Are We Ready for Electric Car, Safety & Environmental Aspect

[Leafable]

Dear @leafable, I have been trying to avoid a heated debate with you with regards to your assumption that EVs are safer than conventional gasoline / diesel powered vehicle, by clearly stating what my safety concerns are all about, with many supporting articles. Taking the tagline from our nation SGSecure program: Not If But When. A fire with EV will happen one day, and when that day come, will we be adequately prepared, not only with minimizing damages to properties (the car involved and surrounding building / vehicles / installations), but also in ensuring that people involved (firefighters / emergency responders, driver / passengers in the car, onlooker / passerby) are kept as safe as possible?

 

From what you have posted so far in this thread, I am guessing that you are one of the interested party, especially when you mentioned you used to drive a Nissan Leaf and now a Volvo XC90 T8, which both are not available for public use or purchase, but corporate users and/or government agencies. This is none of my concern, but your belief that EV are much safer than conventional vehicles, thus warrant NO extra attention to the additional hazards and risks I have highlighted, are worrying. And if our government agencies adopt the same view, then I would say we are asking for trouble. Fail to Plan = Plan to Fail!

 

I have done my part, through starting this thread to raise awareness of MCFers to the concerns with batteries in EV / PHV, as well as writing to our SCDF on the same topic (hopefully I shall not be seen as a whiner / government basher). While waiting patiently for their reply, I shall continue my sharing of the other safety & environmental concerns with batteries. Please do refer to the screen shots below for evidences of my official communication with SCDF. Have a nice day pal.  

 

 

Full content of my feedback:

 

Calm down Big Man. Don't need to "heated debate" keyboard warrior.

 

But please do give credits to our SCDF or other emergency agencies. They already done the necessary preparations. The LTA and EMA already done the TIDES programe to factors in all the possibility might occur. They don't just sit in the office drinking coffee.

[Carbon82]

Calm down Big Man. Don't need to "heated debate" keyboard warrior.

 

But please do give credits to our SCDF or other emergency agencies. They already done the necessary preparations. The LTA and EMA already done the TIDES programe to factors in all the possibility might occur. They don't just sit in the office drinking coffee.

 

I dislike keyboard warrior, and refrain to be one in every forum I participated, through taking physical action by writing in to SCDF on some of the concerns I have shared here. I will soon also be writing in to FSSD and NEA with regards to fire fighting and protection system, fire code (current version is coming to 5 years old), and environmental control with batteries used in EV/PHV & even PMDs.

 

I am not annoyed by you in person, but your continuous assumption and assurance that EVs are safer than conventional gasoline / diesel driven vehicles might give some of the MCFers here a false sense of security (or rather, safety), when come to handling an EV. Since you are a stakeholder (EV user), may I know if you have been briefed or made aware of the safety measures to be taken, in the event that you encountered issues on your Leaf or XC90 T8? I sincerely would like to hear from you, as you might be able to share a lot more than I know, and I swear no sarcasm here.

 

BTW, I have been following the TIDES-PLUS program closely (partially because I was thinking if I can get my hand on the Mitsubishi i-MiEV), since they launch it about 6 years ago, and correct me if I am wrong, the 3 key objectives of the program are more of the following, than safety & environmental concerns:

- feasibility of using EVs in Singapore through better understanding or EV technologies and user preferences

- accessibility and type of charging station, vs average traveling distance per day or per charge (based on local road and traffic conditions)

- Gather interest of other players in EV market, such as setting up of charging stations, introducing lower cost EVs for mass market, etc.

 

I have not in anyway implied that our government agencies are sitting in office drinking coffee, BUT, a very big BUT here, isn't it time to raise the awareness of general public towards the use of EV, since we will soon be having EV under car sharing program, more average Singaporean will be able to commute in EV (taking Electric and Hybrid bus), and most importantly, the emergency responders (SCDF or those voluntary group) need to be fully aware of how to handle an EV fire... ...

 

MOM has been advocating the use of Risk Assessment to identify hazard and risk associating with an activity (be it equipment, material, process, surrounding and/or human related), as well as enforcing that all the findings through the RA, as well as control measures to be made known to each and every of the personnel of concern (user / stakeholder). So the more I see the importance of rolling out awareness program now, before the first incident strike. I hope you really get my points and where I am coming from.

 

Await your sharing of more safety info from a user perspective. Have a good weekend. 

Edited October 27, 2017 by Carbon82

[Carbon82]

For those who are like me, keen to have our hand on an EV (I am looking at trying BlueSG's fleet come Dec this year), here are some basic safety tips to be followed.

