Fire incidents Compel Ola and Pure EV to recall thousands of e-scooters

The fire incidents in electric vehicles across the country is pushing the electric vehicle manufacturers to recall their EVs as their goodwill stares at a decline. The central government has also formed a panel to examine if the OEMs were negligent in manufacturing the electric vehicles. Now Pure EV and Ola Electric have recalled thousands of electric two wheelers as more and more incidences of fires in EVs are being reported. They follow another industry player Okinawa in initiating a recall for select batches of their scooters. While recalls per se are not a bad practice, seeing them as early as this in the EV scooter market is not a good sign for many customers.

Pure EV has recalled its 2,000 units of ETrance+ and EPluto 7G electric scooters. This is in wake of the Nizamabad fire incident which killed an 80-year old man. Pure EV said that the EV owners shall be contacted by Pure EV dealers concerning the recall.

The official statement of Pure EV said that the electric scooters and the batteries therein will undergo a thorough check. Pure EV held that the batteries would be checked for their imbalance issues and calibrated through its device called Batrics Faraday. The EV manufacturer will also calibrate the battery management system (BMS) and the charger.

The Ola Recall

Ola Electric has announced that the company too is recalling its 1,441 units of electric two-wheelers in the wake of incidents of vehicles catching fire. It has termed the Pune fire incident related to one of its e-scooters as ‘an isolated one’ based on a preliminary assessment.

Ola Electric said, “As a pre-emptive measure we will be conducting a detailed diagnostic and health check of the scooters in that specific batch and therefore are issuing a voluntary recall of 1,441 vehicles.”

The company stated, “These scooters will be inspected by our service engineers and will go through a thorough diagnostics across all battery systems, thermal systems as well as the safety systems.” Ola maintained that the battery system of its EVs complies with the latest proposed standard for India – AIS 156 – and also with European standard – ECE 136.

Recently, Okinawa Autotech had also recalled 3,215 units of Praise Pro scooters voluntarily to ensure that if there is any problem with the EVs, it could be fixed. Okinawa said that the recall was meant for a comprehensive power pack health check-up.

Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, had issued a stern warning on the fire incidents in electric vehicles. He said that the Central Government will issue necessary orders on defaulting companies once the report of the expert panel is placed before it.