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A Havana resident identified as Eduardo Muñoz Mora recounted this Saturday on Facebook how his electric scooter caught fire while he was charging it after a night without electricity, in an episode that reflects the increasing danger faced by thousands of Cubans caught between the fuel crisis and chronic blackouts.
According to his own account posted on social media, after the electricity was restored following the nighttime blackout, he connected the vehicle to the power, and shortly after, the charger caught fire.
"For some reason, the charger turned on, taking half of the motorcycle with it," he wrote.
He and his father and sisters extinguished the fire before the flames reached the house. "Fortunately, my dad, my sisters, and I were able to put it out before the house caught fire," he noted.
The published images show the charger completely charred and melted, with internal electronic components visible through the holes caused by combustion.
The scooter —brand Grillo, with a 72V/45Ah battery— was left with a burned central structure, melted plastics, and black debris scattered on the ground.
Muñoz Mora explained that he adopted the electric motorcycle precisely due to the fuel shortage plaguing Cuba. "With all this fuel situation, I had to change my mode of transportation, switching from a combustion engine to electric, much to my dismay," he wrote, describing the irony of having fallen into a systemic trap.
The irony of the incident was not lost on the affected individual: minutes after extinguishing the fire, the electricity was cut off again. "The funny thing about this story is that just a few minutes later, the power went out again; I mean, I asked for electricity and it only came to burn my motorcycle," he wrote.
The case reflects a documented and lethal pattern in Cuba.
The sudden reconnection of electricity after prolonged outages causes voltage fluctuations that lead to overloads in lithium batteries, triggering the phenomenon of thermal runaway, which results in fires that are difficult to control.
The most serious incident occurred on July 30, 2025, in Camagüey, where the explosion of batteries for motorbikes charging during a power outage resulted in at least four deaths and three injuries.
The accumulated statistics are alarming. In Villa Clara, 32 fires caused by electric motorcycles were recorded between January and October 2025, resulting in losses of 95 million Cuban pesos.
In Pinar del Río, there were recorded at least 30 incidents of this kind just in 2022. In Havana, similar cases have been reported in Vedado and on Galiano Avenue.
The energy context exacerbates the risk. Cuba is experiencing a critical electrical crisis in 2026 with deficits of up to 1,440 MW during peak hours — recorded last Sunday — and blackouts in rural provinces exceeding 18 hours daily. The most prolonged collapse this year lasted 29 hours and 49 minutes on March 16.
Muñoz Mora concluded his publication with a phrase that encapsulates the exhaustion of millions of Cubans facing a seemingly unresolvable crisis: "I hope that all those who have read this have a better Saturday than I do."
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