 

1) DO NOT attempted to touch / explore any components in the engine bay or under carriage. ALWAYS ASSUME THAT ALL HIGH VOLTAGE COMPONENTS ARE ENERGIZED!

 

2) If you found the electric car to be partially submerged in water (say due to flash flood), DO NOT TOUCH THE CAR BODY or GET CLOSE TO THE CAR. Call the dealer / agent to report the situation and let them handle it.

 

3) In the event that you get into a traffic accident, with the electric car suffering substantial damages, SWITCH OFF POWER SUPPLY to the car (de-energized it), if possible without endangering your own safety, before calling traffic police or SCDF for assistance.

 

4) In the above situation, always assumed that the entire vehicle is energized (short-circuited) and DO NOT TOUCH any part of the vehicle, especially metal surface when exiting from the car.

 

5) Refrain from removing any personnel items from the fuming / burning car, and keep a SAFETY DISTANCE OF AT LEAST 15m away from the car, as the batteries, if exploded, can send small / sharp debris across a distance.

 

6) Inform emergency responder / fire fighter / SCDF personnel responding to the emergency that THIS IS AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE, and specific instructions must be followed (they may refer to personnel from the car dealer for more details).

 

7) When returning the car to the designated location, remember to READ THE INSTRUCTIONS provided on charging station, before plugging the charger in the car, as you are dealing with a high voltage power supply of 240V or higher.

 

Have a safe trip!

 

[Carbon82]

For those who are like me, keen to have our hand on an EV (I am looking at trying BlueSG's fleet come Dec this year), here are some basic safety tips to be followed.

 

1) DO NOT attempted to touch / explore any components in the engine bay or under carriage. ALWAYS ASSUME THAT ALL HIGH VOLTAGE COMPONENTS ARE ENERGIZED!

 

2) If you found the electric car to be partially submerged in water (say due to flash flood), DO NOT TOUCH THE CAR BODY or GET CLOSE TO THE CAR. Call the dealer / agent to report the situation and let them handle it.

 

3) In the event that you get into a traffic accident, with the electric car suffering substantial damages, SWITCH OFF POWER SUPPLY to the car (de-energized it), if possible without endangering your own safety, before calling traffic police or SCDF for assistance.

 

4) In the above situation, always assumed that the entire vehicle is energized (short-circuited) and DO NOT TOUCH any part of the vehicle, especially metal surface when exiting from the car.

 

5) Refrain from removing any personnel items from the fuming / burning car, and keep a SAFETY DISTANCE OF AT LEAST 15m away from the car, as the batteries, if exploded, can send small / sharp debris across a distance.

 

6) Inform emergency responder / fire fighter / SCDF personnel responding to the emergency that THIS IS AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE, and specific instructions must be followed (they may refer to personnel from the car dealer for more details).

 

7) When returning the car to the designated location, remember to READ THE INSTRUCTIONS provided on charging station, before plugging the charger in the car, as you are dealing with a high voltage power supply of 240V or higher.

 

Have a safe trip!

 

I would suggest potential EV user to search the web for more safety tips, before getting you hand on one. Here are some sample I have extracted from the net.

 

BMW i3

 

 

Nissan Leaf 

 

 

Mitsubishi i-MiEV

 

Accident and Emergency Rescue Manual

[inlinesix]

For Porsche 918 Spyder, there is a specific instruction on how to disconnect the electric power to hybrid drivetrain.  After that, it is supposed to be towed back to Service Centre.

 

No on-site repair to be done.

[Carbon82]

A good read on environmental concerns with Li-ion batteries. Let look at the topic objectively, it is not so much of bashing, but a comprehensive approach towards understanding what are the pros and cons.

 

Tesla's new batteries may be harder on the environment than you think

 

Tesla Motors made waves in April when it announced the launch of Tesla Energy, a new business unit that will provide lithium-ion batteries to homes and businesses. Tesla CEO Elon Musk described the potential of a world entirely powered by batteries charged with renewable energy. The media lapped it up, as did consumers, who preordered Tesla’s home battery solution, Powerwall, in droves.

 

But energy storage experts remain unconvinced. Even Panasonic – supplier of the lithium-ion cells that form the foundation of Tesla’s batteries, and partner on the company’s forthcoming battery factory – calls Musk’s claims hyperbole.

 

“We are at the very beginning in energy storage in general,” says Phil Hermann, chief energy engineer at Panasonic Eco Solutions. “Most of the projects currently going on are either demo projects or learning experiences for the utilities. There is very little direct commercial stuff going on.

