Officials sound alarm over rise of lithium-ion battery fires 

That woman pushed that baby aside and got in front of her to get away from the fire....Who is this lady? She didn't even reach back to pull the kid with her? Just complete disregard for the kid....and the report said nothing about that, meanwhile my jaw is on the floor 🤯

This is why newer systems should have charge indicators connected to limiters. The charge hits a certain level, the charge detector sends a single, the limiter cuts power off and requires manual action to reset.

This happened to me from a taser gun that I purchased from online. I had it for only 3 months and kept it plugged in for when I would need it to walk my dog after work "winter time" and it's dark out. I was awakened by my dog barking and growling in the kitchen and then my smoke detectors went off! I got up and could immediately smell burning wires, plastic and a weird smell of electricity, as soon as I got to my kitchen and turned on the light, the taser gun that was plugged in starting hissing loudly and sparking! I grabbed my kitchen towels and knocked it from the wall, grabbed it with the towels and threw it inside my oven and closed the door, because I didn't have time to make it to the back door and throw it outside. It exploded inside the oven and kept on burning even without there being any oxygen left inside the oven. The way it was burning and the white hot color it gave off, I knew I couldn't open the door and use baking powder or a fire extinguisher. I had to call the fire department for them to come out and help me. That is when I learned the dangers of these lithium batteries and now I NEVER- EVER leave anything that is chargeable plugged in that's not attended!... I hope this helps someone else out there, I definitely learned my lesson and could have lost my home, my dog and my life, ironically from a chargeable device designed to protect my life & safety!...

me: literally sleeps beside a full stack of lithium batteries for my vape and portable fan ☠️

That's why lithium iron phosphate batteries are superior. LiFePO4 use a safer chemistry which is not prone to overheating to dangerous levels. It's important to understand this advantage when shopping for portable power stations as backup power sources in the home.

Not only did the child get pushed out of the way by the adult, she had to save herself!!??

*slowly unplugs my lithium ion battery-powered speaker that i normally leave just plugged in for convenience* 😳

I seriously hope that child is ok and doesn’t have second to third degree burns 😕

It's not just the fire, but the chemicals associated with lithium batteries and the deadly gas that is put off by the burning. Manufacturers and government rushed too quick to something they thought was the answer but have created a more lethal problem that will cause environmental issues for many decades to come.

My cousin is a volunteer firefighter in Kansas. He said they have had 3 or 4 fires at their dump last year, caused by lithium batteries

People don't believe it can happen until it happens to them. Never happened to me but Im always very careful with my vapes, hoverboards and even my phone, anything that uses lithium ion batteries has the potential for fires and explosions. It's really hard to put out these fires too, just look up how much harder it is to put out an electric vehicle fire than a regular gas car fire.

My friend once rented from a guy in New York who used his apartment as a conduit/relay for shipping "used" electronics. My friend didn't ask any questions because the rent was dirt cheap in comparison to the surrounding community (cash under the table; the landlord freaked out when he tried to pay him in check one day). Then the landlord started shipping bulk quantities of lithium ion batteries through his place and he bolted; he said he didn't like sleeping next to a pile of napalm and grenades LOL

Batteries exploding with enough energy to litterally throw you is scary

Let me give you some old school advice. If you must leave a charging battery unattended, make sure it's charging at the lowest amperage possible. 2 amp max. This is true for traditional batteries, and is still true for modern lithium batteries. Yes newer batteries are more capable of handling a fast charge, but it is still potentially dangerous. Only use fast charging if you are needing a partial charge quickly, and if you can be there to keep an eye on it. Otherwise prevent battery overheating via low amperage trickle charging.

Imagine that happening during a flight

These batteries are also found in some RC cars, which can catch fire without the car running but by just being connected to the car (happened to me once)

Lol, this proves nothing. They intentionally removed the safety feature so the battery would fail. 99.9% of the time, safety mechanism would kick in and short circuit first before it even gets over loaded. If you are going to use this a way to fear monger the battery technologies, you are absolutely doing a poor job. One could easily say that your electrical system in your home could easily fail as well if you take away the safety feature. If you take away the circuit breaker in your home, any electronics could have easily done something similar. One could easily say that your refrigerator is combustible if the compression safety feature is remove causing infinite compression until it becomes literally an IED.

But as you mentioned, in order to perform those tests they had to disable the security features, therefore, it was intentionally produced. What this means is the there must be a stronger enforcement from government agencies to force manufacturers to maintain and improve battery safety features to protect all

Don't overcharge your lipos, Always attend charging batteries, Never poke lipos with sharp or metal objects. discharge lipo batteries properly and don't over discharge when using. Dispose of properly. *Read the warning labels.* I got into FPV drones and this is basically my biggest worry either then losing a expensive drone.

