In my career, I investigated (in the USA) a large number of field failures
(mostly fires) of safety-certified products. The claims were against us as the
manufacturer, not the certifier. The claimant or his insurance would hire an
investigator to identify the cause of the fire, where one of the causes could
be our product. In no incident was the certifier or regulatory authority
invited to participate in the investigation. (Invitations were from the loss
side, and were intended to determine who would pay for the loss.) I don’t
recall any incident where our product was proven to be the cause of the fire.
No incident was caused by ineffective or insufficient safety requirements for
our products.
Our enclosures were usually HB-rated material. If ignited, the enclosure would
burn vigorously and thoroughly, tending to mask its ignition source. Hence, we
were included as a possible source of the fire.
We (as members of this community) do pretty good at preparing product safety
requirements and inserting them into standards followed by testing and
certification. Governments do (or can do) pretty good at requiring products to
be certified as a condition of being in the marketplace.
BBC and other news sources (as well as individuals and organizations) can bring
such product safety certification deficiencies to the attention of governments,
who must then address requirements for certification.
Forgery is a separate one-on-one issue, and cannot be addressed by traditional
product safety work.
Best regards,
Rich (in Oregon, USA, where certification of electrical products is required by
Oregon state law)
“Certified electrical product” means an electrical product that is certified
under ORS 479.760 and that is not decertified.
From: Scott Xe <scott...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 5, 2023 9:02 PM
To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
Subject: Re: [PSES] BBC news article re Li-ion batteries...
Dear Ted,
I couldn't agree with your views more. It is crucial for us to tackle these
issues, despite the existing regulations and testing standards in place. The
regulatory authorities and enforcement bodies must thoroughly assess why these
measures have proven ineffective in preventing the sale of unsafe products in
the market.
Regards,
Scott
On Fri, 28 Jul 2023 at 20:39, Ted Eckert
<000007cf6ebeab9d-dmarc-requ...@listserv.ieee.org
<mailto:000007cf6ebeab9d-dmarc-requ...@listserv.ieee.org> > wrote:
I can give additional background on the reason why these fires have become
common in New York. A large number of residents of New York City use delivery
services for goods and food, such as Uber-Eats, DoorDash, and GrubHub. The
adoption of these delivery services accelerated during the COVID lockdown, and
it has become a major business in the city. The drivers for these services are
contractors, not employees, and they get paid based on delivery without
reimbursement for expenses. Driving a car is expensive, and finding parking is
very hard. Delivery people who drive cars often lose money because they incur
too many parking tickets. The delivery people have switched to battery-powered
electric scooters and bicycles.
These small electric vehicles are optimal for the delivery services since they
can move around stopped traffic easily, and they can be brought inside the door
of a building for a delivery, avoiding the risk of parking fines or the vehicle
getting stolen. However, the batteries will only last for a few hours of use at
most. The delivery people want the option of using the electric bicycle or
scooter all day to try to make more money. The common solution is to remove the
battery that came with the vehicle and replace it with a much larger
after-market replacement. The delivery services do not pay well, so people look
for the cheapest option they can find for a large battery. The regulations in
the United States make it easy to order something online that has undergone no
safety testing at all. The result is that a battery of dubious quality is
placed in an electric bicycle by a person with dubious technical skills. No
effort may have been made to match the charger with the battery. The battery
may not be provided with the physical protection necessary to avoid damage
during use. The question isn’t why there are so many fires, but why there
aren’t more considering the circumstances.
In the United States, there is reasonable indemnification of the test
laboratories. The test laboratories accredited under the OSHA Nationally
Recognized Test Laboratory (NRTL) system have a reasonable level of protection.
If a product carrying one of their certification marks fails, they can be sued,
but it would be hard for that law suit to make it to court. The test
laboratories will indicate that they tested samples on a given date and found
those samples to meet the technical requirements of the standard at that time.
Their report does not state that the samples were safe. It only states that
they passed testing of specific requirements. The legal system places the
responsibility for safety onto the manufacturer.
The challenges that I see are that battery manufacturers willing to ignore
safety might be willing to forge safety certification marks and documents. I
strongly suspect you can buy product online and have them shipped to the UK or
Europe with a Declaration of Conformity based on nothing. I suspect
manufacturers will claim their products meet requirements without testing or
documentation to back it up. If the manufacturer is located outside of Europe
and has no legal presence there, they can sell on line and avoid
responsibility. I strongly suspect that this is why there are stricter
requirements for online importers and distributors in the new GPSR.
The overall issue is not new. Insufficient testing, forged or missing
documentation, irresponsible actors shipping from the far side of the world and
the other problems have existed for a while. However, the large size of the
batteries in these scooters and bicycles, and the common charging of them
indoors in buildings with a large number of residents, creates an issue where a
failure can jeopardize many more lives in a single incident.
Ted Eckert
The opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my
employer.
From: Matthew Wilson | GBE <matthew.wil...@gbelectronics.com
<mailto:matthew.wil...@gbelectronics.com> >
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2023 2:11 AM
To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG <mailto:EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [PSES] BBC news article re Li-ion batteries...
I thought this news article that was on the BBC TV broadcast bulletins 27th
July might be of interest.
“Batteries for e-bikes should be regulated in the same way as fireworks, heavy
machinery or medical devices because of the fire risk they pose, a charity [UK
based Electrical Safety First] has said”
<https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66304564>
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66304564
-
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