 

“Elon Musk is out there saying you can do things now that the rest of us are hearing and going, ‘really?’ We wish we could but it’s not really possible yet.”

 

Musk’s optimism might in part be driven by necessity. The Nevada-based battery factory, called the “Gigafactory”, once completed will have a production capacity that far outstrips the demand produced by Tesla’s vehicles. What to do with all those extra batteries? Sell them in the residential and commercial markets.

 

It also solves another Tesla problem. The majority of the company’s automotive customers want to be able to rapidly charge their cars at home, but the systems that enable that sort of charging are a major energy suck. Utilities don’t like them, and in many cases won’t allow them. Solution? Charge a Powerwall, then run your electric-vehicle charger off the stored energy.

 

“It’s a smart business move, and it might be a commercial success, but as a scientist I don’t think what Tesla’s proposing is a good solution,” says Tom Milnes, energy storage expert and CEO of Open Water Power, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spin-off commercializing a fuel cell for use in naval drones. It’s not a Tesla competitor.

 

Lithium-ion batteries just won’t store the amount of energy required to be as useful as Musk promises, says Milnes: “Personally I think the Tesla factory producing hundreds of thousands more lithium-ion batteries is really short sighted because those batteries are just never going to hold the amount of energy we need them to.”

 

Despite all the talk about batteries storing solar energy, renewable energy storage is currently not the primary function of Tesla’s pilot program. Jackson Family Wines (JFW), a family owned and operated company with vineyards and wineries worldwide, hosted the largest installment of Tesla commercial energy storage units during the company’s testing period. While JFW has invested heavily in solar in California, it did not use the Tesla unit to store solar energy. “We’ll eventually use it for solar; we’re excited to test that,” says Julien Gervreau, senior sustainability manager at JFW. “Right now it’s designed for peak saving, so we charge them at night when the grid is stable and electricity is cheap and discharge during the day.”

 

John Jung, CEO of Greensmith, a supplier of turnkey energy storage systems, says this application is the most common in energy storage, with the majority of large-scale customers being more interested in reliability and cost reductions. The ability to make renewable energy more viable is typically a secondary benefit. “The renewables aspect is still incredibly important, though,” he says. “Even if it’s a secondary thing, it can make a huge difference in terms of a project being [return on investment] positive or negative.”

 

But even as Tesla’s batteries promise to reduce tailpipe emissions, more direct environmental concerns surround the current boom in lithium-ion batteries. As hundreds of thousands more of these batteries hit the market, the problems that come with lithium mining, battery lifecycles and recycling loom large.

 

In a 2013 report, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Design for the Environment program concluded that batteries using nickel and cobalt, like lithium-ion batteries, have the “highest potential for environmental impacts”. It cited negative consequences like mining, global warming, environmental pollution and human health impacts.

 

While Tesla declines to comment on the particular chemistry it uses, representative Khobi Brooklyn did list nickel as one of the components of the company’s batteries, and lithium is also obviously a component.

 

Jung says Tesla’s under-construction Gigafactory and other new battery factories have led to a rapid decline in prices for lithium-ion batteries over the past two years. “Because the electric vehicle market did not consume as much of that capacity as [original equipment manufacturers] had hoped, we’re seeing prices drop dramatically,” he says.

 

That means exponentially more batteries entering the environment over the next few years. Although some utilities and corporate customers are concerned about the ecological impact of large-scale energy storage systems, Jung says there’s still work to be done. “This is a market that’s going to be measured in the trillions really soon – that’s a lot of components, a lot of batteries, inverters and converters to deal with.”

 

According to Tesla’s Brooklyn, the company will conduct onsite recycling of lithium ion batteries at the Gigafactory, capturing nickel, aluminum and lithium for use in new battery cells. And Panasonic’s Herman says he expects to ultimately see recycling rates at close to 100% for lithium-ion batteries.

 

“There’s an economic benefit to do it,” Herman says. “It’s not like we’re left with a heap of nothing at the end – the recyclable content of lithium-ion batteries is valuable.”

Edited November 1, 2017 by Carbon82

[Victor68]

we all know this is not going to happen in the next 10 years but somebody need to be the Guinea pig to fund the R and D.

 

HDB alresdy stsrted to fund the PV panels. we are contributing to world R and D programs already by doing our little part. 

[Carbon82]

As I have mentioned in my very first post in this thread, we need a full supply chain to deal with batteries alone... Business opportunity for some?

