Some building owners, mainly in the city of New Yorkare cracking down on electric bikes after a recent spate of harmful and deadly battery fires.
Electric bikes are gaining popularity, but the benefits they provide (lower emissions, ease of transport) are threatened by the increasing number of injuries and deaths from fires caused by its lithium-ion batteries.
E-bike proponents link the problems to poorly manufactured, refurbished, or improperly charged batteries.
New York City has seen “an exponential increase” in battery fires this year, New York City Fire Department (FDNY) fire chief Daniel Flynn said at a recent news conference.
A terrifying Manhattan apartment building fire this month sent 43 people to the hospital and forced firefighters to rescue a woman dangling from a 20th-floor window. an electric bicycle that residents left to charge outside their homes overnight.
In response, at least one major New York City landlord, Glenwood Management, which manages 26 luxury high-rises, has told tenants to permanently phase out electric bikes.
- “Our lease agreements are also modified to provide for residents and/or their guests they are forbidden to have an electric bike in their apartmentGlenwood’s notice to tenants read. “We also won’t store or maintain them anywhere else on the premises.”
- Electric bicycles and e-scooters are already banned in FDNY (Fire Department of New York City) buildings. Other cities have their own rules: in London, for example, access to buses, the tube and the Palace of Westminster, where Parliament meets, is prohibited.
New York City has so far recorded 200 lithium-ion battery fires and six related deaths in 2022, the FDNY said.
- Electric bicycle fires have caused “more deaths and injuries this year than in the past three years combined,” Flynn said at the news conference, according to the Associated Press.
The New York Public Housing Authority has pledged to ban electric bicycles during the summer. However, it called it off after an outcry by the city army of 65,000 app delivery workers, or “deliverists,” many of whom rely on electric bicycles to get their jobs done.
Those workers tend to load their vehicles in their apartments. But many times they buy imitation electric bikes with bad batteries because that’s what they can afford.
This Monday, the New York City Council will consider several bills to regulate electric bicycles, including one that would ban the sale of used batteries.
While other cities haven’t been impacted by e-bike battery fires in the same way New York City has, the soaring growth of micromobility means the problem is sure to spread.
