Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries causes hoverboards to explode

There have been plenty of news recently about hoverboards catching fire and the quality of the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries is to blame.

Wired reported that Carnegie Mellon University Professor of Materials Science & Engineering Jay Whitacre said the problem is with the quality of the batteries, not on the hover boards themselves. These low-quality batteries are cheap, allowing makers to cut cost and sell them for a low and attractive price.

"There are a lot of factories in China that now make Li-ion batteries, and the reality is that the quality and consistency of these batteries is typically not as good as what is found in top tier producers such as LG or Samsung," said Whitacre. "These are known as 'low cost li-ion batteries' by most in the industry-they are not knockoffs or copies, but are instead just mass-manufactured cells."

According to Hack Read, most hoverboards use Lithium-ion batteries. These are the batteries found in tablets, laptops, RC toys, and the daily mobile phones. These technologies are robust and are strong enough to stand repeated charging.

Misuse of this battery is another major reason for the explosion cases. These batteries are placed right under the feet of the user to keep the balance on the hoverboard. When misused, it can be dislodged, which leads to explosions. Overcharging, or using chargers from third party brands can bring the wring voltage to the battery, which causes them to burst and explode.

Popular Science wrote that hoverboards are the hottest Christmas gifts with 5,000 units sold on EBay during Black Friday. However, the increasing cases of hoverboards catching fire caused Amazon and Overstock to stop selling certain brands of this toy.

Selling them cheap would be a great idea, because it is one of the hottest devices on the market today. However, this has come to the expense of users' safety.