Lithium Ion Battery Fires Abound in New York City
By Paul Homewood
It appears that battery fires are going under the radar. as far as the media are concerned, despite the fact that they are becoming an increasing hazard:
So far this year, there have been 108 lithium-ion battery fires in New York City, which have injured 66 people and killed 13, up from 98 fires that had injured 40 and killed two at this time last year. The most recent was a fire at an e-bike shop that killed four people near midnight on the morning of June 21 and left two individuals in critical condition and one firefighter with minor injuries. According to Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, it was “very clear” that the fire was linked to lithium-ion batteries, and she warned New Yorkers that such devices could be very dangerous and typically exploded in such a way that rendered escape impossible, as opposed to slowly catching on fire. The volume of fire created by lithium-ion batteries is incredibly deadly. The NY fire department issued a warning on Twitter, advising citizens to keep devices with lithium-ion batteries away from exits or windows, avoid using batteries that lacked “approved safety certifications,” avoid charging batteries overnight or when they are not present and to not use damaged or after-market batteries. In just three years, lithium battery fires have tied electrical fires and have surpassed blazes started by cooking and smoking for major causes of fatal fires in New York City.
Across the United States, over 200 micro-mobility fire or overheating incidents have been reported from 39 states, resulting in at least 19 fatalities, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The problem is particularly acute in densely populated areas like New York City where 23 people have died in battery fires since 2021. In London, lithium battery fires are the fastest-growing fire risk, with 57 e-bike fires and 13 e-scooter fires this year.
Reasons for the Increased Fires
The reasons for the increased NYC fires include a lack of regulation and safety testing for individually owned devices, hazardous charging practices (such as using mismatched equipment or overcharging) and a lack of secure charging areas in a population-dense city with numerous residential buildings, where most fires start. New Yorkers rely on e-bikes and other battery-powered devices to make deliveries or use them in other ways to earn a living.
This is just a taster for what is coming with EVs.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I have wondered recently how many EV fires there have been in the UK that are attribitable to the battery being faulty?
We have all seen news reports about these incidents but I wondered if there are any accurate statistics? I have been in the motor repair trade for 50 odd years and I’m no EV fan but thought it might be interesting in order to gain a sense of perspective of the problem, if indeed there is one.
If there isn’t a problem now there soon will be. The regular automobile did not kill many people – at first.
“…avoid charging batteries overnight or when [you] are not present…”
Quite definitely and quite soberly…that is the whole plan of the government DOWN THE LAVATORY.
On a lighter note, I found this in a 19th century text book:
“The only alternative [to an exacting program in science] is to put the student under the instruction of Jules Verne where he need not trouble himself about foundations but may follow his teacher pleasantly on a care-free trip to the moon or with easy improvidence embark on a voyage of twenty thousand leagues under the sea.”
Ah, with what improvidence have we embarked on a voyage to net-zero!
I used the word ‘soberly.’
This reminded me of BACON’s incredibly important words:
“Our method* is continuously to dwell among things soberly, without
abstracting or setting the mind further from them than makes their images
meet,**” and “the capital precept for the whole undertaking is that the eye of
the mind be never be taken off from things themselves***, but receive their
images as they truly are****, and God forbid that we should offer the dreams of
fantasy for a model of the world.*****”
* The scientific method, which he did not invent but whose formalisation
was probably the first, and, arguably, still is the best.
** This quaint language I take to be an analogy from every-day vision. If you
stick your nose too close it will all be a blur; if you retreat too far you will
miss details.
*** No silly metaphysics in science, if you please!
**** Let the facts speak for themselves, as far as possible.
***** Do not make things up! No ‘Just So’ stories!’ Ever!!
I think the public has successfully been bamboozled into making precisely the two mistakes Bacon deprecates. On the one hand, they are made to look at things in too much detail – the temperature at Nowheresville, yesterday, beat the record by 0,00001 C! On the other hand, they are told to look at the whole of a fantasy-world called ‘Gaia,’ as if from a huge distance, with a simplistic summary of ‘a situation,’ presented absent all nuances – we are melting!
Actually “Gaia” says rather the opposite as it is mostly about stabilising feedback mechanisms especially ones catalysed by biotic mechanisms, not runaway ones. It has been inappropriately commandeered by those who believe in a fragile rather than a robust or resilient Earth System despite the emphasis of the Gaia Hypothesis on the latter.
That’s very true about Gaia. If understood properly it doesn’t involve any kind of mysticism and something at least very close to Gaia is almost certain to be true otherwise complex life wouldn’t of survived for at least a billion years. Although it’s theoretically possible that Earth was been incredibly lucky and complex life has arisen millions of times in the galaxy or universe but almost always dies out relatively quickly I don’t believe this is the case.
