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It’s just the Electric Bus end of life EXPLOSION , cars also do it. I have been tinkering with lithium-based rechargeable batteries for years. I have specialized charging tools and battery condition evaluation tools. People believe that the lithium-based rechargeable batteries found in laptops and phones are the same animal as electric vehicle batteries. Laptop and phone batteries can catch on fire as well, but this is far less common for a number of reasons, but mostly because they are not designed for high discharge and charge rates. The real education for a tinkerer comes when you start experimenting with batteries designed for high charge and discharge rates as found in model planes, cars, and drones, and also bicycles, minibikes, cars etc... This is the real preview for full sized EV batteries. And they can actually be dangerous. I usually charge mine outside on a concrete surface far away from other combustible substances. Others go to the trouble of making structures out of concrete blocks for charging them. I have a friend from childhood who is an engineer who was tasked for years with evaluating the safety of lithium-based batteries for a company he worked for... he will not allow kids or any visitors to charge any type of lithium battery in his house while it is unattended. He witnessed too many failures. New lithium-based batteries will sometimes combust under certain conditions while being charged and discharged and also spontaneously. But typically as you have noted, it is batteries that have been used for a while that catch on fire. It only takes one defective cell so a multi-cell battery might seem to be working just fine day after day even while one cell within the assembly continues to overheat and becomes worse and worse and finally reaches a temperature where it finally explodes or catches on fire and the whole pack goes up in flames. It is obvious that every cell in a multicell battery pack should have some sort of heat sensors and ancillary circuitry to monitor and report back to a microcomputer that would warn about a potentially devastating failure before it happens and automatically isolate the cell. This would result in greater expense and bulk in vehicles that are already an iffy proposition when it comes to the bottom line. The alternative that seems to be just fine with proponents is to have ever increasing numbers of potential firebombs running up and down our streets and also being charged and stored in people's homes and businesses. The Chinese currently produce far more electric vehicles than all other countries in the world combined. They also produce over 60% of the lithium-based batteries used in electric vehicles and all other rechargeable devices. The Chinese have a long record of not caring very much about the safety of the items that they export.

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It’s just the Electric Bus end of life EXPLOSION , cars also do it.

I have been tinkering with lithium-based rechargeable batteries for years. I have specialized charging tools and battery condition evaluation tools. People believe that the lithium-based rechargeable batteries found in laptops and phones are the same animal as electric vehicle batteries. Laptop and phone batteries can catch on fire as well, but this is far less common for a number of reasons, but mostly because they are not designed for high discharge and charge rates.

The real education for a tinkerer comes when you start experimenting with batteries designed for high charge and discharge rates as found in model planes, cars, and drones, and also bicycles, minibikes, cars etc... This is the real preview for full sized EV batteries. And they can actually be dangerous. I usually charge mine outside on a concrete surface far away from other combustible substances. Others go to the trouble of making structures out of concrete blocks for charging them.

I have a friend from childhood who is an engineer who was tasked for years with evaluating the safety of lithium-based batteries for a company he worked for... he will not allow kids or any visitors to charge any type of lithium battery in his house while it is unattended. He witnessed too many failures.

New lithium-based batteries will sometimes combust under certain conditions while being charged and discharged and also spontaneously. But typically as you have noted, it is batteries that have been used for a while that catch on fire. It only takes one defective cell so a multi-cell battery might seem to be working just fine day after day even while one cell within the assembly continues to overheat and becomes worse and worse and finally reaches a temperature where it finally explodes or catches on fire and the whole pack goes up in flames.

It is obvious that every cell in a multicell battery pack should have some sort of heat sensors and ancillary circuitry to monitor and report back to a microcomputer that would warn about a potentially devastating failure before it happens and automatically isolate the cell.

This would result in greater expense and bulk in vehicles that are already an iffy proposition when it comes to the bottom line. The alternative that seems to be just fine with proponents is to have ever increasing numbers of potential firebombs running up and down our streets and also being charged and stored in people's homes and businesses.

The Chinese currently produce far more electric vehicles than all other countries in the world combined. They also produce over 60% of the lithium-based batteries used in electric vehicles and all other rechargeable devices. The Chinese have a long record of not caring very much about the safety of the items that they export.