“The ministry is preparing to lay fresh guidelines to avoid such fires in the future. The government, however, has not gone into details of what could have been done to ensure safety and quality of lithium ion batteries in the country.”
— General V K Singh, Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways
There have been a number of instances of electric scooter batteries – around two dozen cases over the last six months leading to six deaths — catching fire in the country and the government is aware of that. General V K Singh, Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways said that the ministry was preparing to lay fresh guidelines to avoid such fires in the future. At the same time, he also said that the government had not gone into details of what could have been done to ensure safety and quality of lithium ion batteries in the country.
“We are cognizant of the fact that we have had issues with the electric batteries, especially two wheelers. There is a need for the industry, as well as all the others who are enforcing to ensure that the problems are sorted. From the ministry side we are taking actions to further lay down guidelines so that safety measures are adequate, and we do not have that type of incidents we have had in two wheelers in the recent past,” General (Retd) V K Singh said. He went on to point out: “I think we have erred in not going into the details of what can be done, what type of regimen can come in so that safety management and quality issues can be taken together.”
The fire cases have increased with summer. In late March, an Ola Electric S1 Pro scooter caught fire in Pune and in a tragic incident on the same day, a father-daughter duo died in Vellore in Tamil Nadu when the battery of his Okinawa scooter that was being charged inside the house caught fire. Two more incidents of fire were reported in Tamil Nadu in the month before 20 electric scooters from Jitendra EV caught fire while in transit in a container truck on April 9 near Nashik. Later, an explosion in the battery of an electric scooter by Coimbatore based Boom Motors killed a 40-year-old man in Vijayawada.
These incidents have led to questions about the safety of electric scooters and whether they are fit to withstand the Indian summer. Taking note of these incidents, the Road Transport Ministry has asked the Centre for Fire Explosive and Environment Safety (CFEES) to investigate the cause of the fires and a report on the same is expected soon. CFEES is the defence laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
The minister was against the rush to achieve scale in production. “It is the quality and not mass production that will get you the customer,” he said to producers of electric scooters. “It is up to you whether you want to capture the market or be left by the roadside. Your quality is going to make a difference in the sales and it will ensure that the customer doesn’t look at anybody else,” Singh said.
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