Lithium batteries

 This whole thing will go away when we get the solid-state batteries.  However, for now, you can't beat the power density of free lithium.  There is that magic battery from Finland.

This is 99% lithium, or it follows the general plan.  Boy charges his lithium scooter in the garage, under the hanging patio furniture.  Bang!  

The lithium fires are a million to one individually, but regularly go on on a community basis.  That why the fire people are all poopy on them.  So, you lean the e-bike up against an empty brick wall, and you install a smoke detector for the garage.  Amazingly, in our lithium age, there is no requirement to do so.  

The fire always starts out small with tons of smoke.  My tests showed that.  With a smoke detector, you can get the hanging fire extinguisher and put out the secondary fire, if there is one.  I wouldn't spray the battery itself, because you are better off just letting the lithium oxidize.  The oxidized smoke is as harmless as my bbq deciding to flare.

This leads to the general problem with China quality control.  You can have a perfect company, and wonderful products, like I buy all the time, and then, wham!  A most horrendous quality failure.  The ISO quality standard is so boring it makes your brain fall out, but the standard lays out small-minded consistency.  So, if your quality is good, it is always good.  In China, they pick parts out of a bin in the local market.  I buy small things all the time, but the failure is one out of ten.  With my battery shaver, this leaves me in the lurch, until I can wait the week to get a new one.  They are cheap, so I bought two, and of course, this latest one has lasted forever.

I can't trust them for large complex things.  I was looking for a fancy toilet and the Chinese one is the best.  But, a lady said the plastic with the foam dispenser reacted badly with the foam and had a horrendous smell for a week.  It went away, and she was happy, but Hello?  That means in a near-perfect run of toilets, one had the wrong interior plastic.  Same thing happened for me and a Chinese kitchen tap.  Started to crack with the plastic parts inside, and luckily I caught it before it exploded.  Actually had to go out and buy an American Standard tap.  That never happens with them.

So, when we get a lot of Chinese electric cars, some will blow up.  Maybe not.  I've bought things of perfect quality from branded companies, so I think they are following ISO.  But who knows?

ps just to be fair to China, the Korea toilets seem just as bad.  You can pay 3 or 4 times more for a Japanese toilet, but that might as well be tumpified in solid gold.

ps so for small things it is cheaper to replace, except for plumbing things.