From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
JANUARY 22, 2024
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
Electric bikes, seen as a solution for tackling climate change, have caused a record number of fires in New York City.
According to figures released by the New York Fire Department to Fox News, e-bikes – powered by lithium-ion batteries – were responsible for 267 fires in the city.
They claimed 18 lives and caused 150 injuries, with fatalities increasing 200 per cent in 2023.
The latest figures show that sales of e-bikes in the US increased by 269 per cent between 2019 and 2022. It is estimated that the market was worth $2.59 (£2bn) billion by the end of 2023.
They have been seen as a way of decarbonising the US and Democratic members of Congress have sponsored legislation which would subsidise their purchase.
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18 fatalities and 150 injuries?
if it can save one life we must ban these incendiary devices.
And that’s with only 65,000 of the mobile fire bombs traversing New York City.
267/65,000. If there were 6.5M of them in NY that would equate to 26,700 fires yearly.
Good thing they’re only virtue signalling toys and not mandated transportation devices.
“Good thing they’re only virtue signalling toys and not mandated transportation devices.”
….wait for it….
Ooops, beat me to it!
Wait till terrorists realize there are potential bombs parked on the street….
French protestors have figured it out:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/24/france-protests-why-setting-fire-e-scooters/
Why the French are setting fire to e-scooters
Pedestrians had to cover their mouths with scarves as black smoke billowed from the burning debris
Nick Squires 24 March 2023 • 11:07am
“French protesters have thrown e-scooters onto piles of burning rubbish during violent demonstrations against President Macron’s pension reforms.
Video footage shows protesters, many of them masked, setting fire to e-scooters, plastic wheelie bins and piles of uncollected rubbish.
Pedestrians had to cover their mouths with scarves as black smoke billowed from the burning debris and firefighters tried to extinguish the flames.”
end excerpt
OT: Well, the ENSO meter on the sidebar just happens to be right here on this part of the web page at this time and it caught my attention, because it shows a very large movement back towards neutral.
I wonder what caused that?
That’s odd: When I opened another WUWT webpage and looked at the ENSO meter, the needle is back to the position it was in before this big move on this page.
This page shows the needle more than halfway toward neutral in the first yellow square, but the new page shows the needle back to being very close to the “1.5” mark.
I don’t know what’s going on with the ENSO meter.
I think I remember that having some update problems. It’s rather too coarse of a measure, in any case.
Better to open up the backing page and scroll down to the anomaly animation (or go directly to
) and watch the trend.
You’ll see that the extreme hot spots have disappeared over the last few weeks, and that in general the hot anomalies are heading westwards again.
Too late SOI figures show that the El Nino has finished and that there never was a super El Nino. Climate activists are unable to look at and analyse data. SOI is based on the atmospheric pressure difference between Darwin and Tahiti. Measurement dates back to 1850.
“Good thing they’re only virtue signalling toys”
Nah. Most of them are stolen and used by bicycle messengers.
True, but give it time.
If this acceptable fatality ratio were applied to air travel then the Boeing 737 max 9s would not be grounded.
And gas stoves and burners are orders of magnitude safer to have in your home.
I never, ever want to live in a society which has one death as the safety bar…….
You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.
So we ban cars too?
Just spontaneously combustible EVs
40000 killed per year in the US is not enough?
cars don’t kill people … drivers do … see the difference ?
That wouldn’t happen without cars.
Do you really think nobody was killed while traveling before the automobile was invented? How many bicyclists die each year from accidents not involving automobiles? How many people were killed while riding horses or by horses? Streetcars were notorious for injuries and deaths in the 19th century.
Horses were very dangerous.
It must be lovely to live in a logic-free world.
“It must be lovely to live in a logic-free world.”
Living without a functional brain, you mean !??
I’m pretty sure the cars don’t go out and kill people all by themselves.
Nope, only guns do that. /s
Yes, that is a persistent problem.
And people wouldn’t drown without water.
Ban DiHydrogen-Monoxide
How many people were killed while riding these electric toys?
Off the top of my head, I think the fatalities per mile traveled are somewhere between bicycles and motorcycles.
They have the same collision protection as the other two (i.e., none at all), so the differences are in available reaction time to avoid collision. Not as fast as motorcycles, but generally faster than bicycles.
I haven’t observed enough of them to evaluate the “stupidity factor.” I don’t think they are as stupid and taking as many risks as motorcyclists, but they may be somewhat stupider than bicyclists, or much the same.
Probably not splitting lanes at 60mph when traffic is traveling at 40mph with burps down to 15mph
You are free to give up your car, and everything else that fossil fuel transport provides.
But you won’t, will you. !!
That was before lithium-ion battery cars. Now there are cars that spontaneously try to burn you to death in your sleep.
