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More Than 500,000 Hoverboards Recalled Because of Fire Hazards (go.com)
501,000 self-balancing scooters -- more popularly known as hoverboards -- are being recalled due to fire hazard concerns, said The U.S. Consumer Product Safety. The lithium-ion battery packs in the hoverboards can overheat -- which could result in sparking, smoking, fire, and explosion -- the agency added. ABC reports:The recall involves hoverboards from eight manufacturers/importers that are made with lithium-ion battery packs as well as 4,300 from Overstock.com and 1,300 from a store in Pennsylvania. Amazon.com is not listed in the recall, but in February, the online giant worked with the CPSC to offer refunds to any customer who wanted to return hoverboards purchased on the site. Hoverboards by Swagway make up more than half of those recalled -- 267,000. "We are urging consumers to act quickly," CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye told ABC News. "We've concluded pretty definitively that these are not safe products the way they were designed."
Or did some go into other devices
This isn't likely a battery problem but a device problem. Safe operation of LiPo batteries depends on sophisticated charging circuitry, and if a manufacturer cuts corners on that, the user won't know it until the fire starts.
One way of cheating on safety: Design the charger to deliver high current for a fast charge. Good example here: LiPo's have largely supplanted IC engines in model airplanes, and there's an incentive to charge at high rates so you can get in more flying in a day. Modelers take the battery out of the airplane and fast-charge it in a fireproof bag. They could leave it in there and get away with it most of the time, but they usually have the good sense not to.
An adolescent kid doesn't want to wait several hours to charge his hoverboard, and a fireproof bag would be an alarm bell to Dad, so the manufacturer has a motivation to work on the edge.