[TusharK]

An Ather 450X electric scooter was damaged by a fire a few weeks ago in Bangalore. Looking at the gravity of the situation, Ather Energy conducted an investigation and has now released its findings.



According to the company, the fire was caused due to a short circuit. It is said that one of the connectors to the motor controller was not torqued down properly, which caused sparking around the controller terminals.

Ather claims that the short circuit caused the safety systems to kick in, immediately cutting off further power flow and limiting the damage. It is said that a newly implemented 2-step verification process should prevent similar incidents in the future.

Official statement:



Link to Team-BHP News

[Venkatesh]

Ather Electric scooter fire incident

https://youtu.be/Mec3LmOgN40

[mathewspaul]

Acknowledging the issue without any drama and taking preventive measures. Other manufactures can learn from Ather.

[AtheK]

But seeing all this I am very worried about growing EV ecosystem. I live in a 15 storey Flat with a basement parking, if something like this has to happen at midnight or very early morning, it can very soon lead to a domino effect, and might be a huge damage before we get to even know of this.

Flat parkings will need to make sure that they have robust water sprinklers to douse fire in this case. Good for Ather to come up and acknowledge this as a human error, but then as volumes increase these errors can increase more and more with different manufacturers. The current ICE cars or bikes would hardly ever catch fire like this but probablitly of the same with EV is many folds.

[maestar]

Ather acknowledging the mistake and taking necessary preventive and corrective measures shows the quality and maturity of their leadership and management. I hope ola and tata can learn from this startup on how to be transperant on such occasions rather than firing all their pr guns to whitewash the issue like it never happened and silence the critics. Good job ather.

[akg7091]

Originally Posted by AtheK

Flat parkings will need to make sure that they have robust water sprinklers to douse fire in this case.

With the growing advent of EVs there is a much higher chance of a thermal event in the battery pack than a loose electrical joint causing a fire. And water will increase the fire if it is due to the battery. We need to come up with better safety equipment to contain EV fires when they happen, especially in crowded basement parkings.

[SoumenD]

O god, I was so proud of Ather being the only 2W EV manufacturer who don't have fire incidents. Hope its just one off case and this doesn't trigger a series of such incidents.