Could the reason for “complex life” surviving as long as it has on Earth have more to do with Darwin than Gaia? Just a thought.
“…Gaia. If understood properly…”
You may well have a good description of the original idea; it envisages Gaia as anything but ‘helpless.’ * But that is not the idea of Gaia that the CAGW crowd have adopted for use. What they peddle is a standard Marxist picture of ‘exploitation,’ portraying Gaia as a helpless** victim of Capitalism.
Concerning Gaia-ism generally, in my opinion it was inevitable that the pretended scientific concept of Gaia*** should descend into mysticism, because the idea of feedbacks is not in fact a scientific concept of natural cause-and-effect but an engineering technique for making the EQUIVALENT of a (controlling) natural cause-and-effect. To put it bluntly, whoever talks of “feedbacks” in Nature – even if it is a good guy like Dr Spencer – should stop.
There is a further level of difficulty involved. All the phenomena of
the Earth are rapidly varying, and not obviously in such a way that any part consistently “receives information” from the other parts.
However can the dynamics of this be understood? Oh, Gaia knows! Really?? I am perfectly happy to keep alive in my mind the possibility that “life” has some collective will. But where is any positive proof? There was a mosquito whining near me a short while ago. I tried to wave it away but it came back and I deaded it. I am not sure if negotiations in our collective mind took place before this expression of “Might is Right.”
* A tough old biddy. She destroys life forms (like us!) who annoy
her
** A damsel in distress.
*** Technically, it what is called a “lumped element” approach to a
scientific problem. Newtonian Mechanics illustrates it. The
gravitational “force” of 1000 N which the Earth exerts on your
body, imagined at a place of application, lumps the bits of your
body into a point mass, and the unknowably complex realities
of what the Earth and your body are doing to each other are
lumped into a force and a reaction. But I do not think one can
just postulate such simplification and hope for the best. It took
thousands of years of human experience before Newton could
say, “This works well enough to start talking about LAWS OF
FORCES.”
A fascinating and erudite discussion of Gaia and the scientific method. Thank you. I agree Gaia should be assigned to a class of mysticism, but then again, all per-quantum dynamic “models” were just that–models. Models do not explain reality; they describe it sufficiently for experimentation, discussion and analysis. And mysticism has its place. Wm Blake comes to mind. Not mentioned was the analytical approach: “Imagine the cow as a sphere”–to make the math easier, or the bit about butterfly wings flapping in Asia crating wildfires in Canada. Good stuff. I always enjoy reading these posts. Thanks again.
Re Marxist: one could equally say it’s the traditional portrayal of the man-nature relationship as enshrined in Abrahamic religions – nature subservient to man. All this stuff about mankind’s stewardship of planet Earth is Johnny-come-lately hippy nonsense.
I take your point about the train having left the station on Gaia interpretation but still think there is some residual value in pointing out the concept’s correct use and implication, although it probably has as much traction as vainly insisting that “the hoi poloi” and “River Mississippi” are tautologous!
You are probably right also about mystical overtones; Gaia does have a teleological feel to it but no more so than evolution by natural selection. And regarding feedback as a human construct, again this permeates all of science where real-world phenomena are moulded to fit our cognitive apparatus, but at least we have the bottom-line check of whether the next phenomenon that comes our way fits the narrative.
I come to this area via Earth System Science whose foundational myth comprises a lot of boxes like ocean, soil, atmosphere, vegetation etc connected by fluxes of energy, water and biogeochemicals and powered by the sun. Fluxes between, and state changes within, boxes are mediated by processes that act like resistances or accelerators. I find it quite reasonable and intuitive that components and processes involving “life” (the biosphere) punch above their weight through fast action and propensity to filter other processes that cause their decline. In this respect they act like a catalyst to speed up geochemical processes and are no more teleological or mystical than the operation of Le Chatelier’s principle appearing to resist perturbation.
And then there’s Chaos Theory…
Click to access James%20Gleick%20-%20Chaos.%20Making%20a%20new%20science.pdf
“And then there’s chaos theory…”
Indeed there is. And Heraclitus thought of it 2,500 years ago – “You can’t step into the same river twice.” Scientists of the Victorian era knew enough about it to instinctively steer clear of making premature and grandiose statements about “the more complicated phenomena of Nature” and they were especially careful to purposely disregard the details of actual happenings. As one said*, “If my house were burned by an arsonist, why would I be interested in the exact moment each fleck of paint curled up?”
