Okinawa iPraise+ E-Scooter Catches Fire In Tamil Nadu

This is the fourth EV scooter fire incident in less than a month

An Okinawa iPraise+ e-scooter went up in flames in Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu. This is the fourth prominent fire incident involving an EV in the past couple of weeks, but what is more concerning is that this is the second scooter by Okinawa that has caught fire in less than a month.

A video that has surfaced on social media shows an Okinawa iPraise+ e-scooter emitting a dense white smoke out of its battery pack. The e-scooter was laid down on the ground carefully by civilians, and the battery pack was separated from the EV using an iron hook. By doing this, the risk of the whole scooter blasting or going up in complete flames was avoided.

This event was followed right after an Olsa S1 Pro caught fire in the outskirts of Pune, another Okinawa fire incident and a Pure EV EPluto 7G catching fire on the outskirts of Chennai. These fire incidents have pushed the central government to take steps to further investigate by asking the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to get to the root cause of these mishaps.

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We are still in the initial bit of summer, and news of EVs going up in flames is spreading across the country like a wildfire. The reason for these incidents is not completely clear; however, it could be brought about by thermal runaway in li-ion battery packs. It is a phenomenon accelerated by exposure to high temperatures, which in turn causes a malfunction, releasing energy abruptly and further increasing the temperature, leading to a fire. 

Apart from raising safety concerns regarding electric scooters, these incidents are also majorly harming the popularity of electric vehicles and people’s outlook towards them. We do hope that these incidents come to a halt and the reasons behind the fires are rectified.

Video credits to respective owners.