November 10, 20205 yr https://www.computerbild.de/artikel/cb-News-Connected-Car-Explosion-eBike-Akku-Zerstoerung-Wohnung-29246419.html A retired couple in Lengerich in the area of Steinfurt, stored an e-bike in their Apartment and around 19:45, it exploded and set the apartment on fire. This happened on the 6th of November. The explosion in their dining room was so massive, that it blew out windows and reduced furniture to matchwood. The damage is estimated to be around €200,000! But no injuries, thankfully! Apparently, the charger was not connected at the time.
November 10, 20205 yr It sounds very fishy. There isn't anything in an ebike battery that can make it explode like that. Did their ebike catch fire and set off the bombs they were making or the fireworks they had been saving for new year? Maybe the writer of the article exaggerated a bit, and it was just the normal battery fire with all the cells popping like fireworks.
November 10, 20205 yr https://www.computerbild.de/artikel/cb-News-Connected-Car-Explosion-eBike-Akku-Zerstoerung-Wohnung-29246419.html A retired couple in Lengerich in the area of Steinfurt, stored an e-bike in their Apartment and around 19:45, it exploded and set the apartment on fire. This happened on the 6th of November. The explosion in their dining room was so massive, that it blew out windows and reduced furniture to matchwood. The damage is estimated to be around €200,000! But no injuries, thankfully! Apparently, the charger was not connected at the time. Sure it wasn't the 5th of November
November 10, 20205 yr Author Sure it wasn't the 5th of November It was an old retired couple. The newspapers covered it a few days earlier and I missed it then. But its all on the web. Also, it was not the only one either..... I translated their words, and apparently it did blow out windows, so probably it was burning for a period and eventually the last cells, all went up together. But I am guessing. I shall see if a fire department statement is made. Am I the apparently the only one here who can read and speak German, now that is worrying , the standards of modern education.........surely there are a few others with a proper education with languages as well? German is actually my 4th language if you count English as a first, school French, Royal Navy Portuguese and I moved to Germany at around 34 years old, past my best at learning languages if the truth be known..... German is considered to be one of the most complicated European languages, which puts some people off of course..... 3 Ways of saying "you" for example in the present tense. 3 different forms of "the", are a short indication..... But I did (dream) that a few could read the link I sent! WRONG!! Andy
November 10, 20205 yr It was an old retired couple. The newspapers covered it a few days earlier and I missed it then. But its all on the web. Also, it was not the only one either..... I translated their words, and apparently it did blow out windows, so probably it was burning for a period and eventually the last cells, all went up together. But I am guessing. I shall see if a fire department statement is made. Am I the apparently the only one here who can read and speak German, now that is worrying , the standards of modern education.........surely there are a few others with a proper education with languages as well? German is actually my 4th language if you count English as a first, school French, Royal Navy Portuguese and I moved to Germany at around 34 years old, past my best at learning languages if the truth be known..... German is considered to be one of the most complicated European languages, which puts some people off of course..... 3 Ways of saying "you" for example in the present tense. 3 different forms of "the", are a short indication..... But I did (dream) that a few could read the link I sent! WRONG!! Andy As an uneducated, non German speaking pleb..... I will take your word the battery caused the explosion
November 10, 20205 yr Google translate does for me a lot of the time,... Practical eBikes are very popular and are particularly popular with older people. A retired couple from Lengerich in the Steinfurt district had also bought the practical bicycles with an electric auxiliary motor - and should now regret this step bitterly. According to a media report, an eBike battery stored in the apartment exploded on November 6, 2020 - and blew up the couple's home. As the two 76-year-olds reported, they had been sitting in front of the TV in the living room that evening when they heard a thud around 7.45 p.m. The man looked for the cause of the noise and discovered the smoking battery in the dining room. Battery blows up apartment - total loss! With his presence of mind, he put the apparently defective battery in the bathtub and left the apartment with his wife. Only a few moments later the battery exploded - with devastating consequences. The detonation was so violent that some windows and doors were blown out and furniture was shattered. Together with a 29-year-old neighbor, the couple managed to get out of the house just in time. According to the police, there were no seriously injured people, but the apartment is completely destroyed and uninhabitable - the damage