Battery manufacturing firm to probe 7 e-bike fire case in Market Yard

The company which supplies batteries to e-bikes will probe the reason behind the sudden fire which gutted seven e-bikes in a showroom near Gangadham in Market Yard area on Monday evening

The company which supplies batteries to e-bikes will probe the reason behind the sudden fire which gutted seven e-bikes in a showroom near Gangadham in Market Yard area on Monday evening.

Seven electric two wheelers were gutted in a blaze in a showroom near Gangadham in Market Yard area on Monday evening. (HT PHOTO)

According to Dhanesh Oswal, owner of Devaal Riders showroom said, the battery manufacturing firm will be sending its executive to Pune to investigate the matter.

“The company which supplies batteries to the e-bikes will investigate the reason behind the fire. Their person will be reaching Pune soon to find out exactly what had happened. Our salesperson was attending to the customer and suddenly one of the bikes caught fire and the reason is not yet known,” Oswal said.

Seven electric two wheelers were gutted in a blaze in the showroom when one of them first caught fire. After dousing the fire, PMC fire brigade department head Pradeep Khedekar ruled out the short circuit as cause and suspected overheating of battery as possible reason for fire.

According to fire department officials, the bikes were plugged in for charging at the time of the incident.

Central Fire Brigade head Sunil Gilbile said, “According to the information made available, only one or two e-bikes were charging and by the time our men reached the spot, only chassis could be seen.”

The staffers managed to move nine e –bikes to safety after the incident took place. The e-bikes are manufactured by a New Delh- based company and cost ₹1 lakh each and no one was injured during the fire incident.

Earlier this year, an Ola S 1 scooter parked on Porwal road suddenly caught fire on March 26. In an official statement, Ola had then stated that it was aware of an incident in Pune that happened with one of their scooters and said that they were investigating to understand the root cause and will share more updates in the next few days.

The Ola Electric company later recalled 1,441 electric scooters for inspection. In the backdrop of increasing incidents of electric two-wheelers catching fire, union minister Nitin Gadkari in April said the government will issue necessary orders on defaulting companies after receiving the report of an expert panel formed to probe into the matter.