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A man in Australia died after using an incompatible charger in a electric scooter he had recently purchased it. This reckless decision led to the scooter battery exploding, burning 90 percent of his body. He died in intensive care a day later.
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The sad story is a great reminder that if you have anything with a lithium ion battery that needs to be plugged in, be it a car, motorcycle, electric bike or scooter, you should only use the charger made for that specific vehicle.
Using another random charger that fits into the charging port may result in a fire and possibly the battery exploding.
In that case, Shepparton News reports that the victim purchased a used electric scooter two weeks before the accident. When he decided to charge the thing, he used a charger that his friend had apparently stolen (we have questions about that), but it wasn’t compatible with the scooter.
Powering up the scooter before going to bed with his pregnant girlfriend, they woke up to the fire just 20 minutes later. This is how quickly lithium-ion batteries can burn out and get out of control.
He ran toward the fire and yelled for his girlfriend to jump out of a window, which she did. Then the scooter’s battery exploded so violently that a neighbor said it shook her house as a fireball erupted into the air.
In other words, it was a big explosion. This was with a tiny battery, so you can only imagine what a vehicle like a car with a much larger lithium-ion battery would do when plugged into the wrong charger.
When you purchase a used vehicle with a lithium-ion battery and no charger, you really must pay to get a compatible charger from the manufacturer. The consequences of not being serious.
Image via Meath/Pexels Technology