New emergency service figures have revealed that there were 11 deaths in the UK last year in fires caused by e-bikes, a concerning statistic that comes as a Labour MP has led calls for urgent safety action on the sale of dangerous products which have been compared to “like having an unexploded bomb in your house”.
The latest Office for Product and Safety Standards (OPSS) numbers, first reported by the Guardian newspaper, mean 2023 saw the highest number of deaths in a calendar year caused by e-bike fires. It comes as the London Fire Brigade (LFB) has said that incidents caused by e-bikes and e-scooters are now the fastest growing fire risk in the city, with 149 e-bike fires recorded in London in 2023, causing three deaths, up from 87 fires and zero deaths in 2022.
Authorities have stressed much of the danger comes from certain dangerous products or batteries, not all e-bikes, statistics from the first six months of 2023 suggesting that of 73 e-bike fires in London, at least 40 per cent were believed to involve a converted e-bike. Just this week, the LFB urged users to check for a known dangerous UPP battery and cease using their vehicle immediately if they discovered it had one of the battery designs linked to a number of fires across England. The messaging from fire safety authorities remains that buyers should purchase e-bikes from a reputable retailer, with those vehicles fitted with conversion kits or certain batteries purchased online possibly posing a greater risk.
> E-bike safety: What to avoid when buying an e-bike, battery or charger
And in the latest calls for urgent safety action on dangerous products, MPs and safety groups have made the case for third-party certification to ensure e-bikes and their batteries are approved by an independent body before going on the market, safety standards which are currently already in place for other high-risk products such as fireworks.
“These e-bikes can reach a phenomenally high temperature in seconds. They are so dangerous. It is almost like having an unexploded bomb in your house,” Yvonne Fovargue, Labour MP and chair of the all party parliamentary group on online and home electrical safety said.
Fovargue’s Labour colleague, MP Neil Coyle, warned that the “number of deaths is growing and is likely to continue to grow unless there are greater powers to remove dangerous items”.
> Are e-bike batteries safe? What’s the difference between a safe battery and a fire risk?
A petition on Change.org, demanding the government implements stricter legislation on dangerous products, has been signed more than 42,000 times. That petition was created following the death of 21-year-old Sofia Duarte on 1 January 2023 in a house fire caused by a converted e-bike’s lithium battery pack which had failed “catastrophically”. The family of Duarte has begged the government to introduce tighter regulations and stricter enforcement.
In January, the charity Electrical Safety First (ESF) said “sloppy manufacturers with little interest in safety are slipping through the net” after the OPSS issued withdrawal notices to four online marketplaces requiring them to stop selling a “dangerous” e-bike battery.
The government commented on the new figures, a spokesperson stating: “The OPSS works closely with the fire service to try to prevent tragic accidents. It has taken action to remove dangerous products, including e-bike batteries, from being sold and has published guidance for buyers on how to use e-bikes safely. Manufacturers, retailers and online platforms must follow regulations or face penalties that include fines or criminal punishment.”
49 thoughts on ““It is almost like having an unexploded bomb in your house”: New figures reveal 11 deaths from e-bike fires in UK last year, as MPs call for tighter regulations”
I just can’t work out which
I just can’t work out which murdered MTB the blue swing arm is the remains of.
It’s got the shape of the r3-act swingarm used by the Marin wolf ridge 9 and the Polygon Xquarone, but they only took air shocks, not coil.
Only other thoughts could be an old Orange, but I can’t see anything that matches the shape around the seat tube
You’d be amazed at some of
You’d be amazed at some of the frankenbikes the delivery boys round here ride, clearly assembled from whatever parts have been stolen from parked bikes (or more charitably maybe salvaged from scrapheaps). Not uncommon to see MTB suspension forks wedged into a road frame, or an MTB with a 26″ motor wheel on the front with a chunky knobbled tyre and a narrow road wheel on the back (no idea how they even accomplish that but they do!). Basically once you’ve stuck an illegal conversion kit with throttle on as long as the wheels go round job’s a gooden; quite often see them riding bikes that don’t actually have chains now.
