Electric Scooters Bursting Into Flames Cause Concern In The Booming Electric Vehicle Industry

The recent fire that destroyed 20 electric scooters manufactured by a firm in Nashik, Maharashtra, has set the cat among the pigeons in the electric vehicle (EV) industry, which has already got the jitters over several isolated instances of spontaneous combustion of EVs. Why and how does this happen, is the question in the minds of everybody? There’s a lot riding – literally – on electric two-wheelers, more than cars and three-wheelers even as sales in the segment have rocketed nearly 500% in just one year. According to the government’s VAHAN portal, 2021-22 saw the producers laughing all the way to the bank with well over a quarter million EVs sold, compared to mere 40,000 sales in 2020-21. Chetan Maini, Co-Founder & Vice Chairman at SUN Mobility, the pioneer in the EV world who created India’s first electric car REVA, gives a variety of possible reasons: “Such things can be caused by poor cell selection, defective cells, poor thermal management, manufacturing issues and poor charging management amongst others.” According to his fellow Bengalurite Amitabh Saran, Founder & CEO of Altigreen, which started off in 2013 creating EV technology and now manufactures electric three-wheelers, these products were “not engineered in or for India”. Whatever the cause, the hope that it can be controlled – and soon — is universal, with EV being widely seen as the future of mobility.