 

Rise of electric cars poses battery recycling challenge

 

As electric cars roll towards the motoring mainstream, companies are gearing up to address one big environmental question: what to do with the lithium-ion batteries used to power them once they run out?

 

The millions of small lithium-ion batteries that are already used in everything from smartphones to electronic toothbrushes consume a lot of resources as it is — about $2bn of metals and minerals in 2015 alone, according to consultancy Roskill. Almost all of them end up in waste dumps or remain in unused gadgets in people’s homes.

 

The batteries used in electric cars are much bigger, last eight to 10 years, and will account for 90 per cent of the lithium-ion battery market by 2025, Roskill forecasts, increasing lithium demand fourfold and more than doubling demand for cobalt — two of their essential elements. The price of cobalt has already risen by more than 80 per cent this year.

 

However, while recycling small lithium-ion batteries is not widespread, a number of companies are hoping it will be different for electric cars and are working on ways to profit from a used car battery bonanza.

 

Since 2006, Umicore of Belgium has been one of the few companies recycling lithium-ion batteries, through a process of smelting and leaching with chemicals to recover metals. It is now operating a pilot process for recycling electric car batteries, it says, in preparation for the “sizeable” numbers that are likely to come to the market in 2025.

 

One problem is that lithium ion batteries in electric cars use a variety of chemical processes, making it difficult to develop standardised recycling.

 

“Everyone is using their own formulation,” said Linda Gaines, an analyst for the Center for Transportation Research at the Argonne National Laboratory in the US. “Lead acid batteries are way simpler.”

 

Oregon-based OnTo Technology aims to circumvent that by producing manufacturing quality battery electrode materials directly from spent batteries, rather than breaking down the individual components.

 

“By 2025 it’s certainly going to be a robust industry,” said founder Steve Sloop. “Between now and 2020, it’s learning how to practise this and getting these materials back into manufacturing that’s really important.”

 

Canadian recycling start-up Li-Cycle says to make it profitable you need to recycle all of the battery materials. It claims it can recycle all types of lithium-ion batteries recovering up to 90 per cent of materials including lithium, cobalt, copper, and graphite.

 

“You get the full economic value . . . that’s what will enable it to be profitable,” said Ajay Kochhar, the company’s chief executive and co-founder. “You need to look at it [in terms of] all the other valuable components contained to really understand what is going to enable this market.”

 

Mr Kochhar estimates over 11m tonnes of spent lithium-ion batteries will be discarded by 2030. The company is looking to process 5,000 tonnes a year to start with and eventually 250,000 tonnes — a similar amount to a processing plant for mined lithium, he said.

 

Car makers are also looking at battery recycling.

 

In a tweet last July, Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk said the company’s battery Gigafactory in Nevada “will be fully powered by clean energy when complete & include battery recycling”.

 

In May, a corporate filing linked two top Tesla Motors executives, JB Straubel and Andrew Stevenson, with a company, Redwood Materials, that says on its website it is developing advanced technology for “materials recycling, remanufacturing, and reuse”.

 

“Governments will do something, they are not going to permit [electric car batteries] to end up in landfills,” said Jim Greenberger, executive director of NAATBatt International, a US battery trade association. “As more and more vehicles get put into the market and more and more come to the end of life the danger of that happening rises.”

 

China and the EU have already introduced rules that make car makers responsible for recycling their batteries.

 

Still, there is the question of whether the industry will be willing to use recycled materials, Ms Gaines said. Tyremakers are still reluctant to use recycled rubber, she pointed out.

 

“Historically there has been reluctance to use recycled materials partly for liability issues.” Lead-acid batteries, over 90 per cent of which are recycled, are “the poster child of managing to get it all to work,” she said.

 

[Beehive3783]

Supply chain? GLCs will sapu everything la.

 

Or, you can be the supply chain and GLCs will either buy you over or destroy you with competition if you refuse to be bought.

[inlinesix]

The more sustainable long term solution is Hydrogen Fuel Cell.

[Carbon82]

Full content of my feedback:

 

Just gotten an official reply from SCDF pertaining to the feedback I have raised exactly a week ago, and proven that my worries are not unfound. From a safety professional point of view, the reply is a rather standard one (probably using a standard template), which missed many of my points completely. The last paragraph in particular (I underlined in RED) is what we commonly said: "You think, I thought, who do?"

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to find fault with our authorities, but my concerns with safety of general public (i.e. maintaining of safety distance during an EV fire, quarantine of affected EV after fire have been extinguished, etc.) was not addressed in the reply at all...     

