[PreludeSH]

Indian conditions might be small part of the problem. Other than dust, other conditions would be experienced even in US geography.

Not integrating the modules correctly and having the right BMS might be a bigger issue. Quicker time to market and lax regulations might be the reason.

To re-iterate my earlier misgivings about removable batteries, just imagine what more could happen due to such handling.

[skyocean]

Originally Posted by am1m

Glad you can call a vehicle catching fire a "small niggle"! I can't!

How many Athers have caught fire?

Sir, please read my post again. I didn't call the fire incident a small niggle either. The fire incident is under investigation lets wait till the report comes out. All I meant is its unfair to target Ola for a one off fire incident.
Its all about business, Ather recently issued a statement about battery packs. Fueling the EV fire ? I'm sure its not for public interest

I don't care about how many Athers have caught fire. If more Ola`s catch fire then I would be concerned, one incident is too less to paint a promising EV manufacturer.

Ather has taken more than 9 years now, no one even speaks of their generation 1 vehicles. They failed to reach the masses in all these years and now are under heavy pressure from competition hence the rush to open new showrooms etc.

Companies like Ola should be appreciated, a futuristic manufacturer, an Indian one too. Lets give them sometime while we await the report of investigation.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by skyocean

Its all about business, Ather recently issued a statement about battery packs. Fueling the EV fire ? I'm sure its not for public interest

Well, at least they are doing it on their adspace, not posting on impartial forums to promote their brand, like your posts seem to be doing.

Originally Posted by skyocean

I don't care about how many Athers have caught fire.

Precisely, this is an Ola thread, so why do you keep bring Ather into it?

Originally Posted by skyocean

Companies like Ola should be appreciated, a futuristic manufacturer, an Indian one too.

And Ather is from which country?


See man, it doesn't matter which EV manufacturer- Ather, Ola or Tesla- when they screw up, we need to hold them accountable. But giving one a free pass for an incident like this, while going on about the negatives of the other seems like a PR job for Ola. Let's remain an impartial forum that supports individual consumers, not brands.

[ritesh_44]

Originally Posted by skyocean

All I meant is its unfair to target Ola for a one off fire incident.

It is fair to targer ola, since the issue are of their own making. There were reports of mismanagement, top executives leaving (because of announcement of launching of unfinished product) even before the launch of the vehicle.

This article gives some insights on the issues (it came in November 2021)
https://the-ken.com/story/the-hazard...need-for-speed

One should support the company, but they can't be given a free pass just because they are launcing something fast. If you compromise on quality, the trust in EVs in consumers will go down. Since the cost of EVs are on higher side, no-one will be willing to put over lakhs Rupees for a vechile which will heat up and stop going uphill, or for a charged battery whose range goes down to zero in few seconds.
Here are few excerpts from the article:

Shortcuts to success
After revealing that it’s building the world’s biggest two-wheeler factory in January, Ola Electric announced that it wanted to begin deliveries by July itself.

Such timelines are unheard of in the auto industry, where there’s a definite time period required to build a prototype, test, and launch the vehicle in the market, said an Ola Electric executive. “If you are reducing that [time period], you are bypassing something.” The executive requested anonymity as they weren’t authorised to speak with the media.

The Ken has learnt that, in the past few months, many top executives have left the company. These include Hareesh KT, Ola Electrics’ head of battery engineering and BMS; Sourabh Grover, director of product planning; Sourabh Gupta, chief of vehicle engineering and technology; and Joseph Thomas, head of quality assurance. Most of the engineers who worked on the scooter in its early days have also left the company, said the former executive. Their responsibilities have since fallen on the shoulders of younger engineers.

The biggest concern is the reliability of the vehicle because of the unavailability of all the promised features. “We’re still not sure if the scooter is a 10/10 or 8/10,” said a current executive.

“I was literally shocked when I heard about the vehicle launch because most of the software modules weren’t completely developed and tested. Lots of bugs were reported at initial testing itself,” said a current executive.

We’ve already written about how the mercurial Bhavish Aggarwal, who founded Ola Cabs in 2010 when he was 25, is no ordinary CEO. But for all his methods and madness, he isn’t an automotive guy. “He believes that you can throw manpower and resources to solve problems,” said one of the former executives quoted above.

And that’s the primary issue here.
The company did try to tackle the problem by increasing the salary of employees significantly. However, this made matters worse. People started lying to the top management about meeting deadlines in order to escape the sack, according to three executives quoted above. The goal was simple: stick around the company for a few months, increase your salary, and leave

Companies usually make around 200 vehicles and send them across the country for testing for at least a year or two. By that time, the supplier is informed well in advance before production about all the necessary changes that need to be made; the assembly line is set after that. Once the vehicle gets into production, everything is ready. The process is well planned. 

At Ola, though, everything happens simultaneously—engineering, assembly line, testing, supply chain—and it’s in constant flux

Some current and former executives are also concerned about the lack of testing. The scooter has only been tested on the road in Bengaluru and for homologation in Pune—two cities with forgiving weather conditions. They are not sure how the scooter would fare in hotter cities like Chennai and Jaipur. While some executives suggested that enough temperature tests have been done in a lab Ola has built at Electronic City in Bengaluru, others believe that isn’t enough—a lab can’t replicate real-life weather conditions.

