"The explosion of an electric bicycle battery on February 7 in Hanover caused a car park building fire. According to police reports, the fire broke out in an e-bike shop in the ground floor of the car park building on Tuesday... The owner of the e-bike shop stated towards the police that there had been a loud bang and fire had broken out in several corners at the same time... The fire caused a damage at an amount of half a million Euro." That’s what SPIEGEL online reported late afternoon on February 7.
This is not the first case of this kind which went through the media. This fuels, of course, the fear of an unpredictable risk with a pedelec in your home. But this generalized conclusion is wrong in the opinion of bicycle and electric bicycle expert, graduate engineer Dirk Zedler.
"Blanket speculations on the safety of pedelec batteries as a consequence of this event of loss alone are not reasonable. Not all vehicle batteries can be measured by the same yardstick. We know that reputed battery manufacturers use every technology available to successfully prevent their products from malfunction. According to Zedler, the shop in question would offer fully assembled vehicles, conversion kits, batteries from little known suppliers and tuning services on their website. With some of these products the statutory reference values for the legal operation of pedelecs on public roads are most probably ignored. This raises doubts as to the safety awareness of the shop. Final statements can only be given when the official findings as to the investigations of the causes of fire will be at hand. But one thing is clear: Pedelec batteries do not work as scapegoats in general."
Our advice: Buy pedelecs and batteries from renowned manufacturers in specialist shops. And what is also important: Do not tamper with it on your own. And never charge a battery which shows external damage. See your specialist dealer and replace it!
Author: Julia Milan
Photo: Zedler
Read the entire article here.
