By François Steichen, Greenwich
This is the third in a series of three articles on E-Bikes and their batteries.
The Stakes
The uncertified battery market is currently seized by inertia, misinformation, and confusion.
Shadowy e-bike and battery manufacturers, abetted by unscrupulous bike shops, large e-commerce sites, and indulgent shippers, ride a sales wave based on descriptive omission and the politics of the blind eye.
Individual end-consumers often do not understand the crucial difference between certified and uncertified batteries, or simply do not care. Businesses, often operating on very low margin, profess ignorance when caught using uncertified batteries.
E-bike Confusion
Media has not helped. Instead of presenting e-bikes as an elegant solution to the “Last Mile” problem and advocating for the elimination of bad batteries, most media are unable to refuse the journalistic catnip of horrifying battery fires.
Their readers are left completely confused as to why the same batteries found in their e-cars, smartphones, kitchen appliances, laptops, tablets and children’s toys should suddenly be exploding when incorporated into their e-bikes.
Draconian reaction has followed swiftly: stories of car-battery fires due to Hurricane Helene’s saltwater damage have undergone an odd metempsychosis on Facebook, coming out as fear of battery fires in freshwater Connecticut. Condominiums and cooperatives in Connecticut and New York City are reflexively banning e-bikes from their buildings, whether equipped with certified batteries or not.
Are E-bikes a Luxury? Or a post-Fossil Fuel Era Necessity?
Feelings about e-bikes tend to cleave along the lines of cost, and how invested riders are in e-bikes’ potential as alternative vehicles.
Commuters, shoppers, and teens who ride e-bikes to school tend to view e-bikes as a cheaper and more convenient alternative to a second car. As the New York Micromobility Plan states: “E-bikes and e-scooters are an affordable and convenient alternative to car ownership and provide a last-mile option to those who do not live close to transit.” For these all-in consumers, e-bikes are actually inexpensive by comparison with a car. They are exciting, and they are the future in a non-fossil fuel world. So why not get in on the action now?
On the other hand, businesses that depend on delivery income, or parents and teens whose primary e-bike usage is recreational, often blanch on seeing the price of a certified e-bike. For parents and teens, an uncertified battery becomes enticing; often, they do not understand the dangers these batteries pose.
A Voice in the Desert
One voice has, unsurprisingly, risen up to fight uncertified E-bike batteries: New York City.
The New York City Electric Micromobility Action Plan was passed in March, 2023 and took effect six months later. (https://www.nyc.gov/assets/
On the question of luxury vs. necessity, the Plan is clear. E-bikes are not a fad or passing curiosity. They are here to stay:
“Electric micromobility devices are an increasingly important component of urban transportation systems, reducing pollution and congestion. E-bikes and e-scooters… are essential for those who are employed as delivery workers and rely on this mode of transportation for their livelihoods.”
New York’s fight appears to be a resounding success. The New York Times reported in its October 3rd edition that although “lithium battery fires are still occurring at the same pace as [2023], there have been three deaths and 84 injuries [year-to-date in 2024], down from 14 deaths and 114 injuries [year-to-date] in 2023.”
Three Prongs
The Plan has three prongs: criminalization, education, and access.
Criminalization: The plan mandates that all e-bike equipment sold, leased or distributed in New York City must be certified to UL standards 2849, 2271, and 2272, for E-bikes, storage batteries, and personal E-mobility devices (AKA, e-scooters).
In plain terms, it outlaws uncertified E-bike batteries, and seeks to stop bad actors who peddle bad batteries.
As a direct result of the Plan, Amazon has stopped shipping uncertified batteries to New York City (though not elsewhere). This writer’s sister, who lives in Manhattan, got the message “something is wrong with your order” when she test-purchased a non-certified battery on Amazon.
Education: The education prong of the plan seeks to encourage those who are doing the right thing, as well as those who are confused by the contradictory – and often false – information that is found in media or by rumor. The plan offers education and training in New York’s neighborhoods, especially for youth, immigrant delivery workers, child-safety groups, and block or tenant associations that encounter uncertified batteries.
Access: The access prong recognizes that certified bikes can be expensive, so it provides New York State subsidies toward the purchase of certified e-bikes.
The access prong also includes what is probably the most important aspect of the entire plan: outdoor storage and charging cabinets from which riders unplug a fresh battery that has been charging and replace it with their spent battery, to be charged in turn.
New York’s plan is now the standard model for e-bike regulation in America.
Washington, DC’s Committee on Transportation and the Environment has echoed New York with an ordinance of its own, which provides a progressive rebate structure to purchase an E-bike. The only requirement? The E-bike must be UL-2849 certified.
In California, Senate Bill 1271 would require all electric bikes sold there to be certified by an accredited testing laboratory. Senate Bill 1271 was expressly modeled on the criminalization prong in New York’s Micromobility Plan. Furthermore, California Assembly Bill 1774 would make it illegal to tamper with an electric bike to allow it to travel faster than 28 MPH.
So that’s the city. But we’re an open-spaced suburb!
