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Boosted asks regulators to help handle its smoking electric skateboard problem

Boosted asks regulators to help handle its smoking electric skateboard problem

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The company hopes to resume shipping in January

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Boosted has turned to federal regulators to help handle the investigation into two battery failures on its electric skateboards last month. Boosted reported its short circuit problems to the Consumer Production Safety Commission, according to a statement issued on its website and social media accounts.

The California-based startup stopped shipping units of its second-generation Boosted Board after two users reported smoking batteries in early November. Boosted also told customers who had already received the board to stop riding until a fix was found.

The CPSC led investigations earlier this year into the battery problems that plagued the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and a number of different hoverboard companies. Both cases resulted in recalls.

Here’s the full statement from Boosted:

As part of our investigation into the short-circuit of the battery electronics, we have reported the issue to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. We are working with the Commission toward a final resolution, and Boosted is taking every possible step to cooperate with the Commission so we can get your board to you as quickly as possible. We hope to resume shipping by mid-January.

We wish that boards could be shipped even sooner and understand the disappointment you’re feeling. However, we’re really excited by the improvements we have made (more details to come soon!), and we’re confident you’re going to love your boards when they arrive. Thanks again for the support as we work hard to get your boards out to you.

Boosted CEO Sanjay Dastoor announced in a November 23rd blog post that the company found the apparent cause for the smoking batteries. He attributed it to “quality control” issues during the part of the assembly process where the water-resistant seal and the sealant are applied to the boards’ electronics.

Boosted thinks it knows the cause, but it still hasn’t announced a fix

Dastoor also wrote that Boosted was able to recreate this problem on other battery packs, and that the company planned to improve its quality control standards while also explore new sealing materials.

Water resistance was one of the main selling points of the second generation Boosted Board, which was announced earlier this summer. "It’s really meant to make sure that you’re not going to damage the board significantly with a puddle or some light drizzling, but it’s still something that we still don’t recommend riding in the rain,” Dastoor told The Verge at the time.

Despite that fault, Dastoor said that the two smoking boards actually performed as intended. “Both batteries initially responded as designed to the short-circuit by displaying an error and disabling the board from being ridden,” he wrote. “Shortly after, the short-circuit produced heat inside the pack, and the fire-retardant enclosure worked as designed to contain the damage.”