A 40-year-old man died and his wife and two children were seriously injured when the battery of his new electric vehicle exploded inside their house in Vijayawada city in the wee hours of Saturday.
The incident comes close on the heels of a similar mishap in Nizamabad of neighboring Telangana three days ago, where an 80-year-old died when an EV battery kept for charging blew up.
In the Vijayawada case, A Siva Kumar had bought the new bike on Friday. He had kept the detachable battery of the bike for charging in his bedroom on Friday night.
According to the police, the battery exploded after a few hours when the family was in deep sleep. The blast caused a fire in the house which spread to the Air Conditioning machine and other household articles.
Alerted by the sounds and smoke, the neighbors broke open the doors and pulled out the family. Kumar died while being shifted to a hospital. “His wife and two children (aged 10 and six) who suffered 30 percent burns and inhaled the fumes are undergoing treatment in a private hospital for better care. Their condition is serious and are under observation for 48 hours,” Janaki Ramaiah, inspector, Suryaraopet told DH.
The EV model is Corbett 14, which comes with swappable batteries.
In Nizamabad, 80-year-old B Ramaswamy lost life when the battery detached from an e-scooter kept on charging in their living room exploded in the wee hours of Wednesday. B Prakash, the deceased's son and scooter owner, and two other family members were also injured in the ensuing fire.
In the Nizamabad case, the e-scooter was manufactured by Pure (short for Power Using Renewable Energy) EV, a start-up incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad. Its factory is also located near the IIT campus. The company was booked by the police under IPC Section 304-A (causing death by negligence).
Following the incident, PURE EV stated that it is recalling 2000 vehicles of ETRANCE+ and EPLUTO 7G models of the concerned batches.
Several incidents of EVs of different companies catching fires were reported from various parts of the country in the recent weeks prompting the union road transport ministry to initiate a probe.
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