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Dombroski said e-bike and e-scooter users should charge them outside or in a garage, far from any flammable materials.
I mean yes, I guess this message was for the general reader but this was in an apartment where neither of these places are likely to be an option.
Charge them in a metal box maybe? I wonder if body corps will try to ban them
This almost puts me off buying one. What do I do? I live in a boarding house. Should I charge it in the bathroom and just seal under the door with a sausage pillow thingy, so the toxic vapours don't go into my bedroom and kill me?
Maybe if I just charge it when I'm there and awake, it should be safe. Maybe the user in this story charged a battery when it was frozen cold, causing it to blow up.
There's a decent chance they were charging it for too long or had a cheap model.
I don't think charging creates toxic vapours
That is correct. LiIon batteries don’t outgas when charging. Outgassing often means a catastrophic failure is imminent.
“Charging for too long” is not a thing for any kind of lithium ion battery.
A lithium ion battery requires something called a BMS (a battery management system) which is responsible for ensuring the battery doesn’t get too hot when charging or discharging. Good quality Batteries often include multiple temperature sensors and fuses inside their BMSes so power is cut or charging halted if abnormal condition are detected.
Unfortunately, due to the popularity of these devices from escooters to e-cigarettes that use LiIon batteries, it is inevitable that some unscrupulous individuals attempt to cut corners to bring “cheaper” batteries to market that often do not contain these safety mechanisms, or less robust versions of them.
Long story short don’t buy no-name branded shit that has LiIon batteries, and don’t worry about charging it. Once it’s full, it stops automatically. Remember phones have had lithium ion batteries for much more than a decade and they very rarely if ever go bad (Barring the Samsung galaxy event). So don’t write off the tech just because some potentially dodgy battery went bad and caused a stuff article.
Additionally, I think it’s worth learning about LiIon chemistry in general and understanding what is harmful to it: high temperatures; charging under low temperatures; leaving them very full or very low for long periods of time. But really, if one purchases a good quality device, it comes with a management system that manages all these things for you. Unfortunately most people go for the cheapest option.
When it blows up (very rare if handled correctly) then there'll be a lot of chemicals in the air. Still something to think about for people with no garage and no shed.
A lot of apartments have storage units or lockers, having power available in them would make charging devices like this much safer.
It would also mean more of those devices close together in the same spot when one battery decides to go poof! Landlord's easiest take (not saying I agree) will be to ban them. Imagine trying to claim insurance over a battery explosion...
Some hardware stores already ban staff from commuting on an e-scooter because of the chemicals they store in hardware stores.
This happens more than I'd like to think about:
https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/11/everything-you-need-to-know-about-e-bike-battery-fires/
If you read https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density_Extended_Reference_Table, there isn't much of a gap in energy density between high energy density batteries and low energy density explosives
I'd be willing to bet 100 bucks this was a cheap Chinese made e-scooter. They are notorious for cutting corners on battery management systems and chargers etc, this is the country that brought us melamine in baby formula. Non-existent regulation coupled with absolutely epic corruption.
You are perfectly safe charging an e-bike or e-scooter in your apartment provided it is not cheap Chinese junk