is likely to amount to 200,000 euros. The couple suffered slight smoke inhalation and are currently living with their daughter. The cause of the exploding battery remains unclear. It is particularly worrying that the device was not even connected to the electricity at the time of the fire and the subsequent explosion I’m not too bad with French but they don’t seem to have ebike battery fires. when I spent a lot of time on radio control forums there was always concern over li-po batteries, on charge and when stored. Battery charging sacks were common practice, and some users had army surplus ammo boxes they stored batteries in. I don’t think the situation was helped by lots of low price battery packs coming from China; that’s not to slate the Chinese battery quality but when you could buy battery packs for under £7 delivered from China compared to branded ones at £40 from uk hobby shops you had to wonder. I bought half a dozen or so of them , and renewed then every 6 months just in case they went bad (plenty of vibration and shocks when in a RC model). im not sure how all that translates into ebike batteries but of course anything that looks like a bargain isn’t always just down to very cheap labour rates. It a,so makes you wonder whether the advice not to leave batteries in external storage/ unheated garages and to bring them into the house is appropriate in all cases. what that news article doesn’t elaborate on is the type of bike, battery type, voltage etc etc; that detail would reduce some of the sensationalist headline.
November 10, 20205 yr Am I the apparently the only one here who can read and speak German, now that is worrying , the standards of modern education.........surely there are a few others with a proper education with languages as well? That's a bit presumptuous isn't it? Did it not occur to you that some of us might have been born in Germany and lived there both at the start of their lives and for a period of their adult life, and that these same forum members might have a German name and German forefathers? And did it not occur to you that forum members might not have even noticed that it was written in German because Google Translate automatically changes it to English as the page loads. I'm taking it at face value, but it just doesn't add up. Was it just coincidental that he had a bath full of water ready to dunk it into. How did he pick it up when it was already burning? Edited November 10, 20205 yr by vfr400
November 10, 20205 yr Author As an uneducated, non German speaking pleb..... I will take your word the battery caused the explosion Thats what the newspaper report stated. I was not there, but after seeing another fire on youtube, you can hear the cells exploding, and the rush of expelled gas. I certainly feel that this old couple heard something....they took as being an explosion. Andy
November 10, 20205 yr Author That's a bit presumptuous isn't it? Did it not occur to you that some of us might have been born in Germany and lived there both at the start of their lives and for a period of their adult life, and that these same forum members might have a German name and German forefathers? And did it not occur to you that forum members might not have even noticed that it was written in German because Google Translate automatically changes it to English as the page loads. I'm taking it at face value, but it just doesn't add up. Was it just coincidental that he had a bath full of water ready to dunk it into. How did he pick it up when it was already burning? What does that have to do with having a foreign language, being born there? You always manage to go off on a tangent! Unimpressive. Nobody up to now has even claimed a foreign language, be it German or anything else. I am shocked that languages are still as unimportant for some Brits as they were when I was a kid. My own father had English, French, German and Turkish, so maybe I was brought up in a different environment......though he picked up German at the grammar school I attended in night school classes. Its very sad, you miss so much not speaking a foreign language when abroad, that you cannot even know about, if you don't speak it.... The door is simply closed. Andy Edited November 10, 20205 yr by Andy-Mat
November 10, 20205 yr What does that have to do with having a foreign language, being born there? You always manage to go off on a tangent! Unimpressive. Nobody up to now has even claimed a foreign language, be it German or anything else. I am shocked that languages are still as unimportant for some Brits as they were when I was a kid. My own father had English, French, German and Turkish, so maybe I was brought up in a different environment......though he picked up German at the grammar school I attended in night school classes. Its very sad, you miss so much not speaking a foreign language when abroad, that you cannot even know about, if you don't speak it.... The door is simply closed. Andy The reason people don't talk about which languages they speak is because this is a British forum, where we speak English. Most people would be able to figure that out. As well as modern languages, I can still remember a fair amount of Latin, for which I got grade A at O-level.
