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E Moto goes up in flames

  1. #1

    E Moto goes up in flames

    MotoE: Championship in doubt after catastrophic fire?
    Not good for your electric bike fans..

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    Last edited by MUZ720; 03-14-19 at 09:28 AM.

  2. #2
    Member Zolden's Avatar
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    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    Wow. What a catastrophe... and not good for ebikes or energica if ultimately it is found that one of the batteries exploded causing the fire.

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  3. #3
    Posting Freak jeantarrou's Avatar
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    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    Just saw this, so disappointing, I was looking forward to this series...

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  4. #4
    Lifer Tekime's Avatar
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    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    That is rough. Supposedly the show will go, with the first race being rescheduled. Hopefully they can recover - I for one would love to see e racing do well.

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  5. #5
    Soul Rider Paul_E_D's Avatar
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    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    Surprised there are no oil company conspiracy theories yet.

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  6. #6

    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    Smells like Repsol .....

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  7. #7

    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    Quote Originally Posted by Paul_E_D View Post
    Surprised there are no oil company conspiracy theories yet.
    I wouldn't put it past them, but it is sadly all too easy for this to happen with current battery tech.

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  8. #8
    Lifer Falko's Avatar
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    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    Quote Originally Posted by Paul_E_D View Post
    Surprised there are no oil company conspiracy theories yet.
    IS this a good fit for Rotella??

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  9. #9
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    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    Maybe I missed something but it sounds like an insurance claim against whoever supplied the charger. None of the bikes were on the charger at the time?

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  10. #10
    Super Moderator TheIglu's Avatar
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    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    You don’t need to be charging for cells to go into thermal runaway.

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  11. #11
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    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    Must have misread the article. I thought they said the charger was what went up. I hear you about the batteries though. I'm always nervous about leaving my drone batteries unattended while charging. Can't imagine what they put in those bikes.

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  12. #12
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    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    Quote Originally Posted by Falko View Post
    IS this a good fit for Rotella??
    ..
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails E Moto goes  up in flames-rotellachance-jpg  

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  13. #13
    Development Rider scottieducati's Avatar
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    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    Quote Originally Posted by joshk1025 View Post
    I wouldn't put it past them, but it is sadly all too easy for this to happen with current battery tech.
    I'm not sure you really grasp the state of "current battery tech." More Ferrari's and Lambo's have caught fire in the past few years than EV's. There have been a few post-crash EV fires, but precious few instances of un-instigated thermal runaway or batteries blowing up. You WILL see this with consumer-grade products, but battery management and thermal management systems are standard for automotive applications, and very effective these days. Admittedly, the prevalence of EVs on the road isn't there yet to have decades of historical data, but here's something for perspective:

    About 174,000 vehicle fires were reported in the United States in 2015, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the National Fire Protection Association. Virtually all of those fires involved gasoline powered cars. That works out to about one every three minutes.

    Tesla claims that gasoline powered cars are about 11 times more likely to catch fire than a Tesla. It says the best comparison is fires per 1 billion miles driven. It says the 300,000 Teslas on the road have been driven a total of 7.5 billion miles, and about 40 fires have been reported. That works out to five fires for every billion miles traveled, compared to a rate of 55 fires per billion miles traveled in gasoline cars. (Source)

    New things always scare people until they figure out how to deal with them. Formula E has been going a couple of years now and have an *impeccable* safety, AND *reliability* record when it comes to their batteries. The TT-E class has also been going quite swimmingly for years, the "professional" outfits have had plenty of teething issues, but I have yet to hear of a total loss of a bike due to fire... whereas several traditional bikes are crashed, burnt to a crisp, and written off... each year.

    Also worth noting, the electric hypercar that Hammond totaled in the hill-climb burned down to nothing, but the technical debrief was pretty amazing and the company has learned new ways to make their cars safer. A natural byproduct of failures is engineering solutions and implementing appropriate protocols. I'm sure Tesla is constantly learning each time their car is involved in an accident or has a failure. ICE's have a good century head-start, and yet by most accounts EV's are likely *already safer* than gasoline cars both in terms of crash-worthiness and fire risk.

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    Last edited by scottieducati; 03-18-19 at 05:18 PM.

