Battery explosion kills 1 in Telangana, PURE EV recalls 2,000 e-scooters

Scooters, batteries will undergo thorough 'health' check, says start-up

An electric vehicle (EV) battery explosion has claimed one life and left two others injured in Telangana’s Nizamabad district — the latest in a string of such fire incidents — even as the government considers revamping rules for battery testing.

According to media reports, the 80-year-old man died and two others in his family sustained burn injuries after the battery of an electric scooter (e-scooter) exploded while being charged at their home in Nizamabad. His son, who had been using the Power Using Renewable Energy (PURE) EV scooter for a year, blamed the ‘substandard quality’ of its battery for the death of his father.

Nizamabad police have registered a first information report against e-scooter manufacturer PURE EV.

So far five PURE EV, one Ola Electric, two Okinawa Autotech, and 20 Jitendra EV scooters have caught fire.

The Hyderabad-based start-up has initiated the recall of 2,000 e-scooters to check imbalance issues in batteries and chargers.

“In view of the recent fire incidents involving our vehicles in Nizamabad and Chennai, PURE EV has decided to recall 2,000 vehicles from the models ETrance Plus and EPluto7G of the concerned batches,” the company said in a statement.

This comes after Okinawa Autotech announced the recall of 3,215 Praise Pro e-scooters on April 16 to fix issues related to its batteries, just before its dealership was engulfed in flames in Chennai. Okinawa is one of the best-selling e-scooter brands in the country and recently launched the OKHI-90 high-speed e-scooter model here.

According to the start-up, the vehicles and their batteries will undergo a thorough health check. “We shall inspect the battery for any imbalance issues and shall calibrate through our device BaTRics Faraday (an artificial intelligence-based hardware which can automatically identify and repair defects in Li-Ion batteries). BMS and charger calibration shall be carried out as required,” said PURE EV on Thursday.

The company will be reaching out to all its customers through the dealership network and ensure an expeditious campaign for health check-ups in the larger interests of all stakeholders, it added. 

When contacted, the company expressed regret over the latest incident of ‘EV battery explosion’ at Nizamabad and said it would fully cooperate with the local investigating team. It said that the incident happened two days ago.

This is the fifth instance of a fire in a PURE EV scooter. On Tuesday, an e-scooter by the company burst into flames in Warangal.

“We deeply regret the incident and offer our deepest condolences to the family of the victim. The incident happened two days ago and we are in the process of getting further details from the concerned user and authorities,” said a PURE EV response. It further added that the company did not have any records of a sale made or service provided to the said user. 

“Our dealer is exploring whether the vehicle was purchased through second hand sale from any of our first buyers. We are fully cooperating with the local investigating agencies and instructed our dealer to get complete details about the incident from the reported user,” it added.

In September 2021, two e-scooters of PURE EV caught fire in Hyderabad. This was followed by another incident of fire in Chennai late last month.

“PURE EV takes the safety of its customers and vehicles very seriously with constant dissemination about availing of scheduled free services and through information campaigns for best practices related to vehicle safety. We sincerely regret the incident and will provide necessary assistance to the user in all possible ways,” the company’s response added.

After nearly six incidents within a month, the government has reportedly asked all EV players involved in the fire incidents to take steps to avoid such instances in the future.

A new blue-colored Ola S1 Pro electric scooter caught fire on the side of the road in Pune in the first incident on March 26. The video, which showed smoke coming from the battery box, quickly went viral.

In a second unfortunate event, a 49-year-old man and his daughter were killed in the early hours of March 26 in Vellore, when an Okinawa e-scooter caught fire.

On March 28, the government deputed a team of experts to investigate the incidents. On April 7, it called technical teams of Ola Electric and Okinawa Autotech for an explanation on recent fires in their e-scooters.

On March 30, just days after these two accidents, a PURE EV e-scooter caught fire in Chennai.

Around 20 e-scooters of Jitendra EV went up in flames on April 9 in Maharashtra’s Nashik.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had already indicated that it is taking corrective measures, so that such incidents are not repeated. These include possible measures like revision of standards of quality assurance and quality control from the manufacturer’s side.

The ministry has appointed the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and the Centre for Fire, Explosive and Environment Safety for investigation and a report is likely to be submitted soon.