Fires in batteries mostly cause due to short circuits because of an uncontrolled electricity where the cells gets heated up beyond 100°C
There were at least six dreadful two-wheeler electric scooter accidents in India in the past two weeks that even claimed the lives of a father and her daughter. The vehicles went up in flames with the current incident reported from Tirupur, Tamil Nadu involving a scooter manufactured by Okinawa. Back on 9th April, 20 new electric two-wheelers of Jitendra New EV Tech loaded in a container for dispatch in Nashik again caught up in flames. The other brands involved in this dreadful competition are Pure EV and the renowned Ola Electric.
The central government of India established a special team to investigate the matter where experts were chosen from the Indian Institute of Science (IISC) and Centre for Fire Explosives and Environment Safety. The team will thoroughly investigate all the mishaps occured in Tirupur, Pune, Trichy, Vellore, and Nashik and will submit the report to the government within two weeks. When the media approached the companies for the possible causes of the accident, none of them provided a clear detail.
Ola Electric mentioned that they are also deeply investigating the matter to find out the actual reason and will share the report publicly as soon as possible, while Okinawa stated that there was negligence in charging and hence, a short circuit happened that caused the accidents. Although no possible reasons have yet been discovered, a couple of experts think that manufacturing faults and increasing temperature could be the root cause behind the incidents.
In an exclusive interaction with TOI, Pratik Kamdar, Co- Founder, Neuron Energy stated that these incidents points out lack of a better quality battery or lack of knowledge about the usage of high-energy density batteries, or know-how of the batteries. "It is mandatory to ensure premium quality cells and superior BMS are used to avoid such instances. Also ensuring the vehicle stays cool is extremely important as the incident could have possibly been a case of battery cell rupture due to excessive rise in temperature. Thermal Runway is of paramount importance in battery design. Batteries should not be connected to vehicles during transportation at the time of dispatching by the vehicle manufacturer. Batteries should be kept at 30% SOC to avoid any risk of fire during transportation,” said kamda