November 10, 20205 yr What does that have to do with having a foreign language, being born there? You always manage to go off on a tangent! Unimpressive. Nobody up to now has even claimed a foreign language, be it German or anything else. I am shocked that languages are still as unimportant for some Brits as they were when I was a kid. My own father had English, French, German and Turkish, so maybe I was brought up in a different environment......though he picked up German at the grammar school I attended in night school classes. Its very sad, you miss so much not speaking a foreign language when abroad, that you cannot even know about, if you don't speak it.... The door is simply closed. Andy Well, I am bi-lingual, Welsh and English and also speak a fair bit of French.
November 11, 20205 yr Well, I am bi-lingual, Welsh and English and also speak a fair bit of French. Tri-lingual then ???
November 11, 20205 yr Ok, can we detoxify this thread and stop going on about who can and can't speak what and get back to the facts? Was this a battery pack from a reputable supplier? Had the pack been dropped or abused in some way? Had it been charged incorrectly, with the wrong kind of charger? Was it on charge when the incident happened? Had it been left on top of or near to a room heater? These are the kind of things we need to find out so we can get to the bottom of this.
November 11, 20205 yr Explosion may mean natural gas was ignited or another flammable source other then the battery.
November 11, 20205 yr Andy again going off on one again, castigating forum users over how many languages they should have or know.
November 11, 20205 yr What does that have to do with having a foreign language, being born there? You always manage to go off on a tangent! and > Am I the apparently the only one here who can read and speak German, now that is worrying , the standards of modern education.........surely there are a few others with a proper education with languages as well? I'd call that off at a tangent. Choose your words and criticism carefully. Anyway, back to the 'bathtub', as Google likes to call it. I asssumed that they'd popped it in the (empty) bath since that was a good non-flammable place to put something smoking - I'd call that smart. Smarter would be lob it out the window, but who knows how high up they were (apartment might be ground floor or 20th floor), and what safe ground there was around them.
November 11, 20205 yr What does that have to do with having a foreign language, being born there? You always manage to go off on a tangent! Unimpressive. Nobody up to now has even claimed a foreign language, be it German or anything else. I am shocked that languages are still as unimportant for some Brits as they were when I was a kid. My own father had English, French, German and Turkish, so maybe I was brought up in a different environment......though he picked up German at the grammar school I attended in night school classes. Its very sad, you miss so much not speaking a foreign language when abroad, that you cannot even know about, if you don't speak it.... The door is simply closed. Andy You missed out Double Dutch.
November 11, 20205 yr I am shocked that languages are still as unimportant for some Brits as they were when I was a kid. Why are you shocked Andy, it's what I would expect, given the circumstances? Britain had the largest most widespread empire the world has ever known, leading to the English language being so widely understood and used. The English language is the largest in the world in the number of words it possesses and due to its adoption as a universal language in all areas of knowledge and science. English is the dominant language of the internet and world wide web. All other languages only have very limited application and usefulness. Accordingly in the modern world there is very limited incentive for the English to be multilingual but every incentive for those only with other languages to adequately know the English language. To illustrate. I once spent a year working in France and expanded my schoolboy French enough to get by. Since then during 55 years it's only been of any use on two occasions for a few days each time, so rather pointless. Conversely, any one with another mother tongue who has learnt English will have found it useful as much as daily ever since. So there is no comparison between the two situations. . Edited November 11, 20205 yr by flecc
November 11, 20205 yr Author The reason people don't talk about which languages they speak is because this is a British forum, where we speak English. Most people would be able to figure that out. As well as modern languages, I can still remember a fair amount of Latin, for which I got grade A at O-level. So they cannot/are not allowed to use their language skills while reading here? That seems a bit far fetched..... Latin, is very useful when learning other languages by the way, it gives you a great "leg up", though I myself hated it at school. I have no recollection as to why today! I do not count it as one of my languages for that reason, nor do I count Chinese, that I learned when posted to Singapore, and I had a Chinese GF. Also, I tend to think that reading some of the misspelled and poor grammatical entries here, that some are unable even to write correctly, what I assume is their first language. But I could be wrong on that point, and they have a different first language other than English... But I am no grammar Policeman, as long as its understandable, that's fine. So me even "imagining" that there might possibly be a few German speakers/readers, was totally off target!! How really sad! Andy
