4 ms·

Nuclear? Nah. Bomb? Pretty much. If it short circuits a cell, it will heat up. Once it reaches a critical temperature, it will start releasing it's stored ener

Nuclear? Nah. Bomb? Pretty much. If it short circuits a cell, it will heat up. Once it reaches a critical temperature, it will start releasing it's stored energy in a self-sustaining reaction. (You need to dump water into it fast enough to carry away the heat faster than it can produce it.) You've now got a class D fire on your hands. Hope you've planned ahead and stored that laptop in an ammo crate or other fire-safe container, because it's gonna be burning long and hot and releasing toxic smoke the whole time. Low probability, high severity.

observationist 2y ago
Only one mainstream mass produced device in recent history ran into that as any sort of significant threat, and it was Samsung Note 7, of which there were ~95 reported fires, half as many reports of damaged property, and ~30 injuries. It takes catastrophic circumstances to bypass the fail-slow idiot proofing engineering that goes into consumer device batteries. The gassing off bubbles and warped laptop frames and all the stuff that goes into preventing things from catching fire and/or exploding makes it a vanishingly small probability, on the level of things like getting struck by lightning, attacked by a shark, or having space rocks land on your house. Such things happen, but it's not something you need to expend resources on. Sure, if you're a surfer, a golfer, live near an ISS dumping lane, or run a laptop repair shop, then take measures. If you're replacing a battery on your own laptop, once every couple years, it's not anything to waste concern on. Hoverboards and DIY vape rigs are honorable mentions, but problems with those tended to be caused by shoddy, third rate manufacturing of the electronics and batteries, and now even the third rate cheap crap is pretty darn safe. Apple isn't putting components teetering on the edge of catastrophic failure into their products, and judging by the absolute numbers, neither is anyone else. That there have been fewer than 10k incidents in the last decade of consumer device failure causing battery fires or explosions, and many many tens of billions of battery powered devices, paints a picture of humans successfully taming lightning. Big batteries in electric cars like Teslas and other higher powered uses do require a different safety mindset. The consequences are orders of magnitude higher, and rate of failure are higher as well, with frequent chain reactions and runaway, uncontrollable fires that can melt rock being a thing first responders and junkyard operators have to contend with. If you can explode a MacBook or laptop doing anything a normal consumer might plausibly attempt, the manufacturer would probably pay you a bounty. Batteries are safe. The odds of being struck by lightning over the course of your life are around 1 in 15k. The odds a device you own catches fire during your lifetime are around 1 in 1 million, assuming 20 such devices. Those odds get better year over year, and solid-state electrolytes, among other innovations, will make fires and explosions a thing of the past.
- buescher 2y ago
  Jump starters. Some of the early ones, including at least one highly ranked on a review site, had the jumper cable socket directly connected to the battery. Wild West stuff. Get a UL listed one.
- samstave 2y ago
  Or you can have a dog gone bad day. https://youtu.be/kvbBLIhTr3E https://youtu.be/kvbBLIhTr3E
- itishappy 2y ago
  I agree with all your points, but I think the risk changes somewhat when dealing with an already failing cell.
- op00to 2y ago
  There were 268 e-bike battery fires in NYC alone in 2023. 18 were killed and 150 injured. In a single year. People die from lithium ion battery fires. Sure, the little ones may not be as big as what’s in e-bikes, but they are in far more intimate areas and under far less scrutiny. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/nyregion/ebike-charging-station-nyc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/nyregion/ebike-charging-s...
  - enlightens 2y ago
    I think it's important to note that, as your article says, the laws being passed in New York in response to the fires are all in regards to battery certifications. Not all lithium ion batteries are the same and it's important to understand why some (the 268) catch on fire and others (all the other ebikes in NYC) don't.
  - KennyBlanken 2y ago
    First off: every single one of those fires was an electric scooter, not an "ebike." https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2022/04/26/approximately-none-recent-e-bike-fires-new-york-involved-e-bike https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2022/04/26/app... Second: NYFD is one of if not the busiest fire department in the world because it's a city of nearly 9 million people. They respond to 36,500 fires a year. That means that the e-scooter fires represent 0.7% of the total number of fires they respond to. To further put things in perspective: roughly 160 people die per day in NYC.

observationist 2y ago

Only one mainstream mass produced device in recent history ran into that as any sort of significant threat, and it was Samsung Note 7, of which there were ~95 reported fires, half as many reports of damaged property, and ~30 injuries. It takes catastrophic circumstances to bypass the fail-slow idiot proofing engineering that goes into consumer device batteries. The gassing off bubbles and warped laptop frames and all the stuff that goes into preventing things from catching fire and/or exploding makes it a vanishingly small probability, on the level of things like getting struck by lightning, attacked by a shark, or having space rocks land on your house. Such things happen, but it's not something you need to expend resources on. Sure, if you're a surfer, a golfer, live near an ISS dumping lane, or run a laptop repair shop, then take measures. If you're replacing a battery on your own laptop, once every couple years, it's not anything to waste concern on. Hoverboards and DIY vape rigs are honorable mentions, but problems with those tended to be caused by shoddy, third rate manufacturing of the electronics and batteries, and now even the third rate cheap crap is pretty darn safe. Apple isn't putting components teetering on the edge of catastrophic failure into their products, and judging by the absolute numbers, neither is anyone else. That there have been fewer than 10k incidents in the last decade of consumer device failure causing battery fires or explosions, and many many tens of billions of battery powered devices, paints a picture of humans successfully taming lightning. Big batteries in electric cars like Teslas and other higher powered uses do require a different safety mindset. The consequences are orders of magnitude higher, and rate of failure are higher as well, with frequent chain reactions and runaway, uncontrollable fires that can melt rock being a thing first responders and junkyard operators have to contend with. If you can explode a MacBook or laptop doing anything a normal consumer might plausibly attempt, the manufacturer would probably pay you a bounty. Batteries are safe. The odds of being struck by lightning over the course of your life are around 1 in 15k. The odds a device you own catches fire during your lifetime are around 1 in 1 million, assuming 20 such devices. Those odds get better year over year, and solid-state electrolytes, among other innovations, will make fires and explosions a thing of the past.

buescher 2y ago
Jump starters. Some of the early ones, including at least one highly ranked on a review site, had the jumper cable socket directly connected to the battery. Wild West stuff. Get a UL listed one.
samstave 2y ago
Or you can have a dog gone bad day. https://youtu.be/kvbBLIhTr3E https://youtu.be/kvbBLIhTr3E
itishappy 2y ago
I agree with all your points, but I think the risk changes somewhat when dealing with an already failing cell.
op00to 2y ago
There were 268 e-bike battery fires in NYC alone in 2023. 18 were killed and 150 injured. In a single year. People die from lithium ion battery fires. Sure, the little ones may not be as big as what’s in e-bikes, but they are in far more intimate areas and under far less scrutiny. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/nyregion/ebike-charging-station-nyc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/nyregion/ebike-charging-s...
- enlightens 2y ago
  I think it's important to note that, as your article says, the laws being passed in New York in response to the fires are all in regards to battery certifications. Not all lithium ion batteries are the same and it's important to understand why some (the 268) catch on fire and others (all the other ebikes in NYC) don't.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  First off: every single one of those fires was an electric scooter, not an "ebike." https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2022/04/26/approximately-none-recent-e-bike-fires-new-york-involved-e-bike https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2022/04/26/app... Second: NYFD is one of if not the busiest fire department in the world because it's a city of nearly 9 million people. They respond to 36,500 fires a year. That means that the e-scooter fires represent 0.7% of the total number of fires they respond to. To further put things in perspective: roughly 160 people die per day in NYC.