Why cracking down on e-bikes is the wrong response to recent battery fires

Last Saturday, a fire tore through a Manhattan high rise, leaving some 43 people injured. Dramatic video posted on social media showed firefighters rescuing several people trapped on the 20th floor, dangling from a rope as smoke billowed from windows. The head of the NYC Fire Department quickly announced the suspected cause: a building occupant who was repairing e-bikes in his unit, potentially illegally.

This was far from the first time that city officials linked conflagrations to micromobility (often simplified by authorities to “e-bikes”). According to the fire department, there have been around 200 such fires in New York City this year. One of them, in Harlem over the summer, claimed the lives of a mother and daughter.

These battery fires pose a serious safety concern, particularly in apartment buildings. It’s understandable that people would be worried, and that public officials and landlords alike might consider implementing new e-bike restrictions in the name of safety.

But we should be careful to diagnose the problem correctly, and to recognize that other micromobility vehicles, not e-bikes, seem to be behind the bulk of these fires. The last thing we should do is unnecessarily hobble an emergent class of vehicles that can simultaneously fight climate change, reduce traffic deaths, and enliven city life.

That’s no exaggeration: E-bikes are more likely to be used in lieu of a car than a pedal bike, and they produce a tiny fraction of even an electric car’s pollution. Compared to cars, e-bikes pose a minuscule risk to other road users (riders are much more likely to be killed by a car driver than to fatally strike anyone else). And—as the burgeoning ranks of e-bike converts will attest—riding one is a lot of fun. Adoption has been rapid; e-bikes now outsell electric cars in the United States.

E-bike boosters would much rather discuss all that good news than dwell on the recent spate of battery-connected fires in the Big Apple. But it’s a conversation that needs to happen, because each new fire raises the risk of a popular backlash based on misinformation and fear.

As Vice’s Aaron Gordon described in a deep dive, battery fires (in cars as well as micromobility vehicles) are caused by “thermal runaway” in which a cell within a vehicle’s lithium-ion battery overheats, igniting other adjacent cells. Such chemical fires are noxious and difficult to extinguish; firefighters rely on special retardants to control them.

If that sounds scary, it’s worth keeping in mind that you probably use lithium-ion batteries daily in your smartphone and laptop. Most of us think nothing of plugging in such a device and placing it on the nightstand before we drift off to sleep.

But while smartphones and laptops are generally treated with care, micromobility devices are jostled by uneven pavement and subjected to inclement weather—especially so if used by one of New York City’s 65,000-odd delivery workers. Deliveristas also tend to buy their rides on the cheap, often purchasing cut-rate models available on Alibaba for a few hundred dollars. These can be legally imported, though they often don’t comply with the UL 2849 safety standard that is widespread among those you would see in a neighborhood bike shop. (No one I spoke to could recall a micromobility fire that wasn’t linked to either deliveristas’ vehicles or early electric models of shared mobility operators.)

“Right now, I can get any vehicle I want off the internet, and it will come through,” says Melinda Hanson, cofounder of the mobility strategy firm Electric Avenue. “That’s what keeps me up at night.”

When an e-bike battery breaks or goes bad, fixing it can be a problem. Many bike shops refuse to repair models that they don’t sell, which pushes deliveristas toward not-entirely-legal e-bike services. “There was a place in my neighborhood that put up a sign that read “E-bike Repairs,” says Hanson. “And then a few months later it disappeared.” She says delivery workers typically bring damaged batteries to a friend or colleague who is handy.

The New York City Fire Department has taken notice of these risks, tweeting nine times since August about lithium-ion battery safety. The city’s housing authority has, too, going so far as to propose completely banning e-bikes on its property over the summer before backing down.

Hanson says that such blanket restrictions are a blunt and ineffective response to the micromobility fire problem. Should they be adopted, “the repairs will be driven further underground,” she says. “Instead of a few bikes in someone’s apartment, you’ll see dozens in the basement of a bodega.”

Fortunately, other policy measures are more promising. “Presently, voluntary testing standards [for e-bikes and batteries] are not mandated by the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission,” says Matt Moore, general counsel for People for Bikes, a bike industry association. He says his organization is pushing to apply more stringent rules—and enforce them.

Another strategy is to help deliveristas upgrade to safer models. In Denver, for instance, low-income residents can qualify for $900 off an e-bike bought in a local store. Better still could be a cash-for-clunkers program that invites people to trade in their old, uncertified bike for a new one that adheres to safety standards. Employers, too, could be part of the solution by purchasing a fleet of e-bikes, managing maintenance, and leasing them to workers. And, of course, increasing gig workers’ wages could allow them to spend more money buying and maintaining their vehicle.

There is one last wrinkle that bears noting, summarized by a headline this year in Bicycle Retailer, an industry magazine: “Approximately none of the recent ‘e-bike fires’ in New York involved an e-bike.” That claim is hard to verify, but critics have called out the blurry distinctions made between e-bikes (which according to federal law cannot exceed 28 mph) and low-end e-mopeds, whose legality is dubious.

Does the e-bike definition really matter? Yes, it does—if only to ensure that micromobility-linked fires don’t lead to exaggerated fears about e-bikes purchased from reputable companies, whose lithium-ion batteries are about as safe as those in your phone or laptop. For that reason, universal restrictions on e-bikes—which New York City’s transit authority recently said it was considering—are unjustified, especially for an organization that could capitalize on e-bikes’ potential to provide the “first and last mile” to a transit station.

For now, at least, the epicenter of this micromobility fire problem is New York City, a place whose dense neighborhoods and scarce car parking make it ideal for delivery by an e-bike, scooter, or moped. But micromobility has already been blamed for fires in other places, too, including Bend, Oregon, and Springfield, Massachusetts.

Saturday’s conflagration is a warning. If e-bike companies and advocates don’t help find solutions, they jeopardize the future of what might be the most exciting mobility innovation in a generation.