The interior of Andante Bikes, a longtime Florida bike shop, has been destroyed by a fire started by a e-bike battery left unattended, our sister publication Bicycle Retailer
reported.
The fire started after the shop closed April 9. The culpable bike, shop owner Mauricio Orozco said, was manufactured about two years ago and was sold last December, but was returned by the customer two days later when the battery wouldn't charge. The shop sent the battery to a company in Nevada to be rebuilt. Upon receiving the rebuilt battery, the shop left the battery to charge overnight. Instead of properly charging, it caught fire.
No injuries were reported, but the fire destroyed much of the shop's merchandise, along with the inside of the shop itself.
The shop's insurance does not cover the damage, so Orozco has started a
GoFundMe to rebuild after the massive loss. As of this writing, the fundraiser has raised $11,987 of its $75,000 goal.
Lithium ion batteries can potentially catch fire, experts say, and should not be left unattended while charging. Inexpensive batteries are more likely to pose risks as manufacturing defects are more common than in high-end products.
More information is available about lithium battery safety in this
BRAIN article and this
e-bike battery charging guide.
An incident report on the Andante Bikes fire is expected to become available Friday.
I myself went through Stage 2 testicular cancer , and from that sustained damage to my legs and kidneys . The lasting effects from 3 round of chemo really took all of my energy . Even three years later I still struggle with riding uphill and my energy levels . I usually have to shuttle to be able to ride more than one run at the local trails .
A friend let me borrow his RM enduro E bike and a trail I normally could only ride once due to the length of climbing to get to the start . I could now do more than one run with the help of that E bike .
Why doesn’t someone explain to me how you could possibly look at my situation and using an E bike as a negative . Go Ahead ..
I do have an Ebike when I ride with my way younger and faster friends, (around 20 years younger), and I still ride my "regular" bike too.
It's a huge improvement for so many people, and it keeps growing.
Haters gonna hate man....
I've thought about this and perhaps ebikes should have a permitting process sort of like getting a handicap tag for your vehicle. Then again who will enforce this rule in public trails? And is this rule worth the trouble? Shouldn't we just let people ride their bikes?
If you downvoted a dude explaining how ebikes got him back into cycling after going through cancer, please feel free to leave a comment so the rest of us can ignore everything you say in the future; you're a c*nt, and your opinion is worthless.
Glad to hear you're doing better and you're enjoying yourself dude. That's awesome.
Wow...a little bit sensitive there? Do you really count dirt jumps as elevation?
You my friend made my day , nay my whole week when I read this . Thanks for the support and kind words . I rarely comment anymore on the internet because there are so many trolls . But I just got tired of people and there limited view and the ability to not broaden there horizon… if that makes sense
Anyhow , thanks to all who posted supportive comments
All Love and f*ck Cancer
It is like only buying liability for your car and then being pissed when they won't pay to replace that car after you crash it because it is a collision claim.
I am curious in this case if the bike shop was renting the space there were working in and had a limited business policy, it is unfortunately easy to chose a cheap policy that has lots of exclusions.
they’re probably fun as hell before they catch on fire man,cmon
-What brand of eBike that a new battery wouldn't charge? How common is this?
-What service rebuilt the battery?
-No warranty on a rebuilt battery? That's a red flag.
-Trust a rebuilt battery to charge unattended for the first time? That's a no.
So as to what brand? Not a brand... - dollars to donuts, this was a bike or conversion kit sourced from the endless supply of them available on alliexpress, ebay, even Amazon. You don't know what you're getting, you don't know whether the certificate stickers mean anything other than the supplier knew how to turn scanned pictures into decals, and you certainly have no idea if what you're getting is one of the rigorously tested, high quality batteries/motors/controllers churned out by legitimate companies abroad, or a bad knockoff that'll burn your house or shop down.
I have a Fire blanket wrapped around my Rail battery when i charge it.
We also now have Wifi Smoke detectors that will alert my phone - my garage recently got a water sprinkler system that i installed(only the spinklers and pipes which is easy and cheap) that is wifi controlled(was controlled by a heat sensor before i had a wifi trigger for it)
We have approx 40 lipos in my garage steel cabinet, i dont care if people think its all overkill, my garage is under my house and im not risking my familys lives over them.
I’m surprised this hasn’t happened sooner.
I experienced it in my home, and it sucked.
I can’t imagine the heat of a battery as big as an ebike one.
But yeah, no overnight, no unattended...
Its almost like Yea sure man thats ok i just wana ride , alright sighn here and well get your potentially explosive battery/fire hazard bike all ready for ya
If batteries are the future it seems were in for a mess of trouble
big mistake.
What about the battery rebuilder? Sounds possible something was repaired wrong.
So what are you supposed to do, sit there and watch your ebike charge every time?
It is a bit of a difficult one, could a charger be invented that detects if current is being stored or being used as heat???
Also insurance companies should not allow electric cars to be charged inside.
this is why a world powered by solar/wind and batteries will never happen.
I’m not even gonna get into the game of broken component tag that tech company warranties try to pull