The loss caused by the flames in the building is provisionally estimated by the police at 500,000 Euro. Meanwhile, the parking levels have been reopened.

Now, the publicly appointed and sworn in expert, graduate engineer Dirk Zedler, warns of marking down pedelecs as dangerous in general. According to him, the fire had not yet been extinguished completely, when media and private individuals already started questioning the safety of pedelec batteries in general; in his opinion it would be better to keep calm: Blanket speculations on the safety of pedelec batteries based on this event of loss alone are not reasonable.

He is convinced that not all vehicle batteries can be measured by the same yardstick: "We know that various reputed battery manufacturers use every technology available to successfully prevent their products from malfunction. On the other side we had to state that the shop in question offers complete vehicles, conversion kits, batteries from little known suppliers as well as tuning kits on their website. With some of these products the statutory guide values for the legal operation of pedelecs and further vehicles on public roads can most probably not be fulfilled. This raises doubts as to the safety awareness of the shop. Final statements cannot be given until the official findings as to investigations of the causes of fire will be available."

Author: bz

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