Around 40 electric scooters of Nashik-based Jitendra EV Tech caught fire after being loaded on a transport container. This blaze, involving EVs in India, is the biggest of the season, which has already seen four such mishaps.
While no one was reported injured in the latest fire, twenty scooters were completely destroyed.
Jitendra Electric Vehicles said that it has launched a probe into the accident. A spokesperson of the company was quoted as saying: "An unfortunate incident took place on April 9 near our factory gate in a scooter. The situation was immediately brought under control by a timely intervention from our team. Safety being of prime importance, we are investigating the root cause and we will soon come out with findings."
Government officials said that they were aware of the fire incident of Jitendra EVs and will call the company’s officials to file a report.
More disturbing questions on the safety of EVs
One of the worst ever fire accident occurred in Nashik where 20 Electric vehicles gutted fire in Jithendra EV factory. This hazardous catastrophic event happened in India.#Nashik #EV #ElectricVehicles @elonmusk #Tesla pic.twitter.com/K14tulU79CApril 11, 2022
The inferno, involving 40 e-scooters, again raises disturbing questions on the safety of EVs. Quite unlike in the previous incidents, here we do not know the direct cause of the fire. In the previous instances, the fires were attributed to faulty battery and charging systems. Here in the latest incident, there is no clarity as of now, and it could as well be an external trigger. But in the existing atmosphere of panic and outrage, electric vehicles company are copping a lot of flak on social media platforms from the general public.
Most EV players are said to be dependent on cheap Chinese-made lithium-ion batteries, which form the core of their vehicles. The absence of quality control over the manufacturing of these batteries has fueled apprehensions that components of dubious quality could have triggered the fires.
The previous incidents had impelled the government to ordered an inquiry. The government had deputed a team of experts to check into the actual reasons and circumstances that lead to the fire in electric scooters. The expert team included those from the Indian Institute of Science and the Centre for Fire, Explosive and Environment Safety.
According to the FADA (Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations of India) report, EV sales in India witnessed a three-fold jump last fiscal with two-wheelers leading the segment. In FY 2021-22, the EV registered 429,417 unit sales as compared to 134,821 EV unit sales in the fiscal year 2020-21.
