Comments by "" (@EbenBransome) on "the e-scooter /e-bike blaze in London" video.

Someone regulating? 14 years of the Conservatives abolishing or ignoring regulations gave us sewage in rivers and the import of dangerous goods, why do you think e-bike companies would be different?
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I disagree. We had this nonsense with the 2005 SI that made it illegal for actual electrical engineers to rewire their houses, but apprentices were allowed to do it! Electrical fires in this country are actually rather rare, whereas gas explosions destroy houses from time to time and a faulty Range Rover caused millions in damage at Luton Airport. Batteries and chargers should be regulated at the point of import. Trading Standards needs to be returned to pre-Cameron levels to do it. Battery packs need proper over-temperature and over-charge provision. Several years ago I did an e-Bike conversion. One of the first things I did was to dismantle the battery pack to verify its condition. The arrangements for stopping the cells shaking around and for getting rid of heat were totally inadequate, so I rebuilt it right down to fitting adequate ventilation and a heatsink for the battery management. Your typical bike shop is never going to get assessed ISO 9000 certification.
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People keep referring to lithium battery "explosions". They have no idea what an explosion is like! They catch fire, which is different. Our house backup batteries are in the garage (where we don't keep a car) with a simple but effective sprinkler system - if they catch fire water will be pouring on them before the Fire Brigade arrives, and there is nothing flammable near them. But then I have had safety responsibility for actual factories with compressed air, 400V electricity and hazardous chemicals. Most people have not. How many people have fire extinguishers in their cars, or even fire blankets their kitchens? A boat of any size requires at least 3 extinguishers, yet many houses have none. I would say the problem isn't so much lithium batteries as general ignorance and carelessness around fire safety.
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@katrinabryce I suspect I've hd a bit more to do with hazardous chemicals than you have. 50 years ago I got pneumonia from a sodium and water hydrogen explosion, never again! Yes lithium reacts with water to produce hydrogen. However when a lithium battery starts to burn, what you are mostly seeing is burning electrolyte and separator. Immediate dumping in water drops the temperature. The first lithium batteries had solid lithium in the anode which was dangerous. The invention of the carbon anode largely fixed that. The lithium is stored in the electrodes and isn't immediately available to the water, so the reaction rate is limited unless the lithium melts out. Which cooling it with water is intended to prevent. Unlike sodium or potassium, lithium doesn't normally self-ignite on the surface of water. If it is producing hydrogen, that too needs a spark or high temperature to cause ignition. What's more, hydrogen diffuses very fast, so ventilation gets rid of it quite rapidly. In short, the way to deal with a lithium battery fire is to get it into cold water as quick as possible, keep the water coming and ventilate, whereas with an oil fire you need to exclude air and not apply water because the oil simply floats on top of it, and it can make the fire spread. Solid state batteries are regarded as the long term answer because they do not contain the flammable electrolyte. Dealing with them would be basically like dealing with a "normal" fire - exclude air.
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@janegreen9340 Mguy exaggerates for clicks. And most EVs have perfectly normal door handles, if you buy a Tesla it's a cult.
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@Hickalum I do like precision in hazard analysis, yes. I mentioned elsewhere that lithium batteries need to be suitably ventilated because of the hazards of the gases. However, the same kind of risk exists for petrol vehicles, a fire under the bonnet in a garage can result in an explosion of petrol vapour mixed with air. In fact, a fire in a Diesel vehicle in a multi-storey car park can result in widespread destruction due to heated Diesel oil igniting. And serious and fatal ship fires have been caused by oil collecting in ring belts, and even chains rubbing on metal and causing sparks which ignited vapours in the crankcase. If the new problems of lithium battery safety cause a general review of fire safety around vehicles, and better fire mitigation in garages and multistorey car parks, that will be a good thing.
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@Hickalum No boats with inboard petrol engines? News to me. They are much less common these days but they exist.
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