With the increasing number of fire incidents and finally some of them leading to the loss of life, one more concern is added to the list of worries regarding the future of EVs in India. A few days back, Okinawa announced a recall of their products voluntarily and now PureEV is also following their lead and has issued a recall as well.
These recalls came after the fire incidents of Vijayawada and Nizamabad came to light, where an 80-year-old and a 40-year-old lost their lives and multiple members of their families were gravely injured. As a precaution, after the fact, PureEV has recalled 2,000 units of its EVs, including ETRANCE+ and EPLUTO 7G scooters from the concerned batches.
Pure has assured that they will examine the EVs for all potential issues, including the battery checks and any imbalance issues. Batteries will be calibrated through the BaTRics Faraday device, an ANN (Artificial Neural Network) algorithm based AI developed by them, so how effective it will be is not known. Additionally, Battery Management systems (BMS) and charger calibration will be performed as required.
The Indian EV maker is reaching out to customers through its dealer network and a vehicle health check-up campaign is also put in place. An official statement tweeted by PureEV stated, “PURE EV takes the safety of its customers and vehicles very seriously. We continue to conduct numerous service camps in the customer’s interests and disseminate information related to the best practices for vehicle and battery safety.”
At the moment, the exact reasons for the fires are not known and the Government of India has also established an ‘Expert Committee’ to probe into the incidents and all the EVs involved. No progress is made yet, but we are looking forward to the reports that are to be made public by the expert panel set up on the issue.