The case of e-scooters in the country has been quite divisive over the past few months. Although people agree that it has potential and it is set to revolutionize the automobile industry, too many incidents have now occurred that people have been straying away from them.
To add another case to the books, a fire broke out in the Chennai service centre of Ather Energy on the 26th of May.
On the day of the incident, the company came out to say that they are still researching the cause of the incident there were reports that some of the scooters, equipment and the building were affected by the fire, no body was injured, all the employees and people in the area were rushed to safety and the fire was brought under the control before it could become untamable.
On the 28th of May, Ather Energy took to their Twitter account to post an update and show some clarity in an incident that left people wondering what happened.
In the tweet, they said that a customer who had an accident sent his scooter to the service centre. As the vehicle was dirty, covered with mud and dust, the employees decided to water wash it using a pressurised water hose before inspecting it. However, unbeknownst to them, the casing of the battery pack had a crack in it which the employees only found about after they removed the outer body panels of the scooter.
By the time they figured out what happened, water had already seeped into the battery pack of the scooter. A lithium-based battery should never come in contact with water as it would cause the battery to over heat and it would explode and cause a fire.
A short took place in the battery cells and the vehicle caught on fire and started emitting smoke and the employees present swiftly called the fire department to put it out.
Ather Energy went on to say that this is the first time ever this has happened to the company. They also confirmed that no other vehicles were affected during the incident and none of the employees were injured or was affected by the fire. They even urged to people that this has never happened to any model vehicle nor any unit sold and that they will make sure and pull all the stops to make sure this never happens again.
The tweet has been up for just over half a day and has already garnered close to 2,000 likes.