"Wait, aren't these batteries also in our cars?" "Shhhh, thou shalt not question the EV inquisition"

This is such poor reporting. Raw numbers entirely miss the point of the problem; what is important is the rate and comparisons to what electric bikes, scooters, and vehicles are replacing. At 216 fires in NYC with a minimum of 92,000 ebikes/scooters of NYC (Citi + estimates of delivery biker estimates), that's a rate of 234 fires per 100k ebikes per year. Compare that to vehicles: Nationally, there are 1530 ICE vehicle fires per 100k cars and 3475 per 100k hybrids per year. Oh, and if you were wondering, the rate is 25 per 100k for EVs, so it's likely that we're just undercounting ebikes that aren't sold and the true rate is closer to this. The scale of the issue is TEENY compared to gasoline vehicles, which ebikes are largely able to replace in many metro areas. Ebikes and scooters could be made safer through regulations, I agree. Let's require commercial users to pass a course in safe charging and offer outdoor charging lockers in places like NYC. But let's not fear-monger our way out of a safer, greener technology.

I really hope that's not that womans baby the way she saved herself and not the baby. 😡

There needs to be safety standards in place for ALL electronics using lithium batteries 🔋 I remember when Hover Boards were very popular & there were lots of fires that occurred due to over charging...We Need to Have Standard Safety in all Electronics.

Whoa! Thanks for the video. I have a bad habit of overcharging batteries so this is an eye opener.

So the woman pushed the child into the bike and rushed out the door. She could’ve picked the baby up. Was that her mother? My goodness. Poor baby.

Please continue to spread the word on this matter. Give the opportunity to have case device to contain the battery in. The battery should be easy removed from its device and than stored in safe case for charging.

They "removed the safety features" from the battery and then purposely over charged it? I bet if I remove the brakes from my car it will crash...

Wow - thanks for this report. I needed to hear it. Have been considering getting a solar generator like this for emergency use. Haven't heard this part of the story before.

We need more of these Li-Ions and I need a really big one in our garage 😂

Li-Ion soon will be a thing of the past, since were now moving to solid state battery, it wont burn easily, and it can withstand room temperature up to 90 C degrees.

Whenever I hear someone suffered a TBI on the job I always wonder what makes them go back. So glad that they’re alive to tell the tale.

For any rechargeable electric appliance that I'm unsure it's overcharged safety system, I usually plug it to a timer and set the time based on the device charging time.

Most electronic equipment have overcharging protection on them.

Here's a thought. Don't take off the safety parts.

One question here: how does one prevent a battery from “overcharging” ? Are we supposed to unplug it the moment it reaches 100% ? With some devices it’s not easy to tell. With others (hybrid vehicle, for example) it’s not under user control.

I’ve never had or known of a lithium ion fire in my area. I would love to see the data because these fires can suddenly be happening like it’s a new trend. There are millions of batteries in peoples homes.

A fire chief in California who has studied these types of fires said that an electric car fire can require up to 25,000(!) gallons of water to extinguish, versus 750 gallons for a gasoline car. That does not sound very 'green' to me.

That explosion from the scooter was huge! It took the windows out! 😳

My hand is tangling as I’m holding my phone with its powerful lithium ion battery.

Pro tip if you own an android or and iphone you should have settings that limit your battery to 85% it helps to keep your batteries below 100% to help the life span and helps not push the batteries

"Failures are rare....except in NYC where there were 216 alone."

Good to see that mother save her child 👍👍👍

Now imagine a electric car in your garage plugged in all night....

Here is a pro tip for lithium battery charging, try to charge at a lower speed and limit charging to 80% Not only do you decrease battery tear by a factor of a thousand, you increase the charging cycles the battery can do and decrease the chance of a catastrophical failure.

Electric Cars being the "future" of transportation is a concerning future...

Well, almost EVERYONE wears a lithium-ion battery in its pocket, everyday. Failures happens, but still they are quite rare vs. the number of batteries used worldwide. New solid-state batteries will solve this safety issue aswell.

I didn't even hear any of that. I was too in shock at the lady throwing the baby back into a fire to save herself. Wtf

The alarm should be on quality control. I swear the main draw against batteries is how expensive or unreliable they can be.

This is my biggest fear. Not theft, not flood, but all the lithium-ion battery products in my house. When I stop using a device with one, I charge to ~40%, then put in the oven (we don't use the oven) so if it catches fire it won't catch the house on fire.