November 11, 20205 yr Why are you shocked Andy, it's what I would expect, given the circumstances? Britain had the largest most widespread empire the world has ever known, leading to the English language being so widely understood and used. The English language is the largest in the world in the number of words it possesses and due to its adoption as a universal language in all areas of knowledge and science. English is the dominant language of the internet and world wide web. All other languages only have very limited application and usefulness. Accordingly in the modern world there is very limited incentive for the English to be multilingual but every incentive for those only with other languages to adequately know the English language. To illustrate. I once spent a year working in France and expanded my schoolboy French enough to get by. Since then during 55 years it's only been of any use on two occasions for a few days each time, so rather pointless. Conversely, any one with another mother tongue who has learnt English will have found it useful as much as daily ever since. So there is no comparison between the two situations. . That's all very well, but we don't have an empire any more and if we want people to buy from us (which we desperately need them to do), we need to talk their language. Between 2025 and 2030, China will be the most economically powerful country in the world, so we won't even be able to rely on the Americans to bail us out linguistically (even though we despise the corrupted form that they speak in any case ). However, that's all I'm going to say on this. Can we just bury the language issue now and get back to what actually happened in this case, an e-bike battery caught fire and burned down an apartment. WHY? That is what we want to establish.
November 11, 20205 yr Author Why are you shocked Andy, it's what I would expect, given the circumstances? Britain had the largest most widespread empire the world has ever known, leading to the English language being so widely understood and used. The English language is the largest in the world in the number of words it possesses and due to its adoption as a universal language in all areas of knowledge and science. English is the dominant language of the internet and world wide web. All other languages only have very limited application and usefulness. Accordingly in the modern world there is very limited incentive for the English to be multilingual but every incentive for those only with other languages to adequately know the English language. To illustrate. I once spent a year working in France and expanded my schoolboy French enough to get by. Since then during 55 years it's only been of any use on two occasions for a few days each time, so rather pointless. Conversely, any one with another mother tongue who has learnt English will have found it useful as much as daily ever since. So there is no comparison between the two situations. . I have live abroad from the UK, for the greater part of my life, and have sadly been in the situation where "furriners" from the UK and the USA, visiting a foreign country, with their loud voices, and total misuse of cheap alcohol, completely miss what the locals REALLY think about them. The locals talking with a smile, about such people, right next to them about their lack of manners! (don't forget manners are local and Geographic, and even good English manners may still cause offense in some countries!) I have been on holiday with my own family, we speak German with each other, (except when a visitor only has English), and heard loud English voices discussing us, not rudely but obviously thinking that we don't speak English. To which I greet them in my best Oxford English (still), and ask them how they are enjoying themselves.......They always go red and you can see them thinking "Did I say anything rude?" But it causes them to talk very quietly after that! My whole family speaks impeccable English and German, both my daughters work for international parts of one a company and the other a German Bank, where Business English is a requirement. Maybe I am spoiled and simply hoping for a better impression of what is still my home country and the population there in General.... My Bad! Andy
November 11, 20205 yr Am I the apparently the only one here who can read and speak German, now that is worrying , the standards of modern education.........surely there are a few others with a proper education with languages as well? German is actually my 4th language if you count Engli So they cannot/are not allowed to use their language skills while reading here? That seems a bit far fetched..... Latin, is very useful when learning other languages by the way, it gives you a great "leg up", though I myself hated it at school. I have no recollection as to why today! I do not count it as one of my languages for that reason, nor do I count Chinese, that I learned when posted to Singapore, and I had a Chinese GF. Also, I tend to think that reading some of the misspelled and poor grammatical entries here, that some are unable even to write correctly, what I assume is their first language. But I could be wrong on that point, and they have a different first language other than English... But I am no grammar Policeman, as long as its understandable, that's fine. So me even "imagining" that there might possibly be a few German speakers/readers, was totally off target!! How really sad! Yawn .
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.