[HN Gopher] E-Bike Battery Fires Are Soaring, Especially in New ...
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E-Bike Battery Fires Are Soaring, Especially in New York
Author : gnicholas
Score : 14 points
Date : 2023-03-06 17:56 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| alwaysanagenda wrote:
| [dead]
| krmbzds wrote:
| https://archive.is/0yIL0
| steponlego wrote:
| I've always thought a great weapon for the opening days of WWIII
| would be firmware updates that blow the battery packs up. There
| are probably billions of Chinese made devices plugged in across
| the US, in homes and offices, and the flip of a switch could
| easily trigger a fire. Now that China has entered the fray and is
| providing lethal aid to Russia, I suspect such a development
| isn't just something in the kooky conspiracy theory realm, but
| that it's a realistic possibility. Just imagine the damage to the
| US and other NATO allied infrastructure if, suddenly, every home
| and office building "burned down." And there is no way to prevent
| this possibility or mitigate it.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Could also just overwrite firmwares on a loop until the cells
| wear out. Then you have a brick until you break out the
| soldering iron.
| verall wrote:
| > and is providing lethal aid to Russia
|
| Can you provide a source for this? Everything I have read
| suggests they have "considered" or "are considering" or "could
| consider" and nothing suggests any aid has occurred.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Every time this comes up I feel like the root cause is being
| ignored: delivery apps are driving the majority of unsafe e-bike
| sales in NYC at least
|
| Delivery drivers have bikes that meet a few key needs:
|
| 1. Must be cheap since the apps barely pay enough to make the job
| worth its while
|
| 2. Must be fast, since they're incentivized on multiple levels to
| make deliveries as fast as humanly possible
|
| 3. Must have maximum possible uptime, see 2.
|
| That results in literal boatloads of imported bikes with insanely
| large batteries at the cheapest possible price point. They charge
| at the very limits that the batteries will support, they're
| barely QC'd, and the end result is a ticking time bomb.
|
| It's a hairy situation because these people are just trying to
| make a living, but are forced to do so with extremely unsafe
| bikes. In my eyes it needs to be a two pronged attack: The
| government can't just try and only clamp down on the bike sales,
| people will find a way when their living depends on it.
|
| They also need to work with these apps to remove the incentive
| and/or provide an alternative. Even if it means having to
| subsidize bikes for delivery riders I can't imagine the cost and
| tragedy of repeated fires won't quickly overcome what it'd cost
| to help them afford safer bikes.
|
| -
|
| Also something I'm shocked hasn't happened yet is regulation on
| providing safe charging areas in new construction. It's not a
| solution for existing building because good luck getting half of
| these buildings to do that when working fire doors isn't a
| given... but the city is going in on biking, and e-bikes are a
| natural part of that.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Don't even need a safe charging area for the bikes, just the
| batteries.
|
| Taiwan has a system of battery exchanges for one of their
| scooter networks: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yGwmPcClWrE
|
| Such a waste that we're failing on standardization here so
| miserably. I should be able to use the same battery for an
| e-bike, a lawnmower, a power tool, as a backup battery or in a
| car for an extra mile or two.
|
| Maybe need different sizes for different durations of use, but
| that's about it.
| pengaru wrote:
| Who _doesn 't_ want fast, cheap, and always available?
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(page generated 2023-03-06 23:03 UTC)