Bless your heart.
if cars in their garages killed as many people then maybe yes … drivers kill people WITH cars … e-bikes kill people without a driver …
“If ICE cars in their garages killed as many people…” You have to distinguish these days.
E bikes kill people in the Apartment next door
Another alarmist who is proud of his inability to either simple math or simple science.
We only need to ban idiots from driving them, but then you would have to walk or hitch!
Does anyone know if any of these ebikes had a UL2849 rating?
We should use that line for everything they do.
Looks like “solutions” to climate change are logarithmically more dangerous than the gentle ~2°C/century we are said to be experiencing but I still freezing so turn up CO2 thermostat!
First they said fires with electric cars werent a big deal as petrol cars had them too – forgetting petrol cars never used to burn out car carrying ships and multi level parking buildings
But Im waiting for the the ‘whatabout’ claim about pedal only bikes to make an appearance
Back in 2012, I was considering an epic cross country pedal tricycle ride to clear my head from becoming recently disabled due to an industrial accident. While the electric bike industry was still in it’s infancy then, there were many options for powering bicycles and tricycles. In the end, I decided against the electric assisted power mainly due to the recharging issues, quite a bit similar to the same issues with electric vehicles today. Cross country travel away from the Interstate Highway system can be challenging for electric vehicles and even more for electric bicycles/tricycles.
It turned out to be a very good decision as the original epic ride of 1,000 miles turned into an even more epic ride of 2,600 miles. Originally I had planned to travel from Denver to Kansas City and return. But then I became homeless and knew I couldn’t afford to remain in Denver, so the ride continued on to Florida. During the journey, there were many times when electric power or even cell phone reception were not available.
Most of the EV proponents also quote a completely false statistic that says ICEVs burn more often than EVs. The idiot that originated that claim divided the number of fires involving each type of vehicle for that year by the number of each type of vehicle sold. Obviously the 230,000,000+ older ICEVs on the road didn’t have fires, only the brand new models burned.
Anyone who doesn’t use passenger-mile (or value-mile for cargo) when talking about transportation is lying with statistics. Whatever the statistic is.
Just wondering, how much CO2 did those fires inject into the atmosphere?
The CO2 doesn’t matter…. only feeds plant life.
It’s all the other noxious fumes that are the real problem.
They are not like a petrol or fossil fuel fires…. They put out MUCH deadly pollution.
“It’s all the other noxious fumes that are the real problem.”
Exactly.
It’s OK, we have the answer here in the UK – it’s dazzlingly clever, always effective and really simple, all at the same time.
And Ye Godz, will this save some lives or what…..
How: Switch Off The Power
headline:“”Two million people could have their gas and electricity cut off this winter because they cannot afford to top up their prepayment meter, new research suggests.
BBC
That’ll stop them bikes burning – only a ‘Lord SomebodyOrOther‘ could have dreamed that up, or possibly ‘ai’
The Daily Telegraph is now running almost daily anti-Net Zero articles and the comments are heartening. They still post the odd pro-Net Zero article with “everyone agrees we need to cut carbon emissions”, comments on those articles are proving everyone doesn’t.
The “everyone agrees” statement is factually untrue, so the pro-Net Zero zealots say it anyway for the simple reason that advocates must use propaganda. No different than a used cars salesman pressuring a hesitant buyer by lying about how other interested parties are lining up to buy that heap.
The claim, and it is used often, is an example of Mimetic Theory, where most people don’t know what they desire until some influencer provides them with that McGuffin. This is easily testable by asking exactly how “cut[ting] carbon emissions” will accomplish what goal [that requires cutting carbon emissions].
The Bible likens mankind to “sheep” for a reason.
Well I can attest there are very few sheep in the comments sections. Most heartening indeed.
Baaaaaaaa!
There are a few sheep in wolves clothing, however!
The Telegraph website is now paywalled, at least for us.
“Electric bikes, seen as a solution for tackling climate change,…”
WHAT?! It’s not like they’re replacing all those GAS and DIESEL powered bikes!
If you’re worried about completely beneficial CO2 emissions, you can just ride a REGULAR BIKE, which is powered by this newfangled technology called PEDALING.
And NO fire hazards are presented! Imagine that!
I believe the gasoline powered bikes are called “motorcycles”.
E-bikes? Why not just ride a real bicycle? – and get some exercise.
Because that will increase your personal CO2 output as you convert food into heat & CO2 … thus destroying everything on the planet
Joseph Zorzin: “E-bikes? Why not just ride a real bicycle? – and get some exercise.”
One of my neighbors down the road has two e-bikes with fat knobby tires for off road use. He peddles on flatter terrain and uses the electric power to climb steeper hills faster and easier than he could do if he only peddled. He stores the two e-bikes in an outbuilding when not in use. If a fire starts from a battery failure, he might lose the outbuilding but at least not his house.
I look forward to peddling up steep hills- did it in the Berkshires for several decades.
