E Bike Fires - Will My Electric Bike Catch on Fire? | Understanding EBike Battery Fire Causes

Hey everyone, I'm Dustin. I have nearly 20 years of experience in the bike and e-bike industry, and today I'm going to answer the question, will my electric bike battery catch on fire? Stick around.

All right, today I'm going to answer the question, will my electric bike battery catch on fire? But before I do, hit subscribe, and stay in touch with us here at SixThreeZero. Be the first to know about all the new content we're putting out, giveaways we do, and of course, new product releases. All right, behind me, I've got three of our electric bikes, two electric tricycles, and one of our electric bikes, our Every Journey, electric tricycle 250 watt; our Easy transit, 750-watt folding electric trike; and our Ride In The Park, 500-watt electric bike.

Now, there are a lot of things I see on the internet talking about electric bike batteries exploding and catching fire, and there are different cities that have regulations, and I just wanted to answer and address this for the people that may be scared or think that there's a possibility of an e-bike battery exploding.

Now, I'd like to say first of all, it's not impossible that anything could happen on any given day, and it's true, there have been instances of e-bike batteries exploding. There have also been instances of cell phone batteries exploding, and computer batteries exploding. There is this new risk associated with lithium-ion batteries. To be honest with you, I'm not an expert in lithium-ion batteries. I don't know the exact science of everything that goes on. All I know is I do have over five years of experience personally charging e-bike batteries, and I'm going to talk to you about how to properly store, care for, and treat your e-bike battery to eliminate, or at worst case, very minimize to a very minimal extent the risk of that ever happening to you.

Now, the one thing about e-bike batteries or lithium-ion is you want to make sure whenever you're charging them, that you're leaving them in a place that is room temperature, right? So, it would create an inherent risk to leave it somewhere in a very cold climate or a very warm climate. In particular, anything in heat is going to expand, right? So, if you're going to store your bike in a garage, I would recommend, depending on the temperature variance in your garage, maybe bringing the battery into the house at night.

Now, I know for some of you that may be scary to bring the battery into the house, but for me personally, I live in California, so our garage temperature doesn't vary that much from the winter to the summer. It does get hotter in there, but it's always going to be somewhere in the, I would say 60 to 80 range, not too extreme. Anything above that would be extreme in my case or my thoughts or below that would be extreme. So, if you live in conditions where it's getting down into the 30s, 35, or 40 degrees, may want to bring that battery in, especially if you're storing it for the winter, to just keep it in a safe place.

The other thing is charging that battery periodically. So, if you leave it stagnant for five, six months and it was in a bad temperature condition, or like I said, extreme temperature conditions, and then you go and plug it in and you leave it charging, the temperature's going to have greatly affected that battery. What goes on internally is going to have affected it. So, number one, proper care, proper usage, and being mindful of the idea that these batteries just need to be cared for in a way that is different than a Duracell battery, right? A AAA battery or something of that nature.

When we talk about cell phones and we talk about laptops, generally a cell phone is always coming with us and generally, a laptop is in an office in a very controlled environment. So, I think with those products, there's just less temperature variation. There are shorter periods when the products go unused, that's a big issue with e-bike batteries, right? Is letting it sit for months and months and months, and all of a sudden you plug it in, leave it charging for an extended time, it overheats and then it explodes. This weighs me into my next piece of safely using an e-bike and the e-bike battery is, don't leave it charging longer than it needs to.

Now, it generally won't have that much of an effect on the overall life of the battery if you leave it plugged in for too long, but there is a risk, it's going to overheat. 'Cause you're just constantly pumping more and more energy into it and that if that battery is full, now you're overflowing it with energy, there's a possibility it explodes. So, I would say always monitor your e-bike battery when it's charging and make sure when it's done, take it off the charger.

Now, if it runs for an extra 20, 30, or even an hour, that shouldn't be a huge deal. But if you leave that battery on the charger for a full day or an extra 24 hours or even 10 hours, now we're starting to get into an area where that battery's not being properly cared for and we're exposing it to conditions that it really shouldn't be exposed to, in that overcharging sort of way. So, number one, stay away from extreme heat or extreme cold.

And number two, just make sure you're not overcharging for an extended period of time. And three, if you are storing it over the winter or it's going unused for some time, charge that battery periodically once every two weeks just to make sure that you're keeping it juiced up 'cause those batteries will lose juice over time if you're not using it. It's kind of like a car tire. It's going to just gradually lose a little bit of air if the car just sits there and goes unused for a while. So, you want to make sure for the health of the battery, you're just charging it periodically to keep it healthy, keep it safe.

Now, with all of that said, these are the practices that I've followed over the last five years for charging my e-bikes. I've never had any issues with it at all with batteries exploding or catching fire. I have had batteries go bad 'cause I haven't used them, but never caught fire. I'm not an expert in lithium ions, so what I say in this video isn't necessarily the exact facts about lithium ions and the way that they work. I just try to stick to the best practices, which I believe has virtually eliminated the risk of my batteries catching fire. And I think that's another thing is when you hear about e-bike batteries catching fire, we don't exactly know the circumstances of where were they being stored, how were they being used, how was that user treating that battery and what was going on.

Now, not to say that a battery that is properly cared for couldn't explode, that possibility always exists, but that possibility could exist with the propane tank you have for your grill. It could exist with the gas lines that run to your stove and your house. And those things do happen as well. So, I think in context, and from what I know, there haven't been that many, for how many e-bikes are currently in the market, the percentage of e-bike batteries that have caught fire exploded is still less than 1%. It's a very, very small fraction of the market, and I think that's important for anybody considering e-bikes to know that the inherent risk is still very minimal. It's kind of like the idea of turbulence. A lot of people are scared of turbulence on an airplane, but the reality is the risk of turbulence in an airplane is so, so minimal.

I hope that helps. If you have any other questions at all, please comment below or call us at (310) 982-2877. You can also email us the TheTeam@sixthreezero.com. And if you're interested in e-bikes, we have a great selection on sixthreezero.com. And if you don't know what model is right for you, take our proprietary Body Fit quiz on our website, answer a few questions about your body and your life, and we'll recommend the perfect bike or e-bike for you. We also have 30 days where you can test-ride it. If you don't love it, you can send it back, no questions asked, no money out of your pocket.

And lastly, join our Facebook community and our Pedallers group, and our Downloader app. You can talk to other riders about batteries and issues they've had or if they haven't had any risks, talk to the people in our community, and see what they have to say. It's a great place to join prior to buying an e-bike. Then after you have your e-bike, you can make new friends, post photos of your bike, and of course, track your rides on our app. So, thanks for sticking around and don't forget, it's your journey, your experience. Enjoy the ride.