Whatever the frame is, just
Whatever the frame is, just look at the size of the rear hub. Have you ever seen a complete bike from a reliable brand that uses a motor that large? It’s a lash-up DIY bike and that’s what’s causing these problems. Broken wires or lack of wwaterproofing and short circuit protection or similar cause shorts and there’s probably no shut down or anti-runaway systems to manage those problems.
That’s mostly the reason I
That’s mostly the reason I was wondering what Nike it was before it was butchered. All of the possible frames I can think of don’t have sufficient space within the fringe triangle, especially with a monster of a coil shock like that, for a battery pack, so it would’ve had to be attached by some extremely sketchy and definitely insecure means
Gaffer?
Gaffer?
I wonder why no one ever says
I wonder why no one ever says “It is almost like having a 100mph 2 tonne unexploded bomb in your driveway” ?
Because people don’t (like to
Because people don’t (like to) think about the fifty litre tank of flammable fluid that they are sitting right on top of while driving their two tonne vehicle around at 50mph…
Because petroleum fires have
Because petroleum fires have been normalised to the baseline of acceptable risk. That is a depressing thing to say, but to be fair, as a settled liquid at room temp, petrol burns really slowly, and containing the liquid is the hardest part of controlling the fire. Lithium battery fires are much closer to vapourised petrol fires, and the classic Hollywood fireball image
This reminds me of some fire
This reminds me of some fire safety training I did years ago. To show us that petrol isn’t very flammable (unlike petrol vapour), the instructor had us throw lit matches into a tray of petrol. All the matches went out.
Because
Because
a. A car on your driveway isn’t doing 100mph
b. Governments & safety regulations have gone to great lengths to ensure safety of the fuel cell*.
c. Most owners of 2 tonne etc don’t go around making DIY modifications or bolting on cheap & unsafe Far East kits to their vehicles.
*Tesla excepted.
Lastly, if you think your scenario is daft, think about a motorcylist. A person that’s happy to take several gallons of highly inflamable fuel, place it above a hot engine with an ignition source, then put the whole lot between their legs. As Jerry Lee Lewis sung, “Goodness gracious great balls of fire”.
In the United Kingdom, more
In the United Kingdom, more than 100,000 cars go up in flames each year, resulting in approximately 100 deaths. Whilst the majority of vehicle fires are deliberate, many fires break out as a result of poor maintenance and could be prevented.
https://www.suffolk.gov.uk/asset-library/imported/sfrs-vehicle-fires-factsheet.pdf
That’s just the fires, If you include the thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of injuries every year I’d imagine the outcry would be 100 times worse than the reaction to a handfull of ebike fires but apparently we just have to accept that because, you know, cars.
Keeping people safe from ebike fires is a great thing to do and I fully support it but cars are far more dangerous to life and no one (except most of us obviously) seems to care.
Maybe your comparison would
Maybe your comparison would be more meaningful if you gave the deaths per distance travelled or even just per vehicle.
As you seem to like your
As you seem to like your statisics, how many modified cars self combust when sat switched off on their owners driveways or in their garages?
*Again, Tesla excepted as we all know they have their problems.
I imagine very few. In fact
I imagine very few. In fact to avoid the chance all cars should be left there and never driven saving thousands of lives every year, then the press could concentrate on how dangerous bicycles really are.
What is?
What is? A car? They don’t tend to spontaneously combust, unlike jerry-rigged e-bikes with hooky batteries wired to knock-off chargers left going all night. Besides, nobody parks them in the front hall.
theres a whole thread in the
theres a whole thread in the forum showing people who try parking in the front hall 😉
probably because no-one ever
probably because no-one ever says wow having a gas boiler in your house is really dangerous idea either.
theres plenty of stuff in most peoples houses that can cause devastating house fires, damage, destruction and take lives, most people accept those risks because they have mitigated it from being a completely uncontrolled risk.