Inside the Futurefactory, many processes are yet to be automated. The battery assembly line—which is one of the most intricate and sensitive processes in manufacturing, involving 300 battery cells connected by 600 electrical connections for a single scooter—is done mostly manually at the moment

Vehicles are not software product where its fine if things crash, and you just restart it and it will get working, or where you fix things in future updates.
Even for mission critical softwares (e.g avionics, etc) there is through testing and there is no leeway for bugs there before deployment

[SKC-auto]

Originally Posted by am1m

Let's remain an impartial forum that supports individual consumers, not brands.

IMO..The forum is impartial, members need not be impartial.

But, there were opinions in the same thread(now removed I guess) about banning OLA, fine them heavily even if they have to go bankrupt, why? for one fire? In this context why should not everyone ask banning all cars until previous fire accidents are investigated. I am not supporting OLA, there may be more fires or this may be a one off issue.

Definitely everyone supports consumers, pretty sure even those who are supporting OLA.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by SKC-auto

IMO..The forum is impartial, members need not be impartial.

What is a forum but the collective opinions of it's members?

What I'm trying to get at is- this is probably the only corner of the Internet/mind-space where the Indian individual automotive consumer has some sort of a voice. Especially in a country like ours where consumer-protection law enforcement is weak to non-existent. The mainstream media and auto mags depend on ad revenue, youtubers and vloggers/insta-influencers get paid off.

While I agree there is no reason to keep bashing a particular brand, do we start allowing even independent forums to do free PR work for mega brands that already have crores of ad budget and teams of lawyers to protect their interests?

See, no brand/manufacturer really "cares" about customers and all brands are going to screw up somewhere (and a vehicle catching fire is a BIG screw up!). Trust me, all of us are going to have an unpleasant experience with some brand or the other at some point of our vehicle ownership. Only forums like this will protect our interests, so if we allow even that space to get taken over by voices that do free PR work for manufacturers (any manufacturer/brand), what do we have left?

[mathewspaul]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHdrsaioUns

Seems the fire saga continues. Came across this video of a truck carrying 20 electric scooters on fire!. Note sure of the brand.

[aim120]

Originally Posted by mathewspaul

https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=GHdrsaioUns
Seems the fire saga continues. Came across this video of a truck carrying 20 electric scooters on fire!. Note sure of the brand.

Why are you posting it in this thread, when those are not ola scooter but rather a hero scooter which are made from chinese kits.

[mathewspaul]

Originally Posted by aim120

Why are you posting it in this thread, when those are not ola scooter but rather a hero scooter which are made from chinese kits.

I agree that this is not Ola scooter. But I couldn't find a common thread for electric scooter fires and this seemed to be the closest relevant one. If you scroll up, you can find fire incidents of scooters other Ola in the same thread.

[volkman10]

More fires on EV's (two wheelers):

40 electric scooters of Jitendra EV loaded in truck catch fire in Nashik.

40 electric scooters of Jitendra EV caught fire after being loaded in a transport container in Nashik.

The scooters were being transported to Bengaluru and no one has been reported injured.

The company said that it is conducting an investigation to find the root cause of the fire.


Link

[NiInJa]

Originally Posted by mathewspaul

But I couldn't find a common thread for electric scooter fires and this seemed to be the closest relevant one. If you scroll up, you can find fire incidents of scooters other Ola in the same thread.

I think now would be a good time for mods to move all fire related posts to another new thread. I too was going to post the news here

But it looks like Ola is not the only one having battery related problems. Hope all these companies trying to rush their products in the market do a fine job of testing the imported battery packs here. Fire is a major hazard and it is simply unacceptable. Just last week our society members were discussing having charging ports in parking slots. I will be very much concerned if my neighbour's electric bike is charging and catches fire. It will be a disaster for all cars/bikes parked near the e-bike, that too in a poorly ventilated basement with no access to big fire tenders.

[NiInJa]

Originally Posted by aim120

Why are you posting it in this thread, when those are not ola scooter but rather a hero scooter which are made from chinese kits.

The scooter is from Jitendra EV, not Hero. Yes, even I wasn't aware of the company

[am1m]

Here's an article on why EV fires happen:

https://theprint.in/opinion/dashboar...ut-evs/913680/

"If one cell catches fire, it could lead to a chain reaction in the cells around it leading to an inferno of the sorts you have seen on the viral videos doing the rounds on social media."

"a well-manufactured lithium cell which is coupled with a good Battery Management Software (BMS) can easily operate at temperatures of up to 120 degrees centigrade."

"Weirdly enough, the rush of manufacturers into the electric scooter space, many of whom are simply assembling Chinese-made kits in India, have seen not only lithium cell standards compromised but also a lack of good BMS software on many products."

"He says that lithium-ion batteries are still exceedingly safe, and those that follow the AIS 156 standard, which is an optional best practice standard established by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), should have no issues at all."

[nick.cs]

Another Okinawa dealership in TN goes up in flames due to reported fire in one EV scooter parked in the dealership

Twitter Link

Source
HT Auto

The EV space seems to be on fire. Quite literally.

[volkman10]

Yet another PureEV electric scooter goes up in flames, this time in Warangal in AP.

EVs are infamous for being dangerous in their operations under high-temperature conditions. This incident from Telangana exposes the instability of EV batteries in summer.

Link