Vector E-bike catching fire

[vectorIbike]

Hello
Excuse my English, I am French and I speak quite badly another language.

I just chat with you to find out how to get me out of a problem.

I bought an E-Bike Vector for a few months, I took advantage of this bicycle without hindrance until today but during my last ride it caught fire!

I had to jump from the bike that was rolling at full speed to not burn alive.

Would you have a track to find out what happened and how to seek repair from the builder who does not want to hear anything about an after-sales service.
Is it normal that he does not want to repair a device that is defective?

Thank you for your help and your experiences.

 

[Hillhater]

Oh !, that is very sad.
Firstly, are you actually in France ? ...it may make a difference with the laws etc.
Did you buy the bike from a private builder ?, or from a shop ?, commercial sales outlet, ? Or off the internet ?
When exactly did you buy it ?
Obviously no warrantee/guarantee was given ?
Initial impression is that the fire started in the battery ..yes ?
If you have no help from the seller, at least tell us who it was so others can avoid them !

 

[cwah]

shitx who did u buy it from?

 

[vectorIbike]

Good evening,
I live in France, near Bordeaux

I bought this Typhoon V2.0 directly from the manufacturer on the internet.

6 months ago

The builder refuses to offer me a solution, the conversation is cut off.

 

[The fingers]

That's harsh.

 

[ohzee]

Strange to see that happen with what most consider safe cells. Here is info from their site re: that model.

When was the last time you looked at the display showing cell voltages and temperatures ?

Seems to be an adaptto so I am quite surprised the adaptto did not keep that from happening.

With such a hot fire it seems unlikely to determine what went wrong but just guessing id have to think the battery itself would have to be compromised somehow resulting in a short.

There must be more to the story or it's perceived you did something to invalidate the warranty which looking at the link below is a year for almost all if not components.

Link to warranty info - http://www.vectorebike.com/more/warranty.html

http://www.vectorebike.com/bikes/typhoon-v2-0-10000-watt.html

Battery-pack

A battery consists of separate Li-Ion Panasonic 18650 PF cells, providing the best weight/capacity/discharge current ratio. With a weight of only 14.9kg/34lbs it is providing 2,5 kWh of energy!

The battery can handle more than 600 charging that in average takes 3-4 years. The battery can be replaced by the new one.
The BMS system keeps tracking every cell and checks voltage, current and temperature. You can see all this parameters in real-time on your screen. The BMS monitors 5 temperatures within the battery. We have spent years on the development of this system in order to guarantee a long battery-life.

Capacity: 2.5 kWh
Chemistry: Lithium Ion Panasonic PF cells
Nominal voltage: 74V 37.5Ah
Adaptto smart BMS
Cell-voltage monitoring (refresh – every 10 ms)
Cell-temperature monitoring
Balancing
State-of-Charge calculation
Low-voltage protection
High-voltage protection
Temperature protection
SoC protection

 

[SlowCo]

https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=68385&hilit=vector&start=500

Start reading with Arturs post from december 9th.

 

[ohzee]

Thanks SlowCo. Did not think about the info already being here somewhere.

 

[fechter]

Wow! that's terrible.

Hard to figure out where it started now since it's all burnt. I would have to guess a wiring short in the battery pack that wasn't protected by the fuse.

Did the fire start from the battery compartment?

Lucky it didn't start a huge forest fire.

 

[litespeed]

That sucks!

 

[Hillhater]

Lots of issues around this now that we know both sides of the situation.
Primarily a problem due to "internet" purchace rather that shop front sales. the original fault should have been repaired by the vendor, but distance makes that impractical.
Also, these are "high power" bikes for Off road use only .....a little like buying a special built motocrosser.... So normal warranty, sales laws, insurance etc, wont apply. If you wreck your motocross bike you cannot go claiming warranty from the supplier !
Sometimes a "bicycle" can be insured under a household policy ( i had an Ebike stolen and successfully claimed on my home policy ).. Did the buyer consider insuring this bike ??
Lots of other debatable issues, but at the end of it , that 50/50 offer from the vendor seems a generous one !

 

[vectorIbike]

Hello,

I return with the photos of the connections when I received the bike ...

We can see that the connections are not professional!



I asked for the return of this bike, a week after its reception because the connections were not good and the controller worked badly.

The seller told me not to worry and redo the connections myself and send the controller to Adaptto in Russia.