The present popularity of chaos theory (now waning as it has limited practical application) has merely added some new dogmatic errors to the sludge at the bottom of the modern scientific mind. Such as the statement that, “A butterfly clapping its wings in China can cause a tornado in Texas.” The more astute philosophers of science agreed long ago that, pace Laplace, it is MEANINGLESS to say that a detail “causes” a detail**. What should be regarded as a detail is, of course, dependent on the situation.
Cybernetics is “the science of control and communication, in the animal and machine” (Norbert Wiener). Now, Nature is not a machine but we are generally obliged to model it as a machine. It follows, as night follows day, that it is impossible to sensibly discuss even modestly complicated phenomena without first studying at least the rudiments of that science.
https://archive.org/details/introductiontocy00ashb/page/n9/mode/2up
In the last sixty years I have recommended this book to literally thousands of people. To the best of my knowledge, not one person ever read it on my recommendation. This gives me a warm fuzzy feeling, for:
“The whole world ‘s mad except me and thee – and I’m nowt too sure about thee!”
* I do not recall the exact words but this expresses his point.
** That disposes of the pseudo-science called attribution theory.
That poor butterfly in China has got a rather bad press. First it’s an example of catastrophe theory rather than chaos theory but more importantly the chain of events that followed actually had the opposite effect. Far from inducing a tornado in Texas, it was responsible for calming the situation so that an incipient tornado that was set to devastate Texas failed to happen. Which begs a question; who or what was responsible for all the other tornados that didn’t happen?
The bigger truth about chaos theory etc is not that you can’t project from the present into the future but more that you can’t reverse engineer the present to know the past. We might sometimes think we can when we collected data on what went before. However that’s just one realisation of a gazillion pathways that could equally have concluded with the present which we didn’t collect the data for.
A deeper issue than Dave’s “wave equation collapse” of paint curling and at what point does detailed information become irrelevant. Perhaps the key is that slippery phrase, “responsible for”. Reminds me of that hateful phrase “consistent with” and all the damage that does to climate science.
“…consistent with…”
There is a cartoon in the collected works of Nigel Molesworth showing a cynical headmaster who is speaking to his school and acknowledges that other approaches are consistent with a situation but does not rate them very high:
“The science master thinks it is the boiler, Matron thinks it is the drains, but I think it is you boys!”
I not sure why my example of the paint curling up at random was construed as something akin to wave mechanics. The paint being damaged at random times in the house is part of a real as well as a mathematical catastrophe. The actual combustion process is what is called “a sweep*” in thermodynamics. It runs to completion while there is fuel. Each sweep happens only once in the history of the Universe and is usually turbulent and unanalysable in principle, so what use is there in discussing the details?
* A figure of speech. Once piled-up snow starts falling down from the peak above, you can only hope it misses you, because the avalanche will sweep down.
With the Zeeman Catastrophe Machine, slow movements of the free-end, which allow the friction and inertial forces to dissipate, induce the quasi-static conditions which cause the well-known catastrophic behaviour. Fast movements can produce chaotic behaviour.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252886329_Chaotic_behavior_of_the_Zeeman_Catastrophe_Machine
As a pick-up line, “Come upstairs and see my Catastrophe Machine going Chaotic!” would probably only work at MIT, and even there only on girls who were very hard-up for a date.
If you have an EV the advice must be don’t keep it in your garage.
… especially if the garage is an integral part of the house, and not standing separately, at least 15m apart (that’s metres, not miles 🙂 )
But 15 miles would be a lot safer!
My advice would be, “Keep it outside your local MP’s house!”
OTT:
Looks as if Europe will have enough gas – at a price – in this coming winter:
https://www.igu.org/resources/lng2023-world-lng-report/
A reminder :
and the LNG ships keep coming
Chrysler recommend at least 50 feet from anything you value. Could be a new one for neighbour disputes.
Anything *of* value would be better 🙂
I read somewhere that EVs are not allowed to be parked in public parking structures in the UK, as the heat from the fires have collapsed more that one garage. And it is illegal to charge these things inside, or within ten meters of an inhabited structure. And EVs must be separated by ten meters at public charging stations. I think you are on to something–if your EV burns down your neighbors car, house, garage, shed, etc–who pays?
Professor Paul Christensen of Newcastle University is the world’s leading expert on battery fires and explosions. See https://planetradio.co.uk/greatest-hits/cambridgeshire/news/battery-expert-warning-cambridge-flat-fire/
Yes, Professor Paul Christensen of Newcastle University (UK), professor of pure and applied electrochemistry, believes that all Li-ion batteries are dangerous.