I dont think people at large, appreciate how much of a fire hazard non standard lithium batteries can be, its just a battery after all and they see no risk buying cheap imported components & have no care for how they wire things up.
after all their whole view of safety is its ok to ride a modified e-bike or e-scooter at breakneck speeds, theyre not going to be remotely concerned theyve wired a neutral into a live
stonojnr wrote:
That’s basically what I was saying. Because someone has confused illegally modified motorbikes with bicycles theres a huge pile on with the press saying “see, we told you bicycles are dangerous” while ignoring all the things that kill thousands of people every year because most people believe their benefits outweigh their dangers. I chose to contrast this article with cars because they are the best example I can think of.
Ah – agree. People are
Ah – agree. People are killed in serious gas explosions every year (I surprised myself when I checked – here are four from 2023 [1] [2] [3] [4]). Those make the news because they are rare. But I don’t know of anyone who says “I won’t live anywhere near places with that dangerous gas supply”.
There’s also a “early market” effect. e-whatevers are still new-ish – indeed so new that for the small e-things (bikes, scooters) we haven’t even settled the regulation. (Currently “no, pending further decision” but that clearly hasn’t stopped them being sold in quantity).
Look at the beginnings of any mass-market product – lots of people generally got injured or worse being accidental product testers. It’s maybe harder to pick the “safe brands” from the cowboys – and the quality is likely much more variable than an established market. Also people haven’t learned to “respect” the new technology – because it has familiar aspects of existing tech (e.g. “I just plug it in like my phone / laptop – and they don’t explode, do they?”)
chrisonabike wrote:
I know the first location well and was often driving past or near there around time it happened.
The damage to it and the many other houses in street is still not sorted out.
My library today had a
My library today had a officialish looking sign declaring No eScooters in or around the building.
I can hear the sound of
I can hear the sound of lettings agents typing the words “No e-bikes allowed” into their standard tenancy contracts every time headlines like these appear. They could become yet another thing that most renters don’t get to enjoy, such as the companionship of pets, the absolute right to privacy in one’s own home, living without the threat of homelessness through no fault of one’s own, and as comfortable a retirement as one’s peers.
Doesn’t even need to have the
Doesn’t even need to have the “e” – is not uncommon to see “no bikes may be taken in to the property” for flats. Understandable – this can bring in muck and doors / hallways get chewed up. OTOH people will do that anyway. Just having the usual “you pay to make good” clause should cover it but of course there’s the concern people will just up sticks and deposit won’t cover it.
chrisonabike wrote:
With the eye-watering deposits I’ve had to pay when I was renting in London (and always had to struggle, in one case taking court action, to get back, most landlords seem to regard the deposit as “key money”) it’s hard to imagine how one could use up the deposit just on damage done by bringing one’s bicycle indoors, unless one used it to smash the windows before leaving.
You probably wouldn’t be
You probably wouldn’t be surprised – no doubt there would be “cleaning”, then scratches / dings on plaster could mean “charge for re-plastering wall” and the same for laminate floor / door surrounds would probably be “needs replaced”. And there’s the “once you’ve given us money it … feels wrong to give it back” as you say.
(Not from bad personal experience – but bikes are basically long levers with wobbly sticking out metal bits on them, they fall over, manouvering them in and out will cause wear even if you’re careful. Don’t forget your heavy shopping in the panniers at one end, or that the lift will go out of commission for a few months and you’ll be carrying your bike up and down stairs – if you want to keep it. Sadly for me it turned out that “secure bike storage” outside only provided security for the thieves to work undisturbed.)
ubercurmudgeon wrote:
Good news on that…
“Landlords will no longer be able to issue a blanket ban on tenants living with animals. Under the new rules, tenants will have the right to ask the landlord for permission to live with pets at the property. The landlord must consider your request to live with pets and cannot “unreasonably” refuse.5 Jan 2024”
It would be interesting to
It would be interesting to know how many of these fires were caused by standard unmodified e-bikes from major brands and from still standard, but unheard of Far East brands. Plus the same for DIY kits and homemade tinkering. Gut feeling tells me most are going to fall into the latter groups.
Yes it would – see my comment
Yes it would – see my comment above about EN testing, I’d have a tenner on the % of bikes having ‘self certified’ (by manufacturer or brand) batteries being high, like >95%. Or, it’s mismatching batteries and chargers where that’s possible.
