The fire, reported shortly after midnight, happened at a shop that was cited last summer for safety violations related to the storage and charging of batteries, officials said.
I can see ebike/esk8 shops refusing to store or work on those vehicles that have a DIY battery.
Anyone have any tips about what to do with a Lion fire? Fire blanket? Certain extinguisher?
Don’t have a fire in the first place. Once it starts you can’t really put it out and the gases produced are incredibly toxic. Also li-ion cells contain oxygen, so even if you cover them in a blanket to try and suffocate the fire it doesn’t really work.
E-bikes are often work vehicles and the owners tend to be looking for the cheapest batteries they can, which means nameless batteries of unknown quality. It’s suprising the NYC death count is only 6.
How many people have cars killed? I’d say ebikes seem pretty safe in comparison.
Unfair as it is, cars are considered ABSOLUTELY necessary to a functioning economy. Ebike, scooters and esk8s are considered toys. Hell, even though the constitution talks about a right to travel, some areas outlaw battery things outright.
Are we sure it was a DIY battery? I’ve seen plenty of Chinese junk packs that are just waiting to 'splode. Exactly why I started building my own.
They’re not though. The more we depend on them, the more we are dependent upon them. I’d argue trucks are absolutely necessary to a functioning economy, but cars are not. It wouldn’t be an overnight fix, but it’s very possible if the desire was there.
The desire isn’t there.
But either way, when talking about ebike deaths, we always need to realize that cars kill orders of magnitude more folks, so in reality, these ebike things are incredibly safe in comparison.
Only because that’s the way the US is designed. That’s like having your legs amputated and then arguing a wheelchair is essential to travel.
Just adding to this; according to the NYPD data there have been 106 traffic fatalities this year
Sounds like negligent building design and improper storage both caused this fire. There should 100% be fire walls or floors/gaps between the levels that fire can’t spread across in place to reduce the spread of any fires.
Cars absolutely do, and are more dangerous even on the basis of fires alone, but that’s a battle on a much larger timescale. Material reality has little bearing on electoral politics, only feelings. Batteries are already pretty safe, but we need to make them ~feel~ safe to people who don’t know anything about them.
Yeah but have you tried convincing a luddite?
We still have people who think people on planks with wheels are criminals.
I think the difference is car fires almost never burn down apartment complexes because parking garages always have sprinkler systems. So in terms of killing innocent people you’ve got a real problem on your hands with people storing/charging in areas that don’t have appropriate fire suppression.
…until we reach the saturation point for electric cars.
Exactly.
Yup, Once the tech reaches the stage it has for bikes the “cheap” cars will become more prevalant. Why by Tesla when your just going to work by “XXXX” save tens of thousands and get all the benifits…
YES! EXACTLY
The US is designed that way because of each individual decision about where to buy/rent a home.
Each time someone prioritizes a decision to live away from the city, on a cul-de-sac, in a “safe” area, possibly with a long commute, that specific individual is contributing to the design.
There isn’t a committee that did this, it’s each individual decision which then as a whole push the economic situation into what you see now.
If buyers wanted a walkable, urban, sustainable abode, then developers would be creating more of those, because those are the things that would be valuable to sell. Buyers don’t want them. And the blame for this lays on each individual buyer.