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  14. #14
    Day late, dollar short carsick's Avatar
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  15. #15
    Wizard loudbeard's Avatar
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    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    This post is dumb. You are providing a single data point of an EV catching fire, the assumption I am making is that you're doing it in counterpoint to Scotty's post....considering it was provided with no comment and directly proceeding his. That is not how statistics work. You cannot say "this EV caught fire, therefore EV's catch fire" in the same way you can't say "I've never seen racism, therefor racism doesn't exist." Single data points do not matter, they are in fact, foolish.

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  16. #16
    Day late, dollar short carsick's Avatar
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    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    I feel that in your rush to argue and defend, you've overlooked the fact that I posted it because it is funny. It burned to a crisp, on the ice. If I have to explain that, the irony was probably lost on you.
    There is no malice, guile, agenda, politics, foreign influence, secret backdoor money, vested interest in the downfall of EVs, conspiracy, strawman, red herring, logical fallacy, virtue signalling, dog whistling or whatever else y'all use to bully each other online. The argument you are looking for is not here.

    As you said, it was the assumption you were making.

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  17. #17

    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    Quote Originally Posted by scottieducati View Post
    I'm not sure you really grasp the state of "current battery tech." More Ferrari's and Lambo's have caught fire in the past few years than EV's. There have been a few post-crash EV fires, but precious few instances of un-instigated thermal runaway or batteries blowing up. You WILL see this with consumer-grade products, but battery management and thermal management systems are standard for automotive applications, and very effective these days. Admittedly, the prevalence of EVs on the road isn't there yet to have decades of historical data, but here's something for perspective:

    About 174,000 vehicle fires were reported in the United States in 2015, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the National Fire Protection Association. Virtually all of those fires involved gasoline powered cars. That works out to about one every three minutes.

    Tesla claims that gasoline powered cars are about 11 times more likely to catch fire than a Tesla. It says the best comparison is fires per 1 billion miles driven. It says the 300,000 Teslas on the road have been driven a total of 7.5 billion miles, and about 40 fires have been reported. That works out to five fires for every billion miles traveled, compared to a rate of 55 fires per billion miles traveled in gasoline cars. (Source)

    New things always scare people until they figure out how to deal with them. Formula E has been going a couple of years now and have an *impeccable* safety, AND *reliability* record when it comes to their batteries. The TT-E class has also been going quite swimmingly for years, the "professional" outfits have had plenty of teething issues, but I have yet to hear of a total loss of a bike due to fire... whereas several traditional bikes are crashed, burnt to a crisp, and written off... each year.

    Also worth noting, the electric hypercar that Hammond totaled in the hill-climb burned down to nothing, but the technical debrief was pretty amazing and the company has learned new ways to make their cars safer. A natural byproduct of failures is engineering solutions and implementing appropriate protocols. I'm sure Tesla is constantly learning each time their car is involved in an accident or has a failure. ICE's have a good century head-start, and yet by most accounts EV's are likely *already safer* than gasoline cars both in terms of crash-worthiness and fire risk.
    I have no idea how the fire started. I was just referring to the fact that Lithium ion batteries are pretty flammable, not as flammable as gas of course.

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  18. #18
    Wizard loudbeard's Avatar
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    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    Quote Originally Posted by carsick View Post
    I feel that in your rush to argue and defend, you've overlooked the fact that I posted it because it is funny. It burned to a crisp, on the ice. If I have to explain that, the irony was probably lost on you.
    There is no malice, guile, agenda, politics, foreign influence, secret backdoor money, vested interest in the downfall of EVs, conspiracy, strawman, red herring, logical fallacy, virtue signalling, dog whistling or whatever else y'all use to bully each other online. The argument you are looking for is not here.

    As you said, it was the assumption you were making.
    You're right, I was feeling argumentative yesterday. Sorry Doug, I owe you a beer.

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  19. #19
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    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    Quote Originally Posted by TheIglu View Post
    You don’t need to be charging for cells to go into thermal runaway.
    Sorry but I'm a bit lost here. When they refer to the charging unit ("The source of the short circuit has yet to be identified but, once the fire broke out, it ignited the high-density battery which is part of the high-performance charger used at MotoE™ events.") are they talking about on the bike or a charging station that the bikes would tie into?

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  20. #20

    Re: E Moto goes up in flames


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  21. #21
    Development Rider scottieducati's Avatar
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    Re: E Moto goes up in flames

    The Enel-supplied charger short circuited. The bikes were not plugged in, and were apparently victims of the fire (but likely made the damage worse). Incorporated into the charger is a high-density battery (different from what's on the bikes), which appears to be what really got the fire going.

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