So he avoids the real exercise.
Guess you don’t suffer from arthritis while retaining a desire to see more of the great outdoors…..
I do have arthritis but I love biking and push myself. I can still do 40 miles in non flat terrain – not bad for a 74 year old geezer. And until recently, when I wasn’t doing that I’d be bushwhacking in my forestry work.
From one old geezer to another, well done.
Still have strong legs- but, have had cataract surgery (now have 20/20 vision), recently got hearing aids (love them), lots of dental problems, high blood pressure, but still find great pleasure is walking and biking and kayaking and on very, very rare occasion, men’s favorite sport. 🙂
Some of us with various medical issues have gone to the recumbent pedal tricycles similar to what the Wounded Warriors use. With the 3 wheels, it is quite difficult though not impossible to fall over and the laid back posture is like sitting in your recliner. I have 81 speeds on my 2012 HP Velotechnik Gekko FX with the gearing towards the low end to climb hills easier. Even with the laid back posture, my head is level with one driving a Corvette or like car.
81? I remember when the other kids in my neighborhood bragged about their ten speeds!
(Or is it necessary now to select your gear according to your pronouns?)
Am contemplating one of those. That looks like a nice one!
I occasionally ask young people here, in an essentially level community, about their E-Bikes. In particular, I ask how many miles per day they ride them (the answer is about 2). I ask how often they recharge them – the answer is “every night, just in case”. So, we are raising a bunch of adolescents to have range anxiety.
Only 2 miles and these youngsters need an e-bike? I bet, at age 74, I could get on my mountain bike and beat them in a 2 mile race and I’d feel great doing it. Next, they’ll want those stairway climbing machines in their homes. Here I thought they needed the e-bikes to got 20 or more miles to their jobs. Even then- I’d prefer to pedal. In the ’70s I had a job 12 miles from my family home. I got to the site by 8 AM and pedaled all the way. Up and down hills like a roller coaster. (OK, there I go- old timer talking about how things were in the old days before technology 🙂 )
About a decade ago, I took it upon myself to learn about Li-Ion cells and batteries.
I got a job-lot of (new and unused) battery packs. They were at the time about 3 years old but were surplus to whoever’s requirement
Cells rated 2,200mAh, made by Samsung, assembled by Varta in Taiwan
Comprised a pair of 18560 cells welded in parallel with their own little manager to protect against short circuit, over temp and over discharge.
I made half a dozen batteries using 15 of these, into a 12Volt pack that should (nameplate) deliver 22Ah capacity.
I actually tested each pack and they were good – I got capacities between 19.5Ah and 21Ah and only discharging them to 10Volts instead of the manager’s 7.5V protection limit
Ten years later, a couple of the packs were behaving oddly – you could pump charge into them, their volts went up to the 12.6 limit and the charger switched itself off. Fine. OK.
But when it did, the volts dropped almost immediately to less than 11volts.
So I took the assembled battery apart and tested each of the ‘cells’ (each one being 2 actual cells)
For some reason, the onboard manager had ‘disconnected’, because It had seen less than 2.5V across the cells. But why, what had happened there?
Anyway, I put them on charge ‘directly’ (bypassing the manager) – they accepted a lot of charge and bounced back up to 4.2Volts
The manager obviously saw that, reconnected himself and they became ‘good as new’.
A couple of the individual 18650 cells had completely died. Really completely, they had only millivolts across them and would not accept charge or anything. They’d gone totally open circuit. But again, why?
But some of the cells wouldn’t charge beyond 3.8Volts and this has to be The Killer for these scooters and bikes.
Because if using a proper intelligent (constant current) charger, it would stop charging when the current dropped below a certain level no matter what voltage.
But a less than intelligent charger (constant voltage) would carry on pumping in the amps until it saw at least 4.0 or 4.2Volts = when it would stop charging, or, possibly switch into constant current mode..
I just don’t get it?
Why would a Li-Ion cell do that – why would it let you keep pumping in the amps but its voltage never rise above 3.8?
Because the power you’re shoving in can only result in 2 things, both fatal.
1/ Either the affected cell overheats and then burns
2/ Any other cells connected in series with it would be seeing large over-voltage (>4.2V across themselves and that charging current going through then – so they then overheat & burn
But why do they do that. What is the failure mechanism that sees them only go to 3.8Volts while still allowing you to pump in the amps?
When a lot of chargers will keep pushing those amps until they see at least 4.0 Volts.
While the little manager attached to each cell and the 3-cell manger controlling the whole 12Volt pack don’t recognise a fault – only a constant current charger would save you
Lithium Ion cells are really rather mysterious and scary things
It took 6 years to increase allowable occupied space flammable refrigerants such propane from 150 grams to 500 grams…..yet we allow Kilos of flammable batteries that contain oxidant and oxidizer within the same casing in any hallway you can park a bike in. It’s crazy….
