In recent years, the number of electric bicycles in mainland China has grown rapidly, and has now reached 350 million. While it is convenient for the masses to travel, it also brings some potential safety hazards. Due to the repeated occurrence of fire accidents caused by electric bicycles entering buildings and entering homes and illegal charging, the safety of people's lives and property is seriously endangered.
Photo by Li Jianlin (People's Vision)
Focusing on the safety management of electric bicycles, all regions and departments have taken active actions to carry out a new round of centralized investigation, analyze the crux of the problem, and explore the governance plan. How to solve the problem of electric bicycle governance and make it safer and more convenient for people to use electric bicycles? The reporter conducted an interview.
Technology empowers, multiple measures at the same time
Prevent electric bicycles from entering the building and charging at home
"A certain circuit on a certain floor of a certain building has detected dangerous electricity use." One night in March this year, a message popped up on the mobile phone of Liu Jian, the security captain of Quxi New Village Community in Shanghai's Huangpu District. Liu Jian rushed to the scene, knocked on the door, and found that the occupants were charging the e-bike batteries indoors.
"It's dangerous, unplug it." Liu Jian explained the potential safety hazards to the residents. The community is an old community built in the sixties and seventies of the last century, with more than 1,700 households and more than 630 electric bicycles. In February this year, the electricity meter in the resident's home was connected to the "electricity safety alarm system", and the electrical equipment in the process of use, the system through the waveform spectrum of the electrical load, harmonic phase combination analysis, to judge whether the electric load is an electric bicycle, and timely issued an early warning.
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"After receiving the information prompt, we will come to the door as soon as possible to stop the illegal charging." Liu Jian said that after repeated tests, the system has a high recognition accuracy, and more than 80 indoor charging behaviors have been successfully disposed of in a month.
"Electric cars are not allowed! Electric cars are not allowed! In Building 1, Leading Garden Community, Yizhou District, Hami City, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the elevator recognized an electric bicycle entering, and immediately issued an alarm and "refused" to close.
"This is the electric bicycle home warning system we developed, which will be piloted in 2021 and has been applied to 48 points in the city." Mu Jiangang, head of the Hami Fire Detachment, said that the system will connect the intelligent camera, algorithm recognition and elevator control device, in addition to sending voice prompts, it will also inform the staff on duty of the community property company synchronously, prompting the staff to go to the scene as soon as possible for disposal.
There are hundreds of electric bicycles in the leading garden community, and Zhou Xiaoxia, deputy general manager of the property, said: "When the system was first installed, the alarm rate was very high, three or four times a day, and now there are no few cases a month. ”
In recent years, various localities have implemented classified policies and fine management to explore the governance path of electric bicycles. Beijing is the first in the country to establish a comprehensive supervision mechanism for the whole chain of electric bicycles; Sichuan Province has built a demonstration community for AI safety governance of electric bicycles to achieve 24-hour intelligent monitoring; Shanxi Province has strengthened inspections of places such as centralized charging areas and battery placement areas for shared bicycles; Guangdong Province carried out fire safety publicity "into the community" activities......
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The relevant person in charge of the National Fire and Rescue Bureau said that it is difficult to supervise the end of the grassroots level of electric bicycles, and it is necessary to further enhance the safety awareness of the whole people. The National Fire and Rescue Bureau will take a variety of forms to popularize fire safety knowledge such as standardized parking, safe charging, and escape and self-rescue of electric bicycles to the masses. At the same time, educate and guide the masses not to buy or use products without 3C certification, not to modify the original car battery without authorization, and consciously resist entering the building to charge at home.
Combination of dredging and blocking
Let the electric bicycle be charged for the convenience of the people
The safety of electric bicycle use involves all aspects of urban governance. With the rapid growth of electric bicycles, a large number of electric bicycles need to be stored and charged every day, which puts forward new challenges and requirements for urban management.
A few days ago, the reporter randomly came to visit a high-rise residential building in Chaoyang District, Beijing, Mr. Li, a resident, pointed to the electric car shed and told the reporter that every night at 8 or 9 o'clock is the peak of charging, and there are more than 200 households in this building alone, and the total number of electric bicycles is nearly 30, and there are only 5 charging piles in the entire community.
The phenomenon of "short supply" of charging piles is not unique. Yang Xinmiao, deputy director of the Institute of Transportation Research of Tsinghua University, said that in the face of the growing demand for electric bicycle charging, various departments should cooperate with multiple parties to promote the installation of charging carports in the community and the construction of charging stations on the street.
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With enough charging equipment, can you prevent e-bikes from entering the building? The reporter interviewed and found that the charging of electric bicycle charging piles in some places is expensive and opaque, which is one of the reasons why some residents are reluctant to use public charging piles. In a small area in a certain place, the price of civil electricity in the first tier is about 0.7 yuan/kWh, and the outdoor public charging pile uses commercial electricity, plus the property and charging pile operators charge additional management service fees, which is equivalent to the cost of use and needs to pay 2 yuan/kWh.
A charging pile operator told reporters that the construction of charging pile facilities, overhaul and maintenance, daily maintenance, etc., all require long-term continuous investment, so the cost will be recovered in the form of service fees.