Edited November 3, 2017 by Carbon82

[kdash]

Just gotten an official reply from SCDF pertaining to the feedback I have raised exactly a week ago, and proven that my worries are not unfound. From a safety professional point of view, the reply is a rather standard one (probably using a standard template), which missed many of my points completely. The last paragraph in particular (I underlined in RED) is what we commonly said: "You think, I thought, who do?"

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to find fault with our authorities, but my concerns with safety of general public (i.e. maintaining of safety distance during an EV fire, quarantine of affected EV after fire have been extinguished, etc.) was not addressed in the reply at all...

why am i not surprised. haiz...

[Carbon82]

Another article about potential problems with battery waste. If EU & US are not ready to handle it, I doubt there is anything our NEA could do, except maybe imposing of disposal tax to due with it? I sincerely hope NOT!

 

The rise of electric cars could leave us with a big battery waste problem

 

The drive to replace polluting petrol and diesel cars with a new breed of electric vehicles has gathered momentum in recent weeks. But there is an unanswered environmental question at the heart of the electric car movement: what on earth to do with their half-tonne lithium-ion batteries when they wear out?

 

British and French governments last month committed to outlaw the sale of petrol- and diesel-powered cars by 2040, and carmaker Volvo pledged to only sell electric or hybrid vehicles from 2019.

 

The number of electric cars in the world passed the 2m mark last year and the International Energy Agency estimates there will be 140m electric cars globally by 2030 if countries meet Paris climate agreement targets. This electric vehicle boom could leave 11m tonnes of spent lithium-ion batteries in need of recycling between now and 2030, according to Ajay Kochhar, CEO of Canadian battery recycling startup Li-Cycle.

 

However, in the EU as few as 5% of lithium-ion batteries are recycled. This has an environmental cost. Not only do the batteries carry a risk of giving off toxic gases if damaged, but core ingredients such as lithium and cobalt are finite and extraction can lead to water pollution and depletion among other environmental consequences. 

 

There are, however, grounds for optimism. Thus far, the poor rates of lithium-ion battery recycling can be explained by the fact that most are contained within consumer electronics, which commonly end up neglected in a drawer or chucked into landfill.

 

This won’t happen with electric vehicles, predicts Marc Grynberg, chief executive of Belgian battery and recycling giant Umicore. “Car producers will be accountable for the collection and recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries,” he says. “Given their sheer size, batteries cannot be stored at home and landfilling is not an option.”

 

EU Regulations, which require the makers of batteries to finance the costs of collecting, treating and recycling all collected batteries, are already encouraging tie-ups between carmakers and recyclers.

 

Umicore, which has invested €25m (£22.6m) into an industrial pilot plant in Antwerp to recycle lithium-ion batteries, has deals in Europe with both Tesla and Toyota to use smelting to recover precious metals such as cobalt and nickel. Grynberg says: “We have proven capabilities to recycle spent batteries from electric vehicles and are prepared to scale them up when needed.”

 

Problem solved? Not exactly. While commercial smelting processes such as Umicore’s can easily recover many metals, they can’t directly recover the vital lithium, which ends up in a mixed byproduct. Umicore says it can reclaim lithium from the byproduct, but each extra process adds cost.

 

This means that while electric vehicle batteries might be taken to recycling facilities, there’s no guarantee the lithium itself will be recovered if it doesn’t pay to do so. 

 

Investment bank Morgan Stanley in June said it forecast no recycling of lithium at all over the decade ahead, and that there risked being insufficient recycling infrastructure in place when the current wave of batteries die. “There still needs to be more development to get to closed loop recycling where all materials are reclaimed,” says Jessica Alsford, head of the bank’s global sustainable research team. “There’s a difference between being able to do something and it making economic sense.”

 

Francisco Carranza, energy services MD at Nissan, says the fundamental problem is that while the cost of fully recycling a battery is falling toward €1 per kilo, the value of the raw materials that can be reclaimed is only a third of that. 

 

Nissan has partnered with power management firm Eaton for its car batteries to be re-used for home energy storage, rather than be recycled, and this economic problem is a big reason why. “Cost of recycling is the barrier,” says Carranza. “It has to be lower than the value of the recovered materials for this to work.”

 

The lack of recycling capacity is “a tragedy”, says Amrit Chandan, a chemical engineer leading business development at Aceleron, a hi-tech British startup looking to transform end of life batteries. “It takes so much energy to extract these materials from the ground. If we don’t re-use them we could be making our environmental problems worse,” he says.