These batteries do not have to undergo physical abuse to cause an explosive fire, it can just happen through exposure to high humidity and Common Mode Voltage (Noise) and the vapour cloud of a runaway fire can contain hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen cyanide, all very nasty.
Watch this Australian video of Professor Christensen warning of the dangers :
Start at 1:01:45
Rocket-like flames and bleve’s, sign me up ! (BLEVE–boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion) The old saying, “You can’t put a price on a good time” comes to mind.
Forced adoption of new technology ahead of the development curve (real life experiences and failure) leads to a large population of installed devices with unforeseen design faults, this also applies to the problems that Siemens Gamesa have with their big wind turbines.
The reports do seem to be for battery bicycles and scooters which must almost certainly be of Chinese origin and therein lies the problem. The focus should be on who provides the product approval for them to be on sale, assuming that they require it.
“reports do seem to be for battery bicycles and scooters”
As a biker, I know that bikes fall over (or are being pushed over) once in a while. Chances of a bike battery getting damages are higher, so that might also (partially) explain why batteries on bikes are a larger problem than the batteries on cars.
As more of these fires are reported, I wonder if it will effect insurance rates for homeowners, renters, and auto policies. What ever the increases are, it will be worth it to be able to say you are a green. And as we all know, you cannot put a price on a good time.
Talking about electric fires – I personally doubt the incidence of failed cable joints (and consequent mini volcanoes) underneath London roads has reduced – but subjectively… the reporting has dropped to net zero….
Have the utility companies got on top of finding them before ignition or has the reporting simply been suppressed?
Hi
Have a browse through these sites:-
1) https://www.tesla-fire.com/
current list of tesla ev battery fires.
Please note that this is Tesla only, so all the other makes of bus and cars, bikes etc are not included.
2) https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/2022-04/April%201%202022%20Li-Batt.%20Thermal%20Events.pdf
Interesting list of airline applicable fires.
I no longer keep or charge My e-bike Lion battery in our garage. ( It’s kept at the bottom of the garden.)
I am also pondering the safest way of charging and storing the dozens of smaller lithium cells and batteries that litter our home!
I am certain that the quality of the manufacture is less important than the physical care of the battery itself. Whether the battery pack is “elcheapo” or premium , any mechanical damage to the battery cells will cause an inferno. “toy” devices like “stand on” scooters that get dropped and thrown about are a prime contender. I see TFL do not allow e scooters on the Tube system now.
Of course, overheating due to overcharge, failure of the BMS, or over current due to excessive demand and failure of the cell internal re-settable link will also produce a Nov 5th display for you.
get that warm feeling!
cheers
Patrick
Patrick, Thank you for some very entertaining videos. Some would not load, but many did and some were great. I particularly like the one with the garage loaded with ammo going off, keeping first responders away. You can’t make this stuff up. All the best, Bill
The e-bike fire stats are very different than BEV statistics.
Here is an article about fires for ICE vehicles, BEV’s and Hybrids.
https://www.kbb.com/car-news/study-electric-vehicles-involved-in-fewest-car-fires/
I was surprised by the results.
Hybrids were the worst with more than 3400 fires per 100,000 vehicles sold, ICE vehicles second with more than 1500 fires per vehicle sold and BEV’s had just 25 fires per 100,000 vehicles sold. (By the way, I own and drive a hybrid.)
I actually run across these stats in two separate publications.
The e-bikes battery fires often reflect the use of after market batteries that are not made to high standards or even batteries that might have been rejected due to quality problems.
If someone has a different reference and these are wrong, please let me know.
Thing is, ICE vehicle fires are extinguishable using conventional firefighting methods, this is not the case with Li batteries.
However, many of the modern plastics used on conventional vehicles can be pretty nasty too releasing hydrofluoric acid, very nasty stuff!
I cast a jaundiced eye anything coming out of the National Anything, cuz their continued existence is dependent on spinning the official GREEN line. Consider how few EVs make up the total set of vehicles on the road. Consider how difficult it is to extinguish LI Ion battery fires in any application. ICE vehicle fires are most likely due to fuel leaks and poor repairs, but LI Ion battery fires start from routine charging which must be done to make them work. LI Ion EVs are inherently more dangerous than ICE vehicles. I agree that the quality control of cells in E scooters, hover boards, and other toys may not meet the highest specs, but cells used in expensive EVs should be of the highest quality–and they catch fire if you look at them funny. I am blathering now, and I apologize.
