Some e-bike and e-scooter owners may be utilising unsuitable chargers, putting their equipment at risk of catching fire and destroying a room in minutes.
According to a poll of 1,000 e-bike and e-scooter owners in the UK, 43% use a secondary after-market charger to charge their e-bike or e-scooter.
This is great if the charger is compatible with the battery, but of those 43%, more than one-third (38%) say their charger is incompatible with the battery’s voltage, while one-fifth (20%) don’t know.
According to the results of the charity Electrical Safety First, some consumers may be unaware that when incompatible chargers are used, they risk overcharging the battery.
This can harm the cells and result in a disastrous process known as thermal runaway, in which the battery enters an unregulated self-heating chemical reaction, defined by violent fires that can burn a room in minutes.
The charity is seeking for a ban on universal chargers for e-bike and e-scooter batteries, which include multiple ports for connecting to different batteries.
‘Illegally charging your e-bike or e-scooter battery has serious consequences. Because of the massive quantity of energy contained in these batteries, the risk of fire is greatly increased if the battery becomes unstable,’ according to Giuseppe Capanna, product safety engineer at Electrical Safety First.
The findings come as the charity releases its new report, Battery Breakdown, looking at ways to stem the spate of deadly fires across the country that have been caused by e-bike and e-scooter batteries.