E-bike fires reach record high

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Full-Part2427@reddit

Number of bowel movements per day hits record high just as the population does.

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Prestigious-Royal-82@reddit

Any literature or Videos, I trust but I also verify!!!!

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chewee0035@reddit

That almost lines up with there being record numbers of e-bikes out in the world…

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Winter_Bullfrog_2343@reddit

Especially the amount of cheap Chinese garbage people buy off of amazon

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4ctionHank@reddit

Cheap Chinese shit as if they send their best to America 🤣

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bhtooefr@reddit

I mean, given that there's been recent incentives in China to replace lithium ion e-bikes with lead acid (you read the direction right), they're not using their best there, either.

Of course, I'm pretty sure their "best" is being put into cars and motorcycles now.

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I'm not surprised. 6v lead acid gives more capacity than 12. So for them, if it comes down to mfg cost vs run time, I could see them doing it. 6v used to be used on sailboats much more than today for the capacity reason. Even if the end result was 48v, they got more capacity from using 6v batteries. What would be cool to see though is a much bigger revival of Edison batteries. There is a bit of hope too

UCLA Research (2026): Researchers have developed a modernized version of the nickel-iron battery using nanotechnology (graphene and protein-guided metal clusters). This new prototype can charge in seconds rather than hours and holds a charge for 12,000+ cycles, aiming to bridge the gap between Edison's durable design and the need for fast-charging technology.

I hope this takes off. Imagine a battery, though heavy, capable of easily going 100 miles and recharges in just a minute. Weight then starts to mean a bit less. Sorry for rambling. I'm sure China is only looking at cost to mfg vs profit but I guess we can always hope, right? We use lifepo on our houseboat but if I could afford Edison batteries I would probably have went that route. When we bought it though it had 6 banks of 6v x 8s(6 48v banks) divided by 3 sections of the boat. (8s2p essentialy=530ah capacity) That's 1590 ah capacity for 3 "48v" batteries. That's a whole lot of power. That's roughly $2500 bucks per 48v 530ah of power. Half the price as lifepo? Not a bad deal. In ebikes it would be too heavy being lead acid. I just thought people would find it interesting what old 6v lead acid batteries can do

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stormdelta@reddit

China makes good stuff too, it just costs more like with stuff made anywhere else.

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whoopdedoo0@reddit

Actually, there a was study shown somewhere that ebike conversions or self builds had the highest rate of fires more that anything.

As someone who is all for self conversions, I thought that was an interesting aspect to know about.

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BXRunner@reddit

Not surprised. I actually got a 48v 10Ah battery yesterday that I'm most likely going to tear down. I'll make a video for it if anyone's interested on what's inside these packs.

The pack says 15A discharge with 60A peak... That's a crazy difference.. Even when building, we never go 4x continuous for "peak" numbers. Peak is usually two maybe three times the continuous. Depending on what they "consider" peak, that pack will more than likely end up in a fire if not handled properly at 60A.

This is a mass manufactured pack as well that comes with many bikes, not some pack that was built in someone's basement.

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smccu57@reddit

Heck yeah man I’d watch that!! Gimme gimme that industry knowledge

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Bermnerfs@reddit

Honestly, the pack built in someone's basement will probably be better as long as they are knowledgeable and use high quality parts. Id much rather buy a pack from a skilled hobbyist who does this as a side gig vs a shady company that mass produces packs as cheaply as possible to maximize profit.

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stormdelta@reddit

I've seen too many hobbyists who greatly overestimate their own skill level, so unless I know them IRL I still wouldn't trust them very far.

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BXRunner@reddit

I can tell you now, those basement batteries I'm talking about is the same blue batteries on Amazon, Temu, ect. and they do not have good quality. I'm not talking about going to a reputable builder because that's actually your best bet where they could provide build photos for proof.

When your building to make a profit, you cut costs to make money. There's a reason why a lot of these "Storefronts" on Amazon that sells these packs are literally random letters for a name. They aren't going to take liability for their shoddy work and they'll just change names later once the pack fails.

A good rule of thumb is to just ask the build composition for the battery. If the store cannot provide and just say "high grade cells", steer away.

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bhtooefr@reddit

Another thing with the random letters is Amazon's policy on creating storefronts - they want trademarks, so these fly-by-night importers have to come up with names that are trademarkable. Easiest way to do that is random or near-random strings.

(This has also been effectively DDoSing the USPTO...)

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stormdelta@reddit

Self-builds as in DIY from kits, or self-builds as in people who build their own batteries? Because I'd absolutely believe the latter. Just because someone knows how to solder a circuit together doesn't mean they understand the failure modes of larger li-ion battery packs.

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nivaOne@reddit

Probably true. I once saw a study that over 50% of the what we call quality batteries were actually very poorly designed and pose a big risk ! And another study that the most economical ones were actually very good and safe. So many studies out there. If somebody has a link to a study regarding the quality of the studies, please let me know. Thank you in advance.

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BWWFC@reddit

causality fallacy!
so anyway... what's the cheapest most powerful ebike AND how disable speed limiter w/diy battery from used vapes?

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ozimarco@reddit

When you buy a quality ebike from a reputable company like Kalkhoff or Gazelle, you can be confident your battery isn't going to catch fire. Buy cheap rubbish, and risk your life and your house.