E fires get press. But we have no indication of the numbers involved.
‘been 108 lithium-ion battery fires in New York City’
I imagine there are MILLIONS of lithium-ion batteries in New York. 108 could be a rounding error.
New York City wiring is old and can not handle charging these batteries.
You lost me. What do older distribution conductors, be they under the streets or strung along pole in the alleyways, have to do with self-immolating Teslas?
One of the hazards of EV’s has not been mentioned here and that is electrocution. Very high lethal voltages and amperages are involved. In a long distance Motor race at Spa last year involving hybrid cars, a radio message was sent to a driver to pull over as the high voltage had leaked into the chassis. He was told to pull over, keep marshals away, and when exiting the vehicle to jump as high as possible in order to avoid connecting his personal charge with the ground. As the TV commentator said, it would have been lethal otherwise. The Government I think are absolutely not aware of the risks of EV’s and therefore are failing to warn the Public due to ignorance. Grant Shapps in his last job as Sec Of State for Transport last year was not even aware of the fire risks! Now his new job as Sec of State for Energy Security and Net Zero …….!!! is in his element, and he has committed £20Billion of our money to carbon Capture and Storage.
Fun Fact: Years ago I was a mobile tool dealer for the American company MATCO. I used to go into new-car auto dealerships to pedal my wares. Back in the 1990’s I noticed a bright yellow, eight foot, fiberglass Shepard’s hook stationed at each end of the garage area. When I inquired, I was told these were safety hooks used to pull a mechanic off of a hybrid car in event of electrocution from accidental contact with the 280 volt battery pack or associated wiring.
OTT
It begins:
https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/two-dead-emergency-crimea-bridge-055509532.html
This might be a little ‘out there,’ but I wonder if this was actually done by Tatar partisans, working for Turkey. Erdogan’s way of apologising to the USA for being a pain in the butt about Sweden and Finland joining NATO, and part of the price for his F-16 modernization. In addition, the indigenous* people of the Crimea are Turkic, and Turkey’s rulers have always claimed a right to have some say in what happens to them- with reason:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_Tatars
* Not an absolute term, of course. In a sense we are all newcomers where we
live. There was somebody else there, first, who may or may not have been part
of our ancestry. And before them, there was another ‘somebody else.’
I said OTT, but I do not think it is off the general topic of the culture war, which is for the moment centred around the imposition of net-zero.
Any prospect of an imminent resumption of oil and gas from the Russian Federation or its successor state(s), and the inevitable tumble in prices, raises the question of how this situation would be used by the CAGW crowd. My bet, unfortunately, would have to be on its strengthening them. They will say it makes more resources available to double down on a transition. And now that people are not suffering from Covid-19 agonies of mind, and cost-of-living pain,
and vaguely worrying about being nuked, well, they can jolly well get back to work suffering for something else!
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/tesla-self-combusts-on-residential-street-in-london/vi-AA1dWMvA?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=96646e03c7184587aacbb4f613221c81&ei=21
That police car is way too close to that fire and those disgusting fumes! I guess people think EVs are somehow benign, because they are saving the world. Like a soppy old labrador. When really they are more like a nervous pit bull.
I agree with your sentiments, but the “culture war” you reference is in actuality part of the CCPs Unrestricted Warfare plan designed to destroy the economies of The West from within, and it is proceeding according to plan. Xi Jinping is laughing all the way to the bank while he watches The West’s apparatchiks dupe their populaces into arguing about what is truly Green.
According to Russian bloggers*, the Kerch Bridge was blown up by four converted jet-skis carrying explosives and tracked from near Snake Island .
Talk about asymmetric warfare!
This would seem to negative my tentative idea of Tatar partisans with Turkish backing
The sequence was: Putin said “no-go!” for further grain deal. Twelve hours later, boom! That is what you call in game theory tit-for-tat**. It is such a good strategy that you might as well not read the rest of the book. Just use this in life for everything, provided you have the power to carry it off. Quite harsh of course, and so not easy to do with loved ones.
*Pictures show one road lane dropped into the sea, the other knocked sideways
and useless, the rail-line unaffected.
**And nice-for-nice as the flip side.
The retaliation*, the attack on Odessa port to stop grain going to poor countries, was dumb.
The temporary closure of one civilian port is a pin-prick for Ukraine, but a disaster for the reputation of Russia among neutrals – especially as Putin has said (blustered) he will sink any ship that goes to pick up food.
* Not actually any such thing. Putin always wanted to end the grain deal ‘with a bang.’ The attack involved special launching sites in Crimea, whose construction was noted weeks ago.