Lithium-titanate is better, safer and doesn’t cause fires

Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News

FDNY Fire Marshalls remove charred remains of e-bikes and Lithium-Ion batteries from a repair and sales store located at Madison St. in the Chinatown area of Manhattan on June 20, 2023.

Lithium Titanate battery from ZapBatt on an e-bike.

Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News

A man is seen in Times Square making deliveries and riding an electric bike on Jan. 8, 2020.

Lithium Titanate battery from ZapBatt on an e-bike.

The death of four people in a Chinatown fire caused by exploding e-bike lithium-ion batteries is just the latest tragedy from these devices. While efforts to mitigate the lithium-ion risks being undertaken are worthwhile, we think that the answer is a better, safer battery.

After the New York City e-bike ban was lifted in 2018, micro-mobility took root. Then, COVID lockdowns brought a silver lining with an uptick of opportunities to transport food and other necessities to homes across the city. Delivery workers started using e-bikes and scooters instead of cars as a more convenient and less expensive means of transport to make a living.

Today, e-bikes and scooters can be seen buzzing around the busy streets of NYC en masse, which includes more than 60,000 app-based food delivery workers. This trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down, as the online grocery sector has a projected growth rate of $740.88 billion from 2022 to 2027.

Micro-mobility is booming in the city that never sleeps. The problem is something else is booming, and that’s lithium-ion batteries. To us, the solution is a different type of power source, called lithium-titanate batteries.

But first, let us explain the flaws — and dangers — of lithium-ion batteries.

Last year, in NYC alone, there were 216 fires involving batteries, with 147 injuries and six deaths — up from 104 fires in 2021, accounting for 79 injuries and four deaths. With 2023 not even half over, there have been 13 fatalities. Fire after fire has occurred, and Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh is on a mission to find potential remedies to this critical problem.

In early March of this year, the City Council passed a package of local bills requiring electric mobility devices rented, sold and leased in the city to be UL certified. If not followed, violators could face $1,000 fines.

The essential first step toward finding the cause of micro-mobility fires is tracking the events themselves. In 2019, the first year FDNY started tracking e-bike fires, only 13 were reported. With the vast uptick in reported fires today, we can look to the Big Apple for possible causes.

Many micro-mobility users can’t afford the high cost of quality e-bikes and often adopt unsafe or unproven technologies. Battery cells should have UL 1642, IEC 62133-2, and DOT/UN 38.3 certification marks at a minimum. The battery packs should also have environmental certifications such as UL 2271, IEC 607300-1, and EN 50604-1. Even with these basic certifications, real world environmental conditions can still lead to battery fires with lithium ion chemistry.

Currently, standard lithium-ion batteries saturate the market to power an increasingly wide range of products, including e-scooters and e-bikes. Almost every lithium-ion battery chemistry on the market suffers from two major safety problems — lithium deposition and thermal runway. Lithium deposition from everyday use forms “whiskers” inside the battery that can lead to spontaneous fires. Thermal runaway is a chain reaction inside battery cells that creates a self-sustaining fire that can grow. These fires can happen spontaneously from simply sitting in the wrong environment while carbon within the batteries fuel the fires.

Over time, batteries degrade with day to day use on the busy streets of NYC. Most companies and riders do not consider the usable cycle life or “lifetime” of the battery when procuring. The more these lithium-ion batteries age and degrade without proper maintenance and care, the more likely they are to catch on fire.

Many delivery workers work 12 to 16-hour days, but their bikes and scooters have batteries that only last five to seven hours. They may purchase multiple batteries and swap them to avoid downtime and loss of revenue. This can be dangerous as battery swapping can cause short-circuiting and physical battery damage. If the swapped battery’s voltage, capacity, or chemistry doesn’t match the bike’s requirements, it can damage the battery and the bike’s electrical system and, in turn, cause a fire.

Many battery fires that took place in NYC happened while charging overnight and indoors. Overcharging can cause a breakdown of the core chemistry and a buildup of heat and pressure within a lithium-ion battery, leading to swelling, leakage and explosion. Think of it like filling a barrel of gas that’s sitting over a pile of wood. If you overfill the tank and create a spark, you have a fire that you can’t put out.

Lithium-ion battery chemistries face fire challenges for many reasons, but some alternatives are on the horizon. Long used in industrial and military applications, proven lithium-titanate (LTO) battery chemistry is carbon-free and is immune from lithium deposition and dendrites, making it fire-resistant and capable of withstanding extreme temperatures, as well as resisting fires from battery damage. It is also the only battery chemistry in the world that can “self-heal,” preventing any thermal events under extreme conditions. There are many advantages to using LTO batteries for micro-mobility.

Our company, ZapBatt, working with Toshiba, has developed a safe, effective LTO battery that can be used on e-bikes and scooters and is the best way forward.

LTO batteries can be charged 10 times faster than standard lithium-ion chemistries without degrading its life-time or forming dendrites. This benefits those who use electric personal mobility devices more than a few hours a day, especially in NYC, where users need to quickly charge between rides. This eliminates the need for dangerous battery swapping that could damage batteries.

LTO batteries can be charged and discharged up to 15,000 cycles before they need to be replaced, equating to a 20-plus year lifespan. These batteries can also withstand punctures, short-circuits, and physical damage without sparking a fire. While an LTO battery now costs twice as much as a comparable lithium-ion battery, its durability makes it much more economical.

Due to the core properties of the lithium titanium nano crystal, LTO batteries will not go into thermal runaway from overcharging compared to traditional lithium-ion batteries. This matters in a densely populated area like NYC, where many batteries are charged indoors.

The value to ending the fire risk, with damaged property and lives lost, is immeasurable.

LTO allows more freedom to optimize with AI because it can move energy in and out so quickly without degrading its cycle life. An LTO battery can be optimized over time from AI given the environment it is put in. For example, an LTO battery in NYC can optimize how it performs as seasons and temperatures change.

LTO batteries continue to work safely in a wide range of various temperatures, making them ideal for a city like New York that can experience different climate conditions.

ZapBatt’s bi-directional adaptive terminal voltage (BATV) technology allows LTO to be seamlessly swapped for any lithium-ion battery without changing hardware for a variety of vehicles and voltages. This can be an off-the-shelf option for quick adoption.

LTO batteries are already certified and they aren’t a “new” chemistry but rather a reworked one. The Department of Defense has been using LTO for years, but with newly integrated software and hardware options along with AI, this chemistry is the ultimate weapon to keep micro-mobility safe and convenient.

As micro-mobility gains popularity globally, NYC is a useful example of what to embrace and what to avoid. By demonstrating how to manage and proactively address the growth of this sector effectively, the city highlights the significance of being prepared and taking measures to prevent potential hazards such as fires.

This micro-mobility ride isn’t going to stop. It’s time for a safer battery.

Welch, an aerospace engineer who was a lead researcher at defense and technology companies testing and optimizing a variety of battery chemistries, is the CEO and co-founder of ZapBatt, a battery provider for various markets, including mobility, small infrastructure, and consumer products. Zionpur is the COO of ZapBatt and previously served as a senior leader at Zagster — a leading fleet management and bike sharing startup to brands such as Spin, Link and Uber.