Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t strativarius I guess union members watched those terrifying videos of e-bikes spontaneously exploding into white hot fireballs.
Tube drivers threaten to strike unless Sadiq Khan bans e-bikes from TfL network amid fire risks
The union Aslef has threatened strike action over Sadiq Khan’s unwillingness to ban e-bikes from the London Underground network despite them causing severe fire risks.
The warning comes after an explosion at Rayners Lane station occurred on February 27, which saw an e-bike catch fire on a platform, sending toxic fumes across the station.
The union has now argued that e-bikes pose the same fire risk as e-scooters, which were banned from the tube in 2021 due to their lithium batteries.
…
An internal London Underground investigation concluded that the e-bike was “only moments away from boarding the train”.
Read more: https://www.gbnews.com/lifestyle/cars/tube-drivers-strike-sadiq-khan-e-bikes-tfl-fire-risks
…
WUWT has repeatedly covered how deadly e-bikes and e-scooters can be.
E-vehicle explosions can be terrifying – imagine this happening on a packed underground commuter train.
I was on the London Underground during the July 7th terrorist attack. I wasn’t on one of the trains which was attacked, but the train I was on went through the smoke cloud.
It didn’t take long for me to figure out what I was smelling, and what had likely happened. Luckily there was a delay in shutting down the cellular system, just long enough for me to phone my wife and let her know I was OK after I reached the surface.
Let us hope politicians find the courage to start banning dangerous e-batteries in enclosed spaces. The thought of politicians willing to risk inflicting such an experience on innocent people, not because they are terrorists, but simply because they are too stubborn to put safety ahead of green zealotry, this fills me with horror and disgust.
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“The
oceanse-bikes are boiling!”Banning them is a great idea because the ban would not only reduce their danger level but also force users to improve their fitness levels by providing their own energy to get these contraptions to move.
fwiw – I am a competitive cyclist. Several of the older guys who no longer race (70+ ages ) have switch to e-bikes. Bikes used in racing are also allow to use electric shifting which make more efficient gear shifting, with electric shifting used by 95% of competitive cyclists in racing.
I have not heard any reports of any fires in my circle of cyclists which is probably in the 500+ cyclists range.
They probably buy recognized quality brands, not the ‘No-Name’ crap from you-know-where.
Recognised brands of EVs spontaneously catch fire too.
All battery powered modes of transport and “walls” are just bombs waiting to happen.
Alas the batteries in ALL e-bikes come from you-know-where.
It’s these batteries that catch fire
https://qualityinspection.org/chinese-e-bike-batteries-a-growing-danger/
The last time I checked, bike races were not routed through the tube.
E scooters Tube banned in 2021. Khan should support the proposed e bike Tube ban. Reason is it’s the same root cause problem. China supplied 80% of world e scooters in 2021. In US they now supply 85% of e bikes and are causing serious fire problems in places like New York City. China quality simply not there. E bike LiIon battery fires are inevitable.
The fact that a Lithium-ion battery can catch fire is becoming well known. So I understand that a LiFePo battery cannot burn but has about 20% lower energy density. Some manufactures have started to use LiFePo batterys for safety reasons.
Just checked to make sure my memory was ‘accurate’. True LiFePo isn’t flammable because of the electrolyte. But the energy density is about 40% less, not 20. A big deal for e bikes and EVs.
I have a Ryobi electric zero turn riding mower. It uses 4 Group 27 batteries 100ah, currently Gel, connected in series for 48 volts, 100ah. When the time comes I was going to replace them with LiFePo, and replace the charger. I think even with the reduced energy density, They’re going to be better than the gels.
LiFePo has higher energy density than Gel PbA. So will fit easily. You might also get more ride time per chatge. Good swap.
Ryobi probably went with Group 27 PbA out of cost concerns.
The original were AGM, and didn’t last long. By the third year I could only do 1/4 of my yard on a charge. With the gels I can do half, and that’s been consistent for 3 years now.
With LiFePo, you might get the whole yard. Plus, slower recharging time is not a riding lawnmower issue given the rate grass grows.
That would be awesome. I’ve never been able to do the whole yard on a full charge.
Am I missing something? At 4 minutes in on this video, it says LFP are less apt to catch fire, but when they do they give off more hydrogen than NMC and are a greater explosion risk:
I’d be interested in more information about the supposedly LFP explosion he describes. Since he had zero information regarding the battery or even the cause of the explosion (combined with the generally high hype level of the video) I really wonder what the facts were. The other two “events” he described were definitely NMC batteries, which is the problem with bike & scooter batteries in this post.
FWIW, the Cruising Yacht market has gone almost 100% to LiFePO4 (LFP). One occasionally hears of a battery disaster on a yacht, but when you dig down, it’s always some form of Lithium-polymer battery that caused the problem. Used Tesla or other EV batteries are a real favorite, since they tend to be cheap (for the amount of energy), but are now separate from the rather elaborate BMS that accompanies them in the vehicle.
But the EVs are OK driving through the tunnels?
One even starts to wonder about the safety of battery-powered trains…
Battery powered trains are an idiotic idea. We’ve witnessed the pitiful real-world range of EV pickups when towing a trailer. Trains generally involve extremely heavy loads, which means extremely rapid battery charge depletion and a train that won’t get very far.
And on ferries?
Are EVs allowed in the Chunnel?
If you’ve got an e-bike, why the fxxx are you travelling on The Underground with it? Why not ride it to where you’re going? Doh!
Have you ever been on the roads in UK!
Yes, I live there, Rick. All the electric bikes seem to be ridden on the pavement (“sidewalk” to our US contributors) which is against the law but no-one seems to do anything about it!.