After returning the parts, I put everything back up and the battery was unbalanced. He gave me instructions to rebalance the battery but each time the battery did not stay in balance.



He assured me that it was normal and that I could continue to use the Typhoon.

 

[nutnspecial]

Whoa, sorry for your bike!

Similarly WHOA, group levels and connections like that are recipes for disaster! I can't say I'm impressed with what I read on the bat construction either. We can see a potential result. Op I'm curious of further detail than what is here and on the linked thread, but based on what I'd glean you should accept the best you can get from Artur that doesn't necessarily require further purchase. If your account is correct, it shows people with little education should not buy from sellers like this. But, regardless where you buy or if you build, it comes down to end-user education to prevent loss.

From my standpoint, Artur would look very good just to ship a new bike to customer. No warranty. People need education more than a warranty when we're playing with fire. . .

Then I'd revise any warranty, as I can't see how even the best made bombproof product can be foolproof against end use in long distance ebike business. Local would be bad enough. There's nothing to stop or protect from a miffed buyer from burning the bike on purpose or even just out of innocent negligence.
Make warranty more stringent, and maybe even make it optional @ add-on price. Further, to protect your business and customer, and industry, the buyer needs to be encouraged to become educated in basic ebike and battery care/maintenance (as well as operation for street use. . .)
Fwiw

 

[Artur]

Whoa, sorry for your bike!

Similarly WHOA, group levels and connections like that are recipes for disaster! I can't say I'm impressed with what I read on the bat construction either. We can see a potential result. Op I'm curious of further detail than what is here and on the linked thread, but based on what I'd glean you should accept the best you can get from Artur that doesn't necessarily require further purchase. If your account is correct, it shows people with little education should not buy from sellers like this. But, regardless where you buy or if you build, it comes down to end-user education to prevent loss.

From my standpoint, Artur would look very good just to ship a new bike to customer. No warranty. People need education more than a warranty when we're playing with fire. . .

Then I'd revise any warranty, as I can't see how even the best made bombproof product can be foolproof against end use in long distance ebike business. Local would be bad enough. There's nothing to stop or protect from a miffed buyer from burning the bike on purpose or even just out of innocent negligence.
Make warranty more stringent, and maybe even make it optional @ add-on price. Further, to protect your business and customer, and industry, the buyer needs to be encouraged to become educated in basic ebike and battery care/maintenance (as well as operation for street use. . .)
Fwiw

I agree with what you said here. I don't want to discuss it here as I have said everything in my thread. I feel bad for this customer but at the end of the day if you ride half a year after you re-assembled ALL electronicin the ebike, we can not warranty anything until we check it, at least on detailed photos. I believe that client connected everything correct (otherwise bike won't ride), but the problem is we don't know how well he made all the connections (wires, connectors, battery) inside. We never had chance to control it. The battery was pretty unbalanced when the client received the battery, this is true, but it happened only because the battery was compleatly new and the cells inside has different voltage. The bike was tested by us when it was assembled , but we didn't have time to let adapt to bms balace it (takes about 2-3 days) due to huge capacity of 15 cells in parallel. We also need to mention that this happened not during charging, and the battery had over 50 cycles, so if there were any problem in battery design, we knew about it from the first 5-10 cycles. The fire like this could happened in 2 cases only: battery damage due to non proper fixation in the frame, or wire disconnection and geting in contact with oposite signal. The bike was equiped with short circuit switch C63 on a positive battery terminal, but we don't know was it installed during reassembling or not, or may cable was disconnected from the braker itself.. I offered 50% discount to the client so he can rebuild the bike, but this timemail he need to pay more attention to details and assemble everything in a better way. My offer is still valid.

 

[steam25]

I had to jump from the bike that was rolling at full speed to not burn alive.

interesting since you told artur you go slowly with around 30km/h only.
so you are lucky to be alive and not burn to death because vector bikes are so terrible? my goodness what a story. dont get me wrong here i am really sorry for your lost.

The builder refuses to offer me a solution, the conversation is cut off.

Also strange because he STILL offer a good deal here but YOU refuse and cut conversation...

all this sounds more like you try everything to get your "revenge post" as you maybe previously threatened to artur if he dont give you a new bike for free? now you need throw some dirt around and try make vector bad instead of talking nice and get things solved like grown up persons.
well good job buddy. thats the right way to go!

