Following a rash of lethal fires, client advocates and hearth departments, notably in New York Metropolis, need the U.S. Shopper Product Security Fee to confiscate lithium-ion electrical bikes that do not adjust to laws on the border. The final word purpose is for unsafe e-bikes and poorly manufactured batteries to be taken off the streets and out of properties. The Related Press reviews: “We have been sounding the alarm for months,” New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams stated a day after an exploding battery ignited the Chinatown e-bike store hearth final month. “We’d like actual motion, not solely on the state stage, however on the federal stage.” With some 65,000 e-bikes zipping by means of its streets — greater than every other place within the U.S. — New York Metropolis is the epicenter of battery-related fires. There have been 100 such blazes up to now this 12 months, leading to 13 deaths, already greater than double the six fatalities final 12 months. Nationally, there have been greater than 200 battery-related fires reported to the fee — an apparent undercount — from 39 states over the previous two years, together with 19 deaths blamed on so-called micromobility units that embody battery-powered scooters, bicycles and hoverboards.
New York’s two U.S. Senators, Democrats Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, launched laws final month that might set necessary security requirements for e-bikes and the batteries that energy them. As a result of necessary requirements do not exist, Schumer stated, poorly made batteries have flooded the U.S., rising the danger of fires. Earlier this 12 months, New York Metropolis urgently enacted a sweeping bundle of native legal guidelines supposed to crack down on faulty batteries, together with a ban on the sale or rental of e-bikes and batteries that are not licensed as assembly security requirements by an unbiased product testing lab. The brand new guidelines additionally outlaw tampering with batteries or promoting refurbished batteries made with lithium-ion cells scavenged from used models. […]
Tighter laws, security requirements and compliance testing drastically diminished the danger of fires in such units, in line with Robert Slone, the senior vp and chief scientist for UL Options. The identical can occur with e-bike batteries, he stated, if they’re made to adjust to established security requirements. “We simply have to make them protected, and there’s a strategy to make them protected by means of testing and certification,” Slone stated, “given the historical past that we have seen when it comes to fires and accidents and sadly, deaths as nicely — not simply in New York, however throughout the nation and world wide.”