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Light_Butterfly@reddit

DO NOT LEAVE A BATTERY PLUGGED IN OVERNIGHT OR UNATTENDED, ALWAYS UNPLUG AS SOON AS ITS DONE CHARGING!

Reduces risk of fire.

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Hortos@reddit

It’s not 2018 anymore bikes almost universally have BMS now.

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Dook23@reddit

BMS won’t save a battery though if the owner doesn’t follow proper battery storage, use, and charging methods. People often damage their batteries without even knowing it just by simple mistakes like immediately throwing them on the charger after an extremely long ride that fully drained it and/or taxed the battery.

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Anatharias@reddit

how can I protect my home from such fire hazard, given I have two e-bikes that I've converted myself with batteries bought on Amazon (Samsung cells)...

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Azzura68@reddit

I wonder how many were stolen and they figured any old charger will be fine as long as it plugs into the hole.

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DeadHeadDaddio@reddit

A lot of them are burning up while riding.

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maluket@reddit

Most of the time, what fails is the charger, not the battery.

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abnormalmob@reddit

40k deaths a year by cars in the us btw

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Neat_Address221@reddit

Stupid

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SpacecraftBathtub@reddit

Cars good, ebikes are bad mkay?

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slow_marathon@reddit (OP)

Yes, the article claims only 432 ebike fires for a country with 60 million people. I just read the article as buyer beware when buying from Amazon and other online platforms.

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snoogins355@reddit

They're not going to insult their advertisers with the car ads showing speed, smiles and no traffic

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Cargobiker530@reddit

And between 2-5 million injuries requiring ER visits or medical care yearly. Most of us know several people injured in auto accidents. Commuter train rides....are safer than being in your own bathroom.

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RodsofGod2350@reddit

Call me crazy but I am that dude who is monitoring the battery with a multimeter till it reaches 85 to 90 percent and try to drain it to 30 percent max.. Do you?

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dudewheresmyebike@reddit

Could you let me know more about this. I’d like to start this too.

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Spiritual-Chameleon@reddit

Do they have data on certified batteries versus non-certified?

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slow_marathon@reddit (OP)

They did not share it, however this comment surprised me "There’s also a growing black market in DIY and counterfeit batteries, particularly for delivery riders"

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paxtana@reddit

My favorite part was where they claim the 'black market batteries' causing these fires are made from old vapes.

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nivaOne@reddit

e-bikes have been a way to save the bike market starting 12 something years ago. European bike sales had been in the hands of a couple of multinationals. And bike resellers had to make money too. FYI, uplifts are over 100%, importers to bike shops (imagine the same with cars).

One can sell anything at prices the market is prepared to pay for it. A normal bike costs around 400 - 600 euro. Add a battery, an engine and a little controller and all of a sudden it costs around 2500 Euro and often a lot more. Looking at the real cost of these components one soon realises that e-bikes are terribly overpriced.

So what do you expect?

For me the market value of an average e-bike is around 1600 Euro (period). There is no need to pimp-up bicycles with extras which aren’t requested anyway. An e-bike is a normal bike with a bit of extras like slightly better brakes for instance.

It is terrible that houses burn down due to batteries catching fire.

But once again we notice the lobbying from parties trying to block alternative channels for their own good using these kind of incidents.

e-bikes are too expensive that is the problem. It’s not the product that should be used to become extremely rich. People should realise that e-bikes are part of saving the planet (eco-friendly) and are necessary to go to work in an affordable way! Look at the fuel prices.

The moment e-bikes are sold at market value prices, buying lower quality components - which they claim - will end. People are not looking for low quality stuff. It is because they have no other choice.

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SadisticPawz@reddit

Absolutely. The ebike giants such as bosch always hype their brand up for how safe they are and that this is why their bikes are 3k++. Meanwhile, their batteries are literally the same tech as the competitors for half the capacity with nothing special in the safety department.

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atlasraven@reddit

What is the % chance of an ebike rider suffering an ebike fire over 10 years?

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hollisterrox@reddit

Lower than the odds of your ICE car having a fire I would wager. I see a car-b-que every day I drive around if I’m on the road for more than 3 hours.

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atlasraven@reddit

Teslas will catch fire and the occupants allegedly can't escape.

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robotcoke@reddit

What is the % chance of an ebike rider suffering an ebike fire over 10 years?

Chatgpt said:

Short answer: roughly 0.002%–0.01% over 10 years (about 1–10 fires per 10,000 e‑bikes). How I reached that estimate (concise):

Recent incident reports and local datasets (Sweden, UK, NYC, various articles) show typical annual fire rates in the range ~1 in 15,000 to 1 in 30,000 e‑bikes per year.

Converting those to a 10‑year cumulative risk (assuming independent annual risk and constant rate):

1/30,000 per year → 1 − (1 − 1/30,000)^10 ≈ 0.033% per 10 years (~0.00033) — about 0.003% (rounded).

1/15,000 per year → 1 − (1 − 1/15,000)^10 ≈ 0.066% per 10 years (~0.00066) — about 0.0066% (rounded).

Some higher local hotspots and poor-quality battery markets push implied rates toward ~0.01% (1 in 10,000) over 10 years.

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