 

[Punx0r]

I think your offer is reasonable.

However, it's rare for a business to instruct the consumer to carry out warranty repairs because of the very problems you mention (you have no control over the standard of work). Where consumers perform work on a product (maintenance or whatever), it's normally expected that the manufacturer anticipates and prevents things that could go wrong (failsafe design, idiot-proof connectors, adequate warning labels/instructions). If installing the battery incorrectly in the frame can cause fire and this is likely to happen (is foreseeable) then incorrect installation should be made impossible (or at least very difficult!) by design.

Also, quality cells are delivered from the manufacturer at very, very close to the same voltage. Therefore, a newly pack should not require any balancing.

 

[vectorIbike]

Good evening,
I think it is important to explain what Artur asked me to do on this bike.

He asked me to intervene and dismantle parts of the bike (he accompanied me on Whatsapp)

His last proposal dated less than a week was to send me a bike by making me a discount of 1000 € (ie 5000 € the bike delivered - to be assembled)

Before he told me that he could send me the pieces to rebuild this bike by making me pay the half price parts ... Without guarantee because I had to do the assembly myself.



I'm not here to give a bad reputation to Vector but well to understand what happened on my Typhoon and find a reasonable solution together.

 

[Artur]

Talking about battery:

June:





September:



3 month time period and it is on same level prety much..

 

[ohzee]

Damn. That is a lot of support. I feel for people who interface with customers directly especially something with such a steep learning curve.
I did my many years doing customer phone technical support so that just helps with my appreciation.

I think the 50% offer is fair. I still think such an extreme battery fire is rare if all the components that came with this bike were being used as advised.

 

[nutnspecial]

That battery looks pretty fuct to me man.
And it's interesting you say re:battery 'there is a problem' and 'I shipped fully balanced' but then 'it okay' in the whatsapp, while your more recent post here on this topic says you couldn't take the time to balance before shipping.
Also looks like a nightmare troubleshoot method.

Wow

 

[macribs]

It is hard to be judging from the outside. I mean the time Artur has spend on support alone should say something. We all have a price on our hours. Either by the paycheck or by getting to do what we please on our spare time. I must say it seems Artur has been giving his best in the support area. There are more then a few messages back and forth here. I do however fully get the feeling the customer is left with. A great ebike up in flames. Terrible and a huge disappointment.

For all we know it could be a freak accident that caused the fire. 0,01% failure rate or something. Maybe the unlucky customer got the 1000th cell along with the rest and that caused the fire. It seems we can't really tell what caused the fire, as the fire destroyed everything. But I think at least there are common ground to find a solution that works for both party. Artur still say his offer is good. If they keep talking directly to each other rather then past each other on the forum they might be able to sort this in a calm matter like civilized human being rather then letting the feelings get the better part.

 

[DasDouble]

.

 

[Hillhater]

If i own anything even half that value, i make sure it is covered by insurance.
Then there is no pain if something like this happens.

 

[Artur]

guys, I think it's only 1/2 of our chat there.. I need to get this frame back, maby I will restore it for my own cost in order to inspect damages fire did.. maby I can make deal with adaptto to, or at least for discount.. the thing is noone want to send the frame back to me, and I can not understand why :| i try to give the rest of the components for 50% (i loose own money already here) just because I do care about this guy, and all other clients. In return I just get blackmailing

 

[DasDouble]

Hi,

I want to mention that I am sorry for your incident. As a not experienced guy with electric bikes it could be quite hard for you to understand what exactly caused the fire - even more as it already is for someone who has built it by himself or even designed it / sells it. 

You have asked for experience with this vendor so I want to tell mine, while I have only very good experience with it. Vector has always given me a great communication, which I can not mention enough times, and a great, thankful service when something went wrong or if I have had a question about something. 
What is confusing in my opinion is the fact, that you have driven your bike with a bended rim - which has deleted your warranty - even after Vector has told you not to do this several times. 

I also am the same opinion that now there is a clean and socialized communication between vendor and customer requested and not a ignoring and being full of disappointment. The offer of a 50/50 discount seems also an as good as possible try to help you somehow / make it for you better. 
I am not sure how I would react in your case and how I would feel, but what I can tell you is that I would now work together with Artur to solve this problem and to be able to get this out of the world by sending the frame to him for inspection. 

All the best

-Elias