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India’s Ola Electric Probes Pune E-Scooter Fire Incident

Lithium-ion batteries, whether used in EVs or electronic devices, can catch fire if improperly manufactured or damaged, or if the software that operates the battery is not designed correctly


Ola electric
Ola said it supported an EV safety policy, and a preliminary assessment of one of its vehicles catching fire revealed the incident was an isolated one. Photo: Reuters.

 

Softbank Group-backed Ola Electric said it had launched an investigation to find out what caused one its electric scooters to catch fire in the Indian city of Pune.

Earlier on Saturday, a Twitter user in the western Indian city posted a video of his Ola scooter bursting into flames.

“We are aware of an incident in Pune that happened with one of our scooters and are investigating to understand the root cause and will share more updates in the next few days,” the company said in a statement.

Lithium-ion batteries, whether used in electric vehicles or electronic devices, can catch fire if they have been improperly manufactured or damaged, or if the software that operates the battery is not designed correctly.

Ola company officials have said previously that the company imports its battery cells from South Korea but plans to start manufacturing them locally.

Saturday’s incident follows complaints by Ola customers about delivery delays in recent months.

 

  • Reuters with additional editing by Jim Pollard

 

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Jim Pollard

Jim Pollard is an Australian journalist based in Thailand since 1999. He worked for News Ltd papers in Sydney, Perth, London and Melbourne before travelling through SE Asia in the late 90s. He was a senior editor at The Nation for 17+ years and has a family in Bangkok.