What happened on the night of June 19-20 in a Electric bike shop in Chinatown It was the 108th fire caused by lithium batteries registered in the city of New York since the beginning of the year. The dramatic accident that claimed the lives of the four people who slept in the upstairs apartment is just the latest episode in an increasingly evident emergency that is affecting battery safety as well as user behavior.
Meanwhile, next September, New York will become the first city in the United States to ban the sale of e-bikes and other battery-powered vehicles that don’t comply new safety standards.
New York: Fire at an e-bike shop
In the night from June 19th to June 20th a terrible fire An explosion at a store on Manhattan’s Lower East Side killed four people who were sleeping on the upper floors of the building.
The blazes erupted on the premises of HQ E-bike Repair, an electric bike dealership across the street in a densely populated neighborhood that had already been fined for bike-related irregularities, according to the New York Times Charging lithium batteries of electric vehicles.
There was no escape for the victims: the fires caused by lithium batteries, explains the commissioner of the New York Fire Department Laura Kavanagh, are extremely violent and can spread in a matter of seconds. “The amount of fire generated by these lithium-ion batteries is incredibly dangerous“It’s almost impossible to escape from this type of fire in time,” Kavanagh told the NYT.
It’s a lithium battery fire alarm, not just in New York
The Chinatown fire was not an isolated incident: there were fires across the United States, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission over 200 accidents caused by overheating or fire of micro mobility vehicles. Since the beginning of the year Battery related fires Batteries killed 13 people in New York City alone.
It is above all the big cities that present a worrying situation: too London has a serious problem with battery fires in e-bikes, kick scooters and electric scooters. According to the London Fire Brigade, there have been 57 e-bike fires in the city this year and 13 other accidents involved electric scooters.
Battery fires: The possible causes
As alternatives to lithium-ion batteries are explored, New York City recently passed a safety measure banning the sale and refurbishment of e-bikes, scooters, and batteries without certification provided by Underwriters Laboratories.
According to the experts, the problem does not lie in the technology, which the Italians are still rather skeptical about, but in theUse of inferior equipment and in hiring wrong behaviors by end users. Charging cables that are not suitable for the battery or are not powerful enough are being used more and more frequently. It can be particularly dangerous to charge e-bikes and scooters at home.
The problem, the NYT points out, is the certified batteries and the vehicles in which they are mounted They still cost thousands of dollars And many New Yorkers, including the many delivery workers, can’t afford an e-bike that meets the new stringent safety standards.
That is why the city administration is also active on another front and works together with the city food delivery app Make customers and employees aware of the risks associated with improper use of their electric vehicles.