As someone with an RC car hobby, LIPOs are finicky & require attention / proper care. I always store them in a flame retardent case in a 50% charged state & always balance charge them.

This almost always occurs when using a wrong charger. If you're supposed to charge at 1 amp and you charge at 5 amps no wonder why it explodes

It's not just vehicles with these, many handheld and household objects are starting to use them. The phone you carry every day likely has one

never had any issues with any kind of batteries for decades. even the the recent years purchases of cheap made in china electronics hasn't cause me any issues with it's batteries. the battery industry's claim of rare failure is indeed true. at least for me and most people i know.

I don't do it for my phone but for almost anything else I charge there is a timer set for that outlet incase I forget to pull whatever off the charger. I started doing this with my cordless tools due to all the garage fires I've seen or heard about. Then I figured it must be a good idea for everything else.

"Removed the saftey features" something that all the products here have in common. Remove the saftey features to your phones battery and stick it in your pocket or bypass the fuses in your house. The message here is make sure you buy from a proper source, have good duligence like anything else in your home.

Everybody who owns and stores/charges a large lithium battery in their home should have a "Firesak" it's a bag that is designed to contain the explosion & fire and gives you plenty of time to react compared to not having one.

if you're into electronics like i am and work with lithium batteries, don't forget to discharge them to below 3.6V. Discharged batteries are alot harder to light on fire since the lithium is in an innert, oxidized state Also, if you store them fully charged they're gonna loose capacity and increase their internal resistance over time

Last year, My uncles shed got burned down due to overcharging Li-ion batteries without using a appropriate charger. Fire depts responded and killed the fire. At least they put so many gas cans in it. ALMOST burned down the neighbor’s house.

Most technologies these days have safety features to stop charging after a certain percentage or at 100% the reason they had to shut off the safety feature on the scooter is exactly that. The technology is safe and it’s more like opponents of technology like EV and solar are against this technology becoming mainstream.

I'll keep driving my gas powered vehicle.

A while ago, 2007-ish I had a Motorola razr explode in my pocket. Didn't catch fire but that much heat down there wasn't fun. Not sure what happened since it wasn't charging I guess the battery just failed

0:18 was that lady trying to pull away from her kid AND never reached down to help the kid?! WTF!?

The lesson here is only purchase electronics from reputable brands, DO NOT purchase random off brands you have never heard of. Also do not leave ANY electronics charging for extended period of time. Always always check your electronics

Key point, you removed the safeties. Are their defective batteries out there? Yes, but they are usually in knock off products. Are their protections you can take? Yes, you can purchase a timer to limit how long the battery charges. Charge the battery someplace where there is less likely hood of a secondary fire. When I charge my smaller batterie or my DJI batteries, I do it on the stove so if they catch fire, the chance of it spreading is small. Anything has the potential to be dangerous, not just Lithium Ion batteries. BTW - I purchased some no name rechargeable lights online and the batteries overcharged and caught fire. But they were enclosed in a meal box, so I didn't even know about it until later that day. Just another use for metal ammo cans.

Thanks for this

lithium battery failures are incredibly rare and almost always caused by user error. even cheap Chinese battery cells will never just randomly blow up. I'm all for battery safety, but lets not pretend like this is some new epidemic. this kind of reporting turns off a lot of people from going green and buying stuff like electric bikes, scooters, and cars because they think the battery is just gonna randomly blow up one day. the best way to prevent fires is to not overcharge and to not charge the battery in an extremely hot environment. if you follow these rules you are completely safe.

I want to go electric but the dangers of lithium ion explosions really prevents me from getting an EV. I live in a hot country and I have no faith that these batteries can withstand the heat here. I've seen so many videos about EV fires and it takes so long to put it out. These manufacturers haven't made preventative designs to make the fires under control when this situtation happens. Until they do, my current gas powered car will do.

Keep on pushing for everything electric

I'm more intrigued by the quality of the sofas not moving in the blast and more concerned how easily the whole window frames blew out.

The fires are caused by the lack of a charge controler on things like e-bikes, scooters, and similar devices. They will not combust unplugged.

So don’t remove the safety switches from batteries when you’re charging. Got it thank you. We would have never realized that.

My son gets so mad at me for charging my phone over night. Tells me it can start a fire… I thought he was being overly careful because he is but omg!

Screw that lady who showed so much cowardess in the care of that baby, didn't even reach for her or take the brunt of the blast.

Do these products not have a charge cutoff feature or something so they dont overcharge?

