COMMENT: Industry needs to be louder and clearer about eBike fires

Today (Friday 1 Sept) saw the London Fire Brigade reveal eBike and eScooter fires are at a record high in London, with more such fires in London in 2023 than there were in the whole of 2022.

Sadly three people were killed and more than 50 injured in these fires in 2023.

A coroner has now written to the Office for Product Standards and Safety (OPSS) asking for further safety standards to be introduced, following the death of a man in an eBike fire in March. The Brigade also is calling for regulations and standards to be introduced for eBikes, conversion kits, batteries and charges – as well as surveillance of online marketplaces, where products are being sold that may not meet the correct safety standards.

If alarm bells are not ringing in the cycle industry then it’s time to check those bells are still working.

We may think eBike regulations are already perfectly clear and safe. We may think the cycle industry position is equally clear – that it is best to buy eBikes and related product from authorised dealers, avoid buying conversion kits, don’t mix batteries with different eBikes…

But if the message isn’t getting to the public at large then the industry probably needs to shout a little bit harder . It’s a message that needs to come from brands, suppliers, retailers and media and just about everyone involved.

Shops need to be left in no doubt that servicing bikes that are fitted with ‘home brew’ kits or highly questionably eBike set ups should not be happening – perhaps it even invalidates their store insurance policies (maybe insurance firms could be clearer on that too?). The easy route is to turn a blind eye to working on those kinds of bikes (and hope they don’t ignite in the workshop – see CIN’s chat group on Facebook for a video of what can happen). Or to rely on the media and public at large to understand that this spate of eBike fires are largely (perhaps solely) the fault of unregulated, non-reg compliant eBikes and batteries – and not down to the responsible eBike market that we’re part of. But when the media and public regularly mix up eBikes with vastly different products like e-motorcycles or speed pedelecs, then that kind of thinking is optimistic.

The London Fire Brigade grasps the problem with unregulated eBikes and conversion kits, but is still urging further regulation. So, it could be reasonably argued that the industry now needs to step its messaging up a gear and show it takes the problem seriously and addresses it.

To its credit, the Bicycle Association has been warning of the potential implications for the industry if regulatory authorities make a knee-jerk response, and has run webinars on lithium battery safety.

However, it feels like the whole industry has to take things up a notch or risk losing control of the narrative, as they say. Maybe a campaign that we could all buy into, along the lines of ‘buy your eBike from a proper bike dealer’ (I’m sure a marketing guru worth their salt could come up with something more snappy).

Who knows, maybe it might stop a few people buying a dodgy conversion kit off the dark corners of the internet, save fire brigades from risking their lives over another suspect bodge eBike kit and even push a few people to their local bike shop instead?

Being loud, clear and straightforward when there is dodgy gear in the marketplace that is risking lives (and risking impacting the market) is the absolutely minimum required. We’ll all take a judgement on whether we’re doing enough of that while the eBike fire phenomenon sadly continues.