pro/anti during this ICE -> EV transition. It's going to happen, and there are new risks and new opportunities. It is not unproblematic - the tech, the infrastructure, the second-life safety (which is that Prof's area - all have significant challenges.

TTony

goldtop said:

I really don't know why otherwise sane people have to be nutso-pro/anti during this IEC -> EV transition. 

That's the bit that I find disappointing really.

It's like Brexit / Covid jabs / etc all over again.

Our lives - and the planet - would be a lot better off if we could have a calm, reasoned, informed, educated and intelligent debate in which different views are heard and discussed, rather than being shouted down because they're at odds with whatever someone else last watched on a SM channel.

But then SM channels and "calm, reasoned, informed, educated and intelligent" don't often go together.

Chalky

chris78 said:

Thank fuck petrol isn’t a highly flammable substance and petrol stations don’t go up in flames

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/maidstone/news/van-inferno-at-petrol-station-278657/

or cars

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/live-union-street-closed-after-9078988

STOP LISTENING TO OIL INDUSTRY PROPAGANDA

LISTEN TO CHRIS78'S INSTEAD!

Chalky

TTony said:

goldtop said:

I really don't know why otherwise sane people have to be nutso-pro/anti during this IEC -> EV transition. 

That's the bit that I find disappointing really.

It's like Brexit / Covid jabs / etc all over again.

Our lives - and the planet - would be a lot better off if we could have a calm, reasoned, informed, educated and intelligent debate in which different views are heard and discussed, rather than being shouted down because they're at odds with whatever someone else last watched on a SM channel.

But then SM channels and "calm, reasoned, informed, educated and intelligent" don't often go together.

Very true.  But EVERYONE IS AN EXPERT ON EVERYTHING! 

And if they feel they are right, then they are! 

And if they feel VERY STRONGLY that they are right then they are even RIGHTER!!

Sanity sneaked out the backdoor at least 10 years ago....

ICBM

Gas, electricity, petrol... all very dangerous when introduced and potentially still so today - just look at what a decent quantity of gas mixed well with air plus a small spark does to a building. Normal mains electricity still regularly causes fires. Petrol and diesel vehicles catch fire. And yet we have learned to cope with the risks, by proper safety standards and regulations - even if they're sometimes ignored by online vendors. Lithium-Ion batteries are just a different challenge - it's absolutely true that they are exceptionally dangerous if they do catch fire, and effectively impossible to put out until they burn themselves out, but as already said we've already been using them on a smaller scale - but much larger numbers - for decades, and the accident rate is pretty low. (Even if occasionally very serious, right up to large cargo aircraft being brought down by them.)

Proper safety standards and enforcement of them are critical - this is one major reason why keeping e-scooters only 'semi legal' is stupid - the kind of people who buy them and use them, knowing that they're illegal to ride on a public road, probably aren't as concerned as they should be about other aspects of their legality. Bring the whole industry into a proper UK framework, regulate effectively and impose draconian penalties for importing substandard ones, and we can learn to live with them too - in any case, there's a good chance that the technology will itself be superceded within a decade or two. It's not a reason to stop the transition away from fossil fuels.

Chalky

Shouldn't this be a crossover thread with "New car ponderings"?

Danny1969

The battery problem to a large degree is caused by cost cutting. People want a battery that has a high WHr and one that can give a high current on demand  but the cells that can do this are more expensive to buy. The price difference between an Ebike  / skooter battery pack built with something like Samsung or Panasonic 8650 cells and one built with no name cells can be £200 or so and the end user won't know the difference unless they cut the pack open. It's one of the easiest things to forge. Then there's the welding. These joints need to be reliably spot welded on every single cell, at these currents even the slightest bad joint will produce a lot of heat. The actual cells need to be matched closely in their voltage and capacity otherwise they will 
discharge through their neighbours. 
Then the BMS has to be carefully implemented to ensure no cell is overcharged or allowed to drop below it's critical voltage. With Lipo batteries this is a very small range. Then all the cells have to be monitored temperature wise to cut charging current before the pack overheats. 

So it's an expensive thing to build properly but has a big profit margin for people who are willing to build it cheaply and then sell it under the guise of a quality product. 

What's really needed is for online marketplace's to take responsibility for the products they allow their sellers to list. It's their site, their name and they take a cut of the profits. They need to do more to remove dangerous goods. 

goldtop

^ +1

The company that had a battery pack banned by HMG ships with cheapo batteries instead of the Samsung. Even when the buyer asked for and paid for the Samsungs:

crunchman

Put big tariffs on good from China and make them here to decent safety standards.

Much better for the environment if things aren't shipped from the other side of the world.  They are mining lithium in Cornwall these days, probably with a 10th of the environmental damage tht is going on elsewhere in the world. Use local lithium and make the products here.  Safer and much better for the environment.

exocet

I’m in Thailand at the moment, I took an internal flight and noticed that they banned the use of “smart cases” with batteries exceeding 100 W/h. I think that equates to a 20,000 mA/h “power bank”. I’m amazed that there hasn’t been a serious airline incident involving lithium battery packs.

ThePrettyDamned

exocet said:

I’m in Thailand at the moment, I took an internal flight and noticed that they banned the use of “smart cases” with batteries exceeding 100 W/h. I think that equates to a 20,000 mA/h “power bank”. I’m amazed that there hasn’t been a serious airline incident involving lithium battery packs.

They're mostly very safe. Lithium batteries are not new. I carry one just inches from my genitals every day and I don't worry it'll explode. 

There is a counterfeit market that needs addressing, but the core tech isn't the problem.