Grin’s Perspective on Ebike Battery Fires, 20 Years of Experience - Live from the BC Bike Show

This was a topical video presentation that we gave at the 2024 BC Bike show on the subject of ebike battery fires, which has been getting a lot of media attention in the past year. Unfortunately most of the formal dialog on this topic emphasize the importance of only ever using the “official“ charger for your battery and only getting batteries that are UL certified. This messaging is very much in the financial interest of global players in the ebike industry, erroneously blames the consumer, and we don’t think it addresses the root cause of most current micromobility fires at all. Aftermarket chargers and batteries are an _essential_ component for a healthy industry and are being wrongly implicated as the problem here. From all the direct and anecdotal evidence we see these days, the majority of ebike fires are not from user misuse, poor pack assembly, or aftermarket parts, but simply stem from the use of substandard cells in the pack construction. The best way to ensure ebike batteries are as safe as laptop batteries or powertool batteries would be to implement controls on the actual brand and model cell that is used in the pack construction.