China: Electric Vehicle Battery Charging Indoors Catches Fire

Remember double A and triple A battery chargers? Those never caught fire or exploded. Unless misused.

These batteries nowadays cause so much mayhem. Gotta wonder if they aren't specifically constructed to do so.

 

It's a matter of energy density and discharge capacity/internal resistance. The faster a battery can discharge its contents the more that can go wrong when it is shorted. More energy flow means more heat and the lithium ion polymer cells which are most common in high discharge applications have a volatile catalyst that catches fire within the temperature range of a shorted cell. A lot of applications are switching to lithium iron phosphate which doesn't seem to catch fire in the same way so is much safer. The downside to it is the lower maximum output and capacity per volume. All that means is you get less range for the same size battery pack.

 

E-bikes caused a year’s worth of fires in two months, New York official warns

More mayhem, Chinatown! Do something!