Safe Ebike Battery Storage: Six Incentives For Preventing Fires

Ebike and electric scooter use is on the rise, and the fires associated with them are posing a potentially deadly challenge for facility managers.

The growing use of electric bicycles (ebikes) and electric scooters – and the increasing number of fires associated with them – poses a potentially deadly challenge for facility executives. The fires can be both sudden and consuming, and facility managers must deal not only with the storage of those micromobility devices but with the fact that the batteries can be removed for charging.

The challenge with ebikes and electric scooters is totally different than with larger electric vehicles (EVs) for several major reasons:

In large part due to regulation, EV fires are far less common than in traditional vehicles with combustion engines, even when controlling for the number of sales.

As with the rapid growth in EVs in the United States, ebike use is growing quickly as well. It is even estimated to be outpacing electric cars. Research estimates that, while 608,000 electric cars and trucks were sold in 2021, more than 880,000 ebikes were purchased.

With that growth in usage comes the need to store micromobility devices and charge their batteries. It also fuels a second-hand market that leaves more and more ebikes and electric scooters in varying conditions.

Micromobility devices are often stored in commercial and residential facilities, where a sudden fire can be extraordinarily damaging. NPR reported in March, “As firefighters battled a five-alarm fire at a supermarket in the Bronx earlier this month, New York City officials gathered beside what they said was the cause of the fire: the blackened shell of what was once a sit-on electric scooter. Officials said that a faulty lithium-ion battery in the scooter had suddenly burst into flame, as captured on surveillance video. The resulting fire was so intense, they said, that it enveloped the building in a matter of minutes.”

Even if the devices are parked in a safe place, the batteries are often removed and charged in settings where office or household belongings are nearby, making a fire all the more damaging. The fact that those batteries can typically be charged using a standard electrical outlet only magnifies the problem — with potentially catastrophic effects.

As The New York Times recently reported, “Two people jumped out of an apartment complex window in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco to escape a fire that was spreading in their unit on Monday. One of them was seriously injured and taken to a hospital burn center, officials said. That terrifying blaze was probably caused by an overheated e-scooter battery that firefighters later spotted plugged in to a charger near the unit’s front door… It was the 24th fire in San Francisco this year that has been linked to rechargeable batteries.”

According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), “While there are no national or international statistics on how often e-bikes or e-scooters catch on fire, it does happen with some regularity — and the numbers are rising.” More than 200 fires in New York City alone last year were caused by batteries from ebikes, electric scooters, and similar devices.

Lack of regulation supports the problem. The New York Times states, “Victoria Hutchison, a senior research project manager at the Fire Protection Research Foundation, said the lack of safety regulations and testing requirements has allowed cheaper, low-quality devices and batteries of questionable safety to enter the market. ‘That’s really the root of the problem,’ she said.”

The challenge for facility executives is that the growth of micromobility devices is way ahead of future regulation. Even when regulation occurs, there will still be too many ebikes and electric scooters stored — and batteries charged — inappropriately unless incentives are offered to alter behavior.

Those incentives should include the following six steps:

Once these steps are taken, prohibit the storage and charging of micromobility devices – or their batteries – elsewhere. Workers at relevant facilities and apartment residents should understand the dangers of lithium-ion battery fires. If properly informed of the dangers and of the advantages of the designated storage area, they should be willing to comply. It’s in their interest as well.

Failure to comply can also be written into leases as reason for eviction, as the consequences of improper storage and charging of these devices are literally a matter of life and death.

Ebikes and electric scooters offer great advantages from an environmental perspective, and they can be an important element of a national strategy to move away from fossil fuels. But they also pose a significant fire danger. Even if regulations are enacted, facility executives will still have a key role to play in ensuring that they are stored and charged properly.

Colombini, PE, LEED AP and Palal, PE are Principals at the New York City-based consulting engineering firm Goldman Copeland.