 

Aceleron, like Nissan, thinks the answer lies in re-using rather than recycling car batteries – for which the company has patented a process. Chandan says car batteries can still have up to 70% of their capacity when they stop being good enough to power electric vehicles, making them perfect – when broken down, tested and re-packaged – for functions such as home energy storage.

 

Fresh from recognition by Forbes as one of the 30 most exciting hi-tech startups in Europe, Aceleron is looking for investors to help it roll out pilot projects. “There’s going to be a storm of electric vehicle batteries that will reach the end of their life in a few years, and we’re positioning ourselves to be ready for it,” says Chandan.

 

This is not the only alternative. Li-Cycle is pioneering a new recycling technology using a chemical process to retrieve all of the important metals from batteries. Kochhar says he is looking to build a first commercial plant to put 5,000 tonnes of batteries a year through this this “wet chemistry” process. However, it is early days for the commercial exploitation of this technology.

 

Linda Gaines, transportation system analyst and electric vehicle battery expert at the Argonne National Laboratory in the US says: “The bottom line is there’s time to build plants”. “But”, she adds, “we don’t know what kinds of batteries they’ll be yet. It would help if the batteries were standardised and designed for recycling, but they’re not.”

 

 

[Arogab]

This discussion shows that many of our brothers here are really concern and speaks with lots of knowledge. While on the other hand. We have a COE concern here which does not appear in other countries. There is really a lot to think over and make it happen.

 

How to have EV applied into the society and keep COE at bay? - many will refuse to switch due to brand of cars as of now. Many are not switching if cost of car is higher.

 

If COE is taken out, the numbers of cars will explode in our roads, how to keep this in control? This will be really true even if Gov will forgo the revenue.

 

There are really lots of things to talk about when it comes to this as it may already happening on many other things. Share bikes created some troubles along the way as it solves some issues.

 

So we can talk more on ther issues along the way or my list will be forever.

[Slim112]

If electric cars need charging, then power supply got issue. hybrid less issue.

[Oloberwonder]

Can we just take a moment to appreciate whoever who created such nonsense. Thank u for potentially putting out lives in danger, thank u for getting us killed

[Beng2]

Can we just take a moment to appreciate whoever who created such nonsense. Thank u for potentially putting out lives in danger, thank u for getting us killed

Are you referring to the chaps who invented cars, or internal combustion engine?

[Carbon82]

Although modern EVs have many safety features in-place to minimize occurrence of fire, the risk with Li-ion batteries are REAL, and should not be taken lightly... Again, "Not If But When"! I personally felt that there should be more awareness program for the general public, right from NOW.

 

E-scooters go up in flames in Pasir Ris and Yishun

 

 

An electric scooter went up in flames at a Pasir Ris block on Wednesday (Nov 8), just one day after a similar fire landed a family in the hospital, with one member still in the intensive care unit with second-degree burns.

 

Wednesday’s incident occurred at about 6.30am in Block 548, Pasir Ris Street 51. It involved the contents of a balcony, and there were no injuries, said the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF).

 

In Tuesday’s incident, however, Mr Ridwan Ithnin, 23, suffered burns to 45 per cent of his body, and had to be saved by his neighbour from the window ledge of his 10th-floor Yishun flat when the e-scooter exploded in his room. The flames blocked the door, leading him to break open his window and climb out in a panic.

 

The two latest incidents bring the tally of fires caused by personal mobility devices this year to at least 33.

 

The SCDF said there were 31 fires involving personal mobility devices – now widely used – from January to September this year, compared to 19 cases over the same period last year.

 

Mr Ridwan had bought the e-scooter just two weeks ago for his part-time job as a deliveryman for Deliveroo, his brother, shipping engineer Kamil Ithnin, 31, told The Straits Times.

 

Mr Kamil said that his brother had charged the e-scooter for about six hours before it exploded.

 

Last month (Four, including baby, taken to hospital after e-bike catches fire outside Bukit Batok flat), a family had to escape through their bedroom window with a five-day-old baby after an electric bicycle charging overnight in the common corridor of a Bukit Batok block caught fire.

 

Nanyang Technological University’s Energy Research Institute executive director, Professor Subodh Mhaisalkar, said getting to the root cause of battery fires is a complicated process.

 

But he noted that the industry is well able to produce safe batteries.

 

“Why such cases still happen is because there is insufficient care taken in certification and verification of design...it could be possible that the device did not go through all the safety checks or that there was a manufacturing defect,” he said.

Edited November 9, 2017 by Carbon82