edit: after 20 comments, i’m adding a post description here, since most of the commenters so far appear not to be reading the article:

This is about how surprisingly cheap it is (eg $15,000) to buy a complete production line to be able to manufacture batteries with a layer of nearly-undetectable explosives inside of them, which can be triggered by off-the-shelf devices with only their firmware modified.

screenshot of paragraph from the article saying "The process to build such batteries is well understood and documented. Here is an excerpt from one vendor’s site promising to sell the equipment to build batteries in limited quantities (tens-to-hundreds per batch) for as little as $15,000:" followed by a screenshot of "Flow-chart of Pouch Cell Lab-scale Fabrication" showing a 20 step process

  • Echo DotEnglish
    -2•3 months ago

    Yes that’s correct high explosives require a starter explosive. However this starter explosive would also have to be incorporated into the device and the starter explosive is triggered by a spark or a fire. So throwing it in a fire would still work as a test you’d just have to make sure it totally melted before concluding anything.

    • Uranium 🟩English
      4•3 months ago

      They don’t necessarily require a starter explosive, certain types do of course. It’s more about overcoming the initial energy required, for example the arc from an electric arc lighter could probably overcome that requirement in a lot of scenarios.

      • Echo DotEnglish
        1•3 months ago

        The type of explosive used in this is not a high explosive. If put in a fire it would have exploded