"I smelled the bike and I immediately knew something was wrong," Avi told the London Fire Department, still in shock after his electric bike exploded before his eyes. In a few seconds, a cloud of white and gray color emanated from his bike, before it ignited into a ball of fire. A week earlier, same incident, this time with an electric scooter that exploded and ignited. Surveillance cameras captured the impressive explosion of the two devices.
The latest figures from the London Fire Brigade show that there have been 48 e-bike fires and 12 e-scooter fires in the capital in 2023. And it is precisely for this reason that they launched the #ChargeSafe campaign to warn about the dangers of lithium batteries.
Chargers with a major fire hazard
Published on May 28, the British newspaper The Guardian reveals in an investigation conducted with the association Electrical Safety First (ESF) that defective electric bike chargers were found on the sales sites eBay, Amazon and Wish.
These cheap chargers, equipped with non-compliant sockets and without fuse, were put online by British and Chinese sellers. Combined with an incompatible lithium battery, these chargers pose a major fire hazard, says The Guardian.