Top Reason Why Electric Bikes Are Catching Fire? Be Safe

April 11, 2021November 17, 2022 CS Electrical And Electronics

Hello guys, welcome back to my blog. Here in this article, I will discuss the top reasons why electric bikes are catching fire, what’s wrong with EV scooters, and how to prevent electric bikes from catching fire.

If you have any electrical, electronics, and computer science doubts, then ask questions. You can also catch me on Instagram – CS Electrical & Electronics And Chetan Shidling.

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Top Reason Why Electric Bikes Are Catching Fire

Last month, a video clip of an electric bike witnessing a fire in the Lohegaon location of Pune reached viral on social media. Almost a day after this happened, another electric bike went up in flames due to an electrical short circuit accident in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, resulting in two fatalities.

Such happenings are a significant reason for consideration for stakeholders in the electric vehicle (EV) enterprise and their customers. But conversations around better safety have gathered up on different social media platforms given the actual impact such incidents can have on life and effects, and the larger shadow they’ve released on India’s march towards embracing e-mobility.

Lithium-ion batteries are categorized under the dangerous goods classification. In this article, Chetan Shidling describes the multiple causes an EV battery pack can detect fire and rare tips for the budding Indian EV industry to bring the battery safety problems under control.

A Lithium-ion battery pack contains multiple Lithium-ion cells in sequences and parallel structures to achieve the necessary voltage and capacity. A Lithium-ion cell detecting fire is termed a thermal runaway in technological terms. Thermal runaway is provoked by a chemical reaction that includes a ripple effect inside the cell and outcomes in the fire. It is the spirit of Lithium-ion cell chemistries such as NCA (Lithium Nickel Cobalt Aluminium Oxide) & NMC (Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide).

This reaction is very hard to stop once it has started. It starts when the cell arrives at high temperatures directing to an inner chemical reaction, which additionally improves the heat generation, and the next thing we understand smoke and fire is arriving from the cell. The chemical reaction oversees all of the energy of the cell to be released at the exact time and all this occurs in a very short period.

What are the causes for EVs catching fire?

Most EVs operate on lithium-ion or Li-ion batteries, the identical batteries that are utilized in most consumer electronics. They are understood to catch fire when exposed to air. Lithium-ion and lithium metal batteries experience a process called thermal runaway when they fail.

During the process, the stress and temperature rapidly grow and if the interior of the battery is revealed to air, it can catch fire or actually explode. The existence of organic liquid electrolytes in the battery unit only acts as fuel to the fire.

According to an investigation from AutoinsuranceEZ.com, an online insurance platform, the possibility of such events and other factors driving EVs to catch fire is only 0.03 percent, a fraction corresponded to internal combustion engine vehicles’ 1.5 percent. Yet, the EV incidents drive fires that can burn considerably hotter, longer, and reignite even several hours or daytimes after being put out.

Some of the main causes are:

Overexposing: the battery after its EoL (end-of-Life): This is a matter very less spoken about. Lithium-ion cells arrive in two grades ESS (energy storage system) and EV (electric vehicle) grade. EV grade cells are named power cells and ESS grade cells are named energy cells. EV grade enclosures have lower internal resistance, permit for fast charging, and have more increased maximum continuous discharge capability.

But EV quality cells have a more succinct life and lower cycle life. On the other hand, ESS grade cells have more increased internal resistance, do not qualify for fast charging, and hold lower maximum continuous discharge capability. But ESS grade cells have superior cycling performance with increased cycle life. EV grade cells are costly and the way they are created internally is distinct. EV grade cells lose the capacity to bear like an EV grade cell after it has cycled for a satisfactory number of cycles.

At this point, the cells have evolved higher internal resistance and they evolve unfit to be utilized for an EV application. The battery is not prolonged and is required to be employed for an EV application at this time and it has to be returned. For instance, Tesla says its battery requires to be replaced when the battery has degraded to 70% of its original capacity. Some businesses set it to 80% as well. This terminology is named end-of-life of the battery in the EV application. The vehicles must have inbuilt systems following the battery’s health and notify the user when the battery has evolved unfit to work in an EV. It has to be executed such as when Apple sends out a notification to its iPhone users to replace the battery when the battery health has plunged 80%.

Inappropriate heat management: No batteries are excellent when it arrives at charge-discharge efficiency. There will still be efficiency losses and the losses are additional during quick charging and high-power discharge. The energy loss is in the state of heat. This heat requires to be carefully controlled and the cells should not be revealed to heat for too long. Long-term effects of revealing the cells regularly to high temperatures contain faster degradation of the cell’s capacity. Moreover, if the cells are revealed to higher temperatures, the cells should not function anymore (charge or discharge) and it is the responsibility of the BMS to cut off the battery operation.

BMS dying to cut off the battery at this instance can fast accelerate the thermal runaway of the cells. BTMS (battery thermal management system) is a useful way to tackle this. But most electric 2W have no thermal management and therefore electric 2W are seeing a more increased number of fire incidents compared to other vehicle segments. The cells in these battery packs are extremely tightly packed going no breathing space. BMS is an emerging field and requires more R&D focus.

Overcharging: This is another place where the BMS should work correctly, thus battery pack companies must utilize reliable BMS that doesn’t fail on the field. Most low-cost BMS in the market come with one year warranty and they fail after the warranty period. It is the duty of the BMS to perform the basic functions such as overcharge protection, under-voltage protection, continuous current, over-current detection, and over-temperature protection. BMS loss can mean one of the two methods. The BMS will cut off the battery pack functioning and then the battery pack has to be serviced. The BMS can also, in occasional cases, not cut off the battery pack functioning. During this system, if the battery is being charged, it will overcharge and can witness the fire. Overcharging indicates charging the battery better than its limit and it can rapidly elevate a chain reaction inside the cell.

How do prevent these fires?

EV fires are mostly considered to be driven by overheating, electrical short circuits, and misuse of the battery units. Further, entry of water into the battery systems via damage can also be the cause behind the circumstances that can set off a fire.

Though to stop such occurrences, OEMs utilize sophisticated battery management systems. These can stop harm to the battery units and shut them down in cases of danger. The losses that drive fires can be due to manufacturing faults or even errors in the software that scans the battery, or just an overall design flaw.

Without careful analysis, it is hard to pinpoint the exact reason for failure in most battery units. Even with research, it is quite difficult to reenact the exact requirements of the fire. Battery manufacturers and OEMs are continuously looking to make safe yet favorably energy-dense battery units. In such circumstances, even a small miscalculation can result in a higher-than-normal probability of failure leading to EV fires.

Uniform standards, regulations, and policies suggested for the Indian subcontinent are required so that further incidents are controlled and the adoption of EVs continues to speed up across the next decade. Also, alternative battery technology that shifts away from the use of lithium-ion to less-flammable materials is also required.

This was about “Why Electric Bikes Are Catching Fire“. I hope this article “Why Electric Bikes Are Catching Fire” may help you all a lot. Thank you for reading.

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