Well lithium battery light vehicle mobility has been established for some time and is a portent of what’s to come with ever larger incendiary transport so we’re outta there cos it aint gunna work-
HUGE News! Freightliner CEO Just Shut Down All Electric Truck Production! : Truck Future : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
All yours Tesla.
That Freightliner decision is just another sign of the times the global economy is beginning to seriously falter. The signs are growing that finally the disruption to cheap reliable energy is having an impact everywhere not least driving up the real cost of everything. The wind sector and EV car manufacturing are faltering along with any energy intensive industry including agriculture. The real cost of goods is now rising faster than suppliers and consumers can cope with as productivity falls everywhere. The climate changers have finally managed to smash the global economy with their stupidity.
It is entirely possible that the ever-increasing cost of energy is, in fact, causing the global economy to falter. But there are so many other factors involved that it may not be just Net Zero.
Well it’s true Covid sit down money had to wash through the system but anything to do with so called renewables at present is in trouble and not even the Chinese commies can escape that. There’s not enough taxes to keep propping up the house of cards.
“They have been seen as a way of decarbonising the US and Democratic members of Congress have sponsored legislation which would subsidise their purchase.”
Who knew that when they say “decarbonize” they mean eliminating carbon-based lifeforms?
They are only Democrats, they aren’t democratic.
Bicycles don’t need batteries to be dangerous … adding batteries will only kill and injure more.
Bicycle-related injuries and deaths in the United States123:
via Bing Chat.
Nice. I simply copied the text from Bing Chag and a link to the source came with it.
However, how many accidents, and fatalities, resulted from interaction with an automobile or other type of road vehicle, and, of those, in how many cases was the operator of the auto (other type of road vehicle) at fault? Raw statistics are useful, but not very, sometimes.
How many automobile fatalities/injuries resulted from another automobile or other type of road vehicle? What is the automobile fatality/injury rate per mile traveled? Lower or higher than bicycles?
You still have to relate those numbers to distance to get a valid statistic. How many miles per fatality/injury?
From The Bicycle Safety Almanac …
784 cyclists died in 2005 (p. 86). That would make the death rate of 0.37 to 1.26 deaths per 10 million miles.
33,041 motorists/passengers died (p. 86) from 3 trillion miles traveled (p. 15), making their death rate 0.11 per 10 million miles traveled.
So cyclists are either 3.4x or 11.5x as likely to die as motorists, per passenger mile. Neither conclusion is very happy.
http://tinyurl.com/ysbr5adr
And a non-fatal bicycle accident is more likely to result in a trip to the ER than a fender-bender in your new Toyota which comes standard with seat belts and air bags.
It’s hard to figure out the benefits of an electric bike. They have all the disadvantages of either a foot-powered bicycle or a motorcycle (exposure to the weather, risks to the rider on slippery roads), and the added risk of catching on fire.
A gas-powered motorcycle is a lot faster than an electric bike, and gets better mileage than a four-wheeled car, and very few of them cause fires unless they crash. If a person just wants a joy-ride in good weather, why not use a foot-powered bicycle, with no risk of fire, no CO2 emissions, and great exercise?
Excellent comment. Replacing an automobile with an electric bicycle appears on the surface to be a good thing while replacing a “dangerous” and “polluting” gasoline-powered motorcycle with an electric bicycle is quite something else. Real people in the real world already know how dangerous motorcycles are — I’m writing from experience.
Consumer Reports …
http://tinyurl.com/ye26vrbv
Consumer Reports
Until there’s a really big fire caused by electric bikes or EVs that claims more than just a few lives, these things will continue to be under-regulated regarding the risk factors they present.
No subsidies, subsidies are the problem not the solution.
Story Tip:
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/north-carolina-city-spent-millions-on-electric-buses-dont-run
Just had a battery massage chair spontaneously combust in suburban Adelaide on Monday after this one in November last year-
A faulty massage chair sparked a fire that all but destroyed a home in Mount Druitt | A faulty massage chair sparked a fire that all but destroyed a home in Sydney’s west. Luckily the Mount Druitt couple inside were woken by their smoke… | By 7NEWS Sydney | Facebook
40 yr old bloke sitting in it in the garage not plugged in and it began to smoke and ultimately burnt the garage and 2 adjoining bedrooms. He was lucky to survive trying to put it out to start with as mum said (mentioned here but paywalled)-
Subscribe to The Chronicle
Insurers are going to start asking the hard questions with renewals.
40 yr old bloke sitting in it in the garage not plugged in when it began to smoke and ultimately burnt the garage and 2 adjoining bedrooms and he was lucky to survive-
Toyota’s chairman and former CEO, Akio Toyoda, made the point: How can EVs be the future when a billion people on Earth have no electricity?