After an Ather 450X catches fire, the company says its battery is safe — fire was due to a wiring harness issue

• An Ather 450X reportedly caught on fire in Bengaluru a few weeks ago.
• The company has claimed that the scooter caught fire due to an issue in the wiring harness assembly.
• The company has claimed that the battery was not the cause of the incident and continued to operate normally.

In yet another incident of an electric two-wheeler catching fire, an Ather 450X reportedly caught on fire a few weeks ago. The incident came to light only after a Twitter user posted a video of the burnt-up scooter.

According to a tweet by a Twitter user, a “newly delivered” Ather 450X has caught on fire. The user shared a video of a burnt-up scooter in which a major part of the scooter’s right side burnt up.

While most fire incidents related to electric scooters have been due to thermal incidents in the battery, it is evident from the video that the battery was not the cause, as the battery on the Ather 450X rests below the footrest, which has remained unaffected.

While Ather did not respond to Business Insider India’s request for a comment, the company has issued a public statement on social media platforms.
Ather accepts it made a mistake
In its statement, Ather has said that the fire occurred in the 450X a few weeks ago in Bengaluru. The company added that the customer is safe and there was no further damage.

The company has said that the cause of the fire was an issue in the wiring harness assembly.

“Our teams investigated and identified the root cause of the issue in the wiring harness assembly. One of the connectors to the motor controller was torqued incorrectly which unfortunately resulted in sparking around the controller terminals,” Ather said in a statement.

“Our safety systems kicked in immediately and cut off further power flow limiting the damage. However, the wiring harness had unfortunately caught fire by then,” the company added.

The company also accepted that it was an error on their part and has now introduced a two-step verification process to prevent such future occurrences.

“This was a rare human error on our part and we have since then updated our manufacturing operations, upgraded our equipment and introduced a two-step verification process for this process to prevent any such future occurrences.”

While it is good to see the company accept its mistake, it does raise the question of whether other scooters from the company are affected by such issues.
Ather praises its safety systems
In its statement, Ather has also said that its battery, battery management system (BMS), and dashboard were not affected in the incident. The company confirmed that it was not a thermal runaway event and that the battery operated normally.

“All our battery packs are designed, manufactured and tested by our teams in India and remain subject to the highest quality and testing standards in the world,” the company added.

For those unaware, thermal runaway is the leading cause of fires in electric vehicles. It is a process wherein the temperature of the battery increases and releases energy, which in turn increases the temperature, ending up in a vicious cycle of temperature increase and eventually leading to a fire.

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