Sadly this happened to my mother's house almost a week back, Her roommate plugged a hoverboard cord into the wall and left it in and it exploded and set the whole attic on fire.

They act like these batteries are brand new or something. Phones, laptops, cordless tools, all sorts of things have lithium batteries. They all should have battery management systems attached to prevent overcharging. Even in the video they said that they purposely disabled the battery protection to overcharge it which caused the explosion and fire!

"This house has everything you'd find in a typical home" Shows motorcycle in the living room.

Many scooters have dual charge points and two chargers but manual recommends using 1 port 1 charger.

I swear we gonna have Batteries in our clothes at some point.

😂 remember, when we all said years ago, we should be using sodium ion batteries, and everybody laughed at us ? 😂

"Researchers removed the safety features from the battery to ensure it would fail." @1:18 . That's like saying you removed the brakes from a car to show just how dangerous vehicles are. Lifepo4 (lithium iron phosphate) is very stable and won't explode like they are showing. The batteries that fail are cheap Chinese lithium iron polymer or lithium cobalt batteries that have no safety measures installed. Point is, don't buy cheap batteries and know the makeup of the battery before you buy and you're fine.

Their no joke. I had one go up on me when I was charging one for my airsoft gun. I'm glad I was there to prevent it from getting any worse.

I made a 5000 cell Powerball from 18650s. Only had a problem when I slipped with a screwdriver and punctured a cell. Quite spectacular.. obay the specifications and they are quite safe.

This is one of the major things that would worry me about an electric Car. They take too long to charge just standing there by it like you would if you were filling up with petrol, but I'd be worried about going off for a coffee and leaving it charging

Be very wary of purchasing "off brand" Li-ion batteries, particularly large capacity ones and devices that have them installed.

Good to be aware that this can happen.

Been using eve lifepoe4 prismatic cells for a 2330 AH set up for a solar system love the chemistry of these.

Imagine your massive 1,000 pound electric car battery igniting under you while driving on highway at 70mph with your family inside the car. Everyone would be toast before your could even get the car stopped. There are some videos of the ev’s catching on fire while people in them and the doors won’t open. Have to climb out through window. Luckily I’ve only seen it happen when stopped so they had time to get out.

"sparks a fire" **battery proceeds to literally explode**

too many sheep ignorant people out there buying EV without knowing how dangerous batteries are. anything govt push on you, do the opposite

Failures may be rare, but as the use of batteries become more prolific - events will increase...

Ain't nothing like purposely poisoning the air with a cup of tea in the morning

Ohhhh? So it's not just Tesla???

It happened to me. Golf pushcart lithium battery exploded, catching my garage on fire. Don't go with the advice in this piece to "listen to what the manufacturer recommends." My battery manufacturer said in the owner's manual that it is okay to leave the battery charging for extended periods of time.

Last month I had a Panasonic 2032 coin battery explode at home only 10 minutes after I got off work. It caused 4 Small fires with open flames three was jn plain sight. the fourth one was behind a desk that I didn't see. Luckily I saw it flickering and stop it. Now all batteries live inside an ammo can. I've also had a tiny battery for a laser exploded. But didn't cause any fire last week. But I heard something pop but didn't know what it was until I found pieces of it on the floor

Overcharging only happens if the BMS (battery management system) fails for any reason or the batteries that aren't high grade cells which is common with most cheap electronics have differences in charge voltage causing the failing or failed battery to get hot enough to cause such fire. One issue I feel strongly which can prevent a lot of fires is requiring UL testing and certification before being imported if it has certain battery sizes. Until then, cheap battery packs will always be an issue in any electronics. Don't charge cold batteries that have been sitting outside in the cold and bring it to normal room temperature. Don't leave it unattended especially inside like this. I store my ebike (72V/20Ah) in the shed away from the house and charge it in an area if something fails, it won't be burning down the house. It's good practice even if you have brand name battery packs and chargers to disconnect it after charging. Fires happen when batteries are old and degrade over time. When lithium ion batteries catch on fire, there's really no way to stop it either. Stay safe everyone 👍

Let me get this straight. You removed the battery’s safety system that comes with the battery so it would fail? So, with the that safety system on the battery, there isn’t a problem, right? Sounds like some media sensationalization to me.

You can tell that wasn't her kid...

So it's a failure of the safety feature more so than the battery? Because they clearly demonstrated by purposefully removing the charging safe guard. But batteries do fail especially lithium ions, even old android phones, especially samsungs...

I set an alarm,if say I'm off the weekend(3days) if I have no plans at all to use my bike or scooter,they don't get charged.