Experts suggest that the relevant departments should make a comprehensive assessment and formulate a unified charging standard or set a price range, so as to benefit the people. Taking Dashilar Street, Xicheng District, Beijing as an example, the street bears the construction cost of charging facilities, and the charging cabinets and charging piles in the area are charged separately, charging about 0.5 yuan/kWh according to the civil electricity standard, and the service fee is charged 0.2 yuan/kWh. "The street also drew a map of the distribution of charging facilities for us, and it was clear where there were charging piles, and we never had to worry about charging again." Uncle Wang, a resident, said.
While installing facilities and standardizing fees, how to "plug" the risk points of potential safety hazards is also the key to solving the problem.
"Lithium batteries have high energy density and long life, and if they encounter short circuits, overcharges, overdischarges, etc., there is a risk of fire caused by thermal runaway." Shi Xunxian, director of the Institute of Industrial Safety at the China Academy of Safety Sciences, said that the most common type of e-bike is "overcharging", which increases the internal temperature and pressure of the battery, leading to deformation, leakage, and increasing the risk of fire and explosion. "The indoor environment is densely populated and combustible, and electric vehicles and batteries must be strictly prohibited from entering the building, which is an effective way to reduce the risk of fire under the existing conditions."
Shi Xun first introduced that there are many factors that are easy to cause accidents, such as the production process of lithium batteries for some electric bicycles is not up to standard, the owner modifies it privately in order to have a longer battery life and faster driving speed, and the battery is bulging but not replaced in time.
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"From the analysis of 26 large fatal fire accidents of electric bicycles in the past three years, there are 13 cases of illegal use of modified batteries and assembled batteries, accounting for 50%." The relevant person in charge of the National Fire and Rescue Bureau said that to improve the intrinsic safety level of electric bicycles, it is necessary to improve the quality standards of core components and control the quality from the source of production.
Treat both the symptoms and the root causes
Jointly build a "firewall" for life safety
Experts said that the safety control chain of electric bicycles is long and involves multiple departments. In recent years, various localities and departments have taken multiple measures to form a joint force to jointly build a "firewall" for the safety of people's lives.
On the one hand, regulations and standards are constantly improving.
In August 2021, the "Regulations on Fire Safety Management of High-rise Civil Buildings" was officially implemented, which clarified the legal responsibility for illegal parking and charging of electric bicycles in the form of legislation for the first time, and encouraged the establishment of centralized storage and charging places in the community.
In August 2022, the Safety Committee of the State Council formulated and issued the "Key Work Tasks and Division of Labor Plan for Strengthening the Safety Supervision of the Whole Chain of Electric Bicycles", which clearly strengthened the investigation and punishment of illegal parking and charging of electric bicycles.
A few days ago, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other three departments jointly issued the "Electric Bicycle Industry Standard Conditions", proposing that the electric bicycle batteries produced or purchased by enterprises should be coded and identified in accordance with the standards to promote the traceability management of battery information. At the same time, enterprises are required to strengthen dealer management, and urge dealers to resist illegal tampering behaviors such as increasing the voltage capacity of the battery and lifting the speed limit.
On the other hand, the investigation and rectification continue to be deepened and solidified.
The market supervision department has increased the inspection of business outlets and maintenance shops, and severely cracked down on the "black workshops" of assembly and modification and secondary assembly and processing. In view of the fatal fire accidents caused by electric bicycles and batteries, the traceability investigation is carried out around the production, sales, modification, parking, charging and other links, the cause of the accident and the safety responsibility are investigated, and the relevant enterprise units and individuals are held accountable in accordance with the law.
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The National Fire and Rescue Administration continues to carry out special management of electric bicycles, strictly investigate and deal with violations of laws and regulations such as electric bicycles entering buildings and homes, charging with flying wires, and occupying and blocking evacuation channels and safety exits, and clarifying that electric bicycle storage and charging places should be set up independently and keep a safe distance from high-rise buildings.
At the same time, the fire fighting and rescue capabilities have also been greatly improved.
In view of the characteristics of lithium-ion batteries for electric bicycles, such as large energy release, rapid heating rate, and high toxicity of flue gas, the National Fire and Rescue Administration has guided local fire rescue teams to continuously deepen the research on targeted techniques and tactics for electric bicycle fire fighting such as cooling, fire control, and isolation, strengthen equipment allocation, and improve the preparation of emergency plans, so that they can be extinguished in a timely and efficient manner when a fire occurs.
"Only by treating both the symptoms and the root causes can we truly solve the problem of electric bicycle charging." The relevant person in charge of the National Fire and Rescue Bureau said that while "not letting it go", it is also necessary to continue to improve the infrastructure construction, so that residents have the convenience of "not having to go".
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It is understood that the next step of the National Fire and Rescue Administration will be to cooperate with the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development to jointly promote the construction of centralized parking and charging places for electric bicycles, configure intelligent charging facilities with controllable risks, and realize real-time monitoring of charging, full of reminders, and automatic power cut-off. Encourage the installation of intelligent technical prevention facilities such as fire alarm, monitoring and early warning in electric bicycle parking and charging places, and provide place guarantee for residents' centralized parking, centralized charging, and centralized management of electric bicycles.
Experts said that it is not a day's work to improve the governance of the whole chain of electric bicycles, and it is necessary to tighten the string of safety in the spirit of "always rest assured", multi-governance, and long-term work, and jointly promote the safe and convenient use of electric bicycles.