To be sure, Greenwich and Connecticut are not as densely populated as New York. That is why the reflexive fears and outright bans on e-bikes are so perplexing.
That is not to say that uncertified batteries do not present a huge potential problem for Greenwich and Fairfield County. In fact, they may present more urgency because the suburbs do not yet have a coherent plan that addresses e-bikes and uncertified batteries.
Greenwich Fire Chief Joseph McHugh speaks for many uncertified-battery front-liners in the suburbs: “uncertified batteries were a revelation. As a fire department, we just had to jump into it, without warning. It’s a challenge, but we can’t ban e-bikes or batteries. We need new codes and laws.”
As in New York, two main factors are responsible for uncertified battery proliferation in the suburbs: internet sales, and the deliverista community.
Inevitably, and unfortunately, a percentage of e-bike purchases will be made online, and most of those online e-bikes will contain uncertified batteries.
Suburban residents are quickly discovering the joys of an e-bike as a “Last Mile” transportation solution: ditching insurance and mechanics’ expenses on a second car that they use twice a day for 15-20 minutes. Incorporating a “non-workout workout” on the way to and from the train. Biking to errands or the supermarket, or a lunch date on Greenwich Avenue.
Teens are the big market for e-bikes in the ‘burbs. Many teens are not interested in the responsibility of driving a car, and their parents may be overjoyed at a solution much less expensive than a car. Not to mention the fact that they can retire the “taxi service” and have more time for themselves! An e-bike is also a more practical, environmentally-unaggressive, solution than a car.
As for deliveristas, e-bikes are ironically making food delivery more possible in the suburbs than before because restaurants that could not afford cars can buy e-bikes now. So Deliveristas are another stakeholder in the suburban “Last Mile” solution that e-bikes offer.
What is to be done?
As in New York, the backlash against e-bikes is gathering momentum in the suburbs. Condominium boards, fearing the same catastrophic fires as in New York, are reflexively banning e-bikes from their properties altogether; consumers are refusing to buy e-bikes because of the media stories they read.
These reflexive fears and bans are perplexing, because they may well be short-sighted. To circumvent bans, residents will store their e-bikes out of sight – that is, indoors – where a fire has the potential to be catastrophic.
Will bans keep residents from buying an e-bike? E-bikes are now outselling traditional bikes 10 to 1. Ed Mantaring, Manager at Danny’s Cycles in Noroton Heights, says “we used to sell 3-4 e-bikes a year. We now sell 30-40 each year.”
So Greenwich residents will surely continue to purchase e-bikes, even if they are banned. However, if bans are modified to apply only to uncertified batteries, as is the case in New York City, e-bike riders will have no choice but to purchase certified batteries.
Condominium associations should welcome the huge potential of e-bikes, emulating New York by educating residents about the danger of uncertified batteries, having penalties in their bylaws for uncertified battery purchases, and installing fireproof battery lockers and bike racks outdoors and away from buildings.
As Chief McHugh says, “We can’t ban e-bikes. That train has left the station. We have had to adapt, and our best weapon is education.”
What is already being done?
In fact, every bike shop owner or manager I spoke with in Greenwich, as well as Danny’s Cycles in Darien and Pacific Cycling in Stamford, mentioned that they get periodic visits from their respective fire departments to talk about e-bike safety.
At Greenwich Bicycle, River Bicycle and Bax Cycles, insurance policy contracts and/or tenant leases specify where bikes can be stored in the shop, or even whether they can be admitted to the shop at all. Greenwich Bicycle’s insurance policy, for instance, states that E-bikes cannot be stored in their basement.
Most stores will not allow batteries to remain on the premises. Danny’s will repair the non-battery components of an E-bike, but the bike owner must take the battery off the bike before he consigns the bike to Danny’s for repair. Other shops will simply refuse to repair a bike under any circumstances if it has an uncertified battery.
Public Act 18-165, passed by the Connecticut Legislature in 2018, regulates the non-battery components of electric bikes, as well as age requirements and traffic safety around e-bikes. It says nothing about e-bike batteries.
At the Federal legislative level, the Electric Bicycle Incentive Kickstart for the Environment (E-BIKE) Act – sponsored by Representatives Jimmy Panetta of California and Earl Blumenauer of Oregon in February, 2021 – offers a Federal tax credit to encourage the use of e-bikes. The E-BIKE Act was re-introduced with support from Congressional heavy-hitter Adam Schiff in March, 2023, the same month New York City passed its micromobility plan. So far, however, it has not passed.
Federal Administrative action has centered on an official advisory letter, issued by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, “call[ing] on manufacturers of e-scooters, hoverboards and e-bikes… to review their product lines and ensure they comply with established voluntary safety standards, or face possible enforcement action.”
The fight to educate and inform continues…
Photo caption: “An (Indoor) E-bike.”
See also:
The E-Bike: Embracing a New Reality in Daily Transportation
Oct 1, 2024
The E-Bike. Eco-friendly? Or a Menace?
Sept 13, 2024