Same in the US. I’ll wager that most unfortunate incidents occur as ‘bikes’ transition from sidewalk to roadway Willy-nilly.
When I see a douchebag (or group of such) coming towards me & expecting some sort of consideration of right-of-way I don’t even notice them; I nonchalantly stop (kinda towards the middle of the walkway) and tie my shoe(s).
Just paint a target on your back? I’m *not* speaking from experience, never been.
re: “Luckily there was a delay in shutting down the cellular system”
And why I sponsor a local UHF ham repeater … we’ve seen cases here in the Metroplex where the cellular system was just jammed due to the sheer number of calls being attempted by the public.
Why I always have old wireline 40v backup. Urged my kids to do the same.
We have a robot vacuum cleaner. It does its thing every day. Its run time between charging gradually reduced and got to the point where it was not detecting the low battery condition and the battery would shut down to protect itself. That was after 16 months of daily use – not long.
I replaced the battery and got the unit going then decided to inspect the original battery.
I was somewhat surprised to find that one of the connection points between the cells was not connected to the cell balancer. One cell was down near the minimum of 2.6V but the other three cells were all above 3.5V. Fully charged for these cells is 4.2V. So I reconnected the cells and all the cell balancing points and recharged the battery. It has remained in balance but I have not put it back into service.
This is the second Chinese made battery that I have had problems with and upon opening up found a wiring fault with the balancer. In both cases, the cells not being balanced lost voltages so not a dangerous condition.
There would be millions of robot vacuum cleaners in use and any could have a battery fault that could end in a fire. They are just starting to become a significant source of property loss and human injury from fire.
There is a lithium battery supplier in Australia supplying Winston large format cells and he recommends manual balancing. His experience has been that most cell failures are due to automatic balancer faults. All the model aircraft batteries have individual cell connections for external balancing but it makes for more complex chargers.
I think I can see the root cause of the problem
Their fumes are also highly toxic the the subway “tubes” are the ultimate enclosed space kill zones
“story tip” THE WORLD’S LARGEST FISHING FLEET – THE CHINESE ONE….is eradicating the entire world’s fishery. The CCP does not care – it just catches everything everywhere. Doom lies ahead – DEAD OCEANS. What about the CO2 and the environment?
A few well placed Mk.48’s and problem solved. Well, for the short term, anyway.
Turn them into piles of Junk
One name explains it all – Khan.
Some tunnels are pretty deep down like the Piccadilly line…
Northern Line is the deepest, under Hampstead Heath.
There will be a ban in the near future, I’m sure.
If it’s not preempted, some tragedy will force it to happen, and a trajedy is inevitable again and again and again
There will also be a ban on EV parking underground which I believe is already in force in South Korea.
Soon owners of Evs will experience all sorts of restrictions and higher and higher insurance costs
This will drive another nail into the coffin of this electric wet dream
Considering the real environment dangers of electric vehicles perhaps your neighbour’s decision to have an EV isn’t theirs alone, perhaps you have a say in it. Perhaps they need to buy you safety equipment and even shoulder some of your responsibility for indemnity?
The question has been asked that if your neighbour’s battery car burns your house down are you able to sue them for the costs. I can envisage the court argument over was this negligence and the issue of the combustibility of battery cars. That GM advise parking your car at least 50ft from anything you value would go in your favour.
DUH .
I can’t take my scooter on the tube , so I’ll take my e-bike. It took them 4 years to notice ???
LOL. Kinda like making a law against bringing dynamite onto the tube train. Nitroglycerin? Good to go!
Are batteries more dangerous than gasoline? A serious question.
On the surface I would say that spilled gasoline is potentially very dangerous but what is the likelihood of a spill vs the likelihood of a battery spontaneously combusting?
Gasoline powered scooters aren’t allowed on trains … are they?
Both are dangerous but for different reasons.
One biggie is gasoline fumes in constrained areas such as subways.
There are others. That lithium batteries can flame violently with not visible cause makes them the greater risk.
I am on vacation from Wisconsin winter thaw, bicycling the Florida Withlacoochee SP 46 mile bike trail as I have for the last decade and more. I have watched the vehicles evolve from my recumbent Human Powered Vvehicle trike being an oddity, to the first electric-motor vehicles, to now 90% clunky poorly fitting electric-motor vehicles with noisy ultra-fat tires. ALL of them ridden by morbidly obese Butts-on-bikes. An effective ban on motor-vehicles would be a pleasing for all. Motor-vehicles are already prohibited but electrics are somehow excepted.
That’s a consequence of Florida law, which makes an E-bike equal to a regular pedal-bike as long as the top speed, etc. are within limits. They are also supposed to require that the user be pedalling for it to work, but that “feature” seems to be removed by the dealers without any consequences.
Not much fun for those traveling in London Transport electric buses that catch fire either. I cannot understand how any of this stuff survived rigorous testing before appearing in the market place unless it was virtue signalers side stepping the tests of course..
But it was London’s diesel-powered “bendy- buses” that used to self-combust with monotonous regularity. They also had a habit, being so long, of blocking road-junctions. They were flogged off to some third-world country eventually.
Not sure the difference between an e-bike and an e-scooter.
Oh. The bikes have pedals the scooters do not.
And why should stupid “electric” bikes ans scooters even be a part of the “green” agenda?!
One would think bikes powered only by PEDALS being *manually* rotated by human “power” and scooters powered only by FEET pushing them forward would be what “greens” support.
But humans working harder emit more CO2…
Real “green” agenda is to promote investments in “green” technologies.