Rare and Surreal: Ebike Battery Fires

"Hey guys," somebody said in a crowded expat bar, "there is an ebike on fire outside." 

Both bloggers and casual social media types all ran outside to snap photos. It was night time, and it was a very rare and surreal sitting next to a curb, there was a scooter engulfed in flames. It was nighttime, and so the darkness made the scene a little eerie. I was too busy to be thinking about safety, and then the battery actually exploded. Thankfully, nobody got hurt. That experience, however, taught me that if I ever wanted to close to electronic bike that is engulfed again for a close up, think again. That is beyond stupidity. Besides, I usually tend to write about food, history, and culture in China -- not bizarre things involving modes of transportation. So, I started asking myself: why was I so intent on adding this weird thing to my image archive?

That was a little over a year again, and until recently, I haven't thought about the incident or even why it happened. Then, I saw another one. This time, it was in broad daylight at a busy Changzhou intersection during rush hour. Cars and trucks passed it by, and like the earlier incident, there were a gaggle of people wielding cellphone. Yes, I was one of them. I kept a safe distance, got a few pictures, and then.

However, I got to thinking how these things happen. Clearly, nobody was intentionally setting their vehicles on fire. Ebikes are the preferred form of personal transportation in China. Changzhou, is a city of more than four million people, and in the 3+ years I have lived here and owned an electronic vehicle, I have seen exactly two fires. So, it is reasonable to think think that this incidents are anomalies. So, I did some quick google searching, and I think I found a suitable answer. Actually, there are a number of reasons stated in that article.  Yet, there is only one answer I want to focus on.

Cheap batteries are usually a never a good buy. Yes, in China, you can find an extremely cheap ride. However, if you are using poor quality lead acid batteries, and do things like over charge them, charge them in direct sunlight on a very hot Chinese summer day, or use the wrong incorrect voltage chargers, malfunctions can happen. So, this is something I usually tell people who move to China and want to buy an electric vehicle: pay the extra money and buy something of high quality. China has lots of extremely high quality electric vehicles to choose from. You can afford it. If you are living in China even as an English teacher, you are not as destitute as you think you are, and price is not a good compromise for safety.