As e-bikes proliferate, so do deadly fires blamed on exploding lithium-ion batteries

NEW YORK — The explosion early on a June morning ignited a blaze that engulfed a New York City shop filled with motorized bicycles and their volatile lithium-ion batteries. Consumer advocates and fire departments, particularly in New York City, are urging the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to establish mandatory safety standards and confiscate noncompliant imports when they arrive at the border or shipping ports, so that unsafe e-bikes and poorly manufactured batteries don’t reach streets and endanger homes. Earlier this year, New York City urgently enacted a sweeping package of local laws intended to crack down on defective batteries, including a ban on the sale or rental of e-bikes and batteries that aren’t certified as meeting safety standards by an independent product testing lab. You shouldn’t leave it charging for too long,” Lopez said in Spanish, “because if you leave it on there too long, that’s when you can cause a fire.” Los Deliveristas Unidos, which represents app-based delivery workers in the New York area, estimates that fewer than 10% of e-bikes sold in the city have been deemed safe by a third-party evaluator, such as UL Solutions, a product testing company that certifies safety compliance for a host of electrical products, including Christmas lights and televisions. “We just need to make them safe, and there is a way to make them safe through testing and certification,” Slone said, “given the history that we’ve seen in terms of fires and injuries and unfortunately, deaths as well — not just in New York, but across the country and around the world.” Last year, some 1.1 million e-bikes were imported into the U.S., according to the Light Electric Vehicle Association, an industry group.