Is there something in your garage, perhaps charging up right now, that has a shockingly high chance of unexpectedly erupting in a fireball"
We?re really not taking aim at electric cars or plug-in hybrids, and we?ll explain why shortly. We?re talking about hoverboards. For those whose minds still go to anything as cool as the ?real? hoverboard from Back to the Future II?or the gloriously impossible, liquid-nitrogen-cooled surprise from Lexus last year?we salute you. It still pains us to see that tweens and Martha Stewart and made-in-China consumerism have bogarted the term, subbing in a cheap, ubiquitous, and critically flawed Segway-without-handles mobility device. One that is, it turns out, pretty dangerous.
Earlier this week, after trying for months to reel in this Wild West of a market with mere threats of seizure and detention, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced the recall of more than a half a million of what we?ll regretfully henceforth call hoverboards. With this news, as car enthusiasts and likely gadget geeks, consider where your mind went: Well, if I have to worry about that hoverboard in the garage, do I ever have to worry about such incendiary risks in an electric car or plug-in hybrid" In short, almost certainly not. Yes, both use lithium-ion cells, but there are too many differences?including discrete design and manufacturing differences?that separate the two.
?The vast majority of the hoverboards available on the market are c...