EN tests are acceptable for the safety of phones, laptops and other household items that have rechargeable batteries (there was a brand of phones that were barred from planes at one point but otherwise they’re not seeing the same cover-all discussion that e-bikes are currently). My impression of what’s going on is that cheap untested or insufficiently tested imports are causing the problem, not the product that meet the tests available already.
An excellent argument for
An excellent argument for more bike hangars and Permitted Development front garden cycle storage.
I believe most issues occur
I believe most issues occur while charging, but most modern e-bikes have a detatchable battery so you can bring that inside, if not the whole bike.
I’d like to think that charging a detatched battery is safer if only because you are less tempted to charge it in the hallway, thus blocking your only means of escape, and if charging it on the kitchet worktop you are more likely to notice it is there and switch off the charger before going to bed.
None of those measures should absolve the industry from making batteries ot a high standard that has been demonstrated to be of sufficient standard via third party verification. Yes, that will push prices up a bit and should also involve allocating public money to enforcement, but those costs are negligible compared with the harm caused to some individuals, and to society as a whole when we can’t be certain of their safety.
FionaJJ wrote:
Many don’t actually have detachable batteries, particularly e-road bikes which have the battery in the downtube and the charging port fixed to the bike, but these are generally made by reputable manufacturers and I’ve never heard of one catching fire. For people who are concerned about safety when charging their detachable batteries a variety of specially designed bags and boxes are available designed to contain fires and explosions, or I know that many people who use lipo batteries for other applications such as radio-controlled aircraft swear by old steel ammunition boxes as safety containers for charging.
I’m not sure of the spread,
I’m not sure of the spread, but almost everyone I know with an e-bike has one with a detatchable battery. And everyone who lives in a flat, but stores their bike outside/in a garage/dedicated bike parking has a detachable battery. Because otherwise they’d have to run a long cable out of a window etc.
I’m very keen for more dedicated cycle storage space in front gardens or hangers, but not because batteries might catch fire. Who wants to share a hanger with an e-bike that’s going to catch fire?
There needs to be proper, enforced regulation of batteries, along with an education programme for how to charge safely and when to discard.
People have talked about the risks of explosion from gas boilers, which are very real, if rarely considered beyond noticing an occasional news headline. Gas is inherently dangerous, but it was more dangerous when we started using it, and what we used before was even more dangerous. Over time we’ve found ways to minimise that danger. Getting your boiler serviced annualy is normal, and a legal requirement for landlords. When you move home one of the first things you are recommended to do is get your boiler checked. Only Gas Safe approved specialists are allowed to work on them. We have carbon monoxide monitors.
Smoke alarms won’t save us from a boiler explosion, but might give us a few extra seconds to save us from a battery fire – if our battery isn’t attached to a bike blocking our only means of escape.
It’s got very little to do
It’s got very little to do with the batteries fitted by the manufacturer to retail ebikes, detatachable or not. Much more to do with the batteries bought after-market and strapped onto whatever machine came to hand. That, and using after-market chargers because – well, just why did your expensive ebike come without the original supplied charger… hmm?
I’m after a ranger expander
I’m after a ranger expander battery for my bike.
My local bike shop – who is a dealer for this brand of bike – can’t get them.
I ordered directly from the system manufacturer and it took a week for them to tell me that they can’t ship the battery unit to the UK *from Italy*.
I went to the UK main dealer and have a feeling that the result will be the same.
This unit isn’t cheap (600 quid), but due to the frustration I’m experiencing of having the cash but can’t buy the product, I can see why people *might* be tempted to buy an unbranded, unapproved and potentially unsafe 3rd party battery pack.
Not something I would do, but thankfully, not everyone is me.
My specialized gravel/road is
My specialized gravel/road is like that. I imagine it will be expensive when I need the battery changed as it’s not a user task.
The manufacturer of my ebikes
The manufacturer of my ebikes system specifically warns about charging outside or in damp environments such as an unheated shed.
The charger pack is not rated for use in damp environments and there is a risk of water droplets forming inside the charger or the terminals and creating a short circuit.
Most washing machines, fridges and freezers carry the same warning, unless they have been manufactured specifically for use in damp environments.
True, and a short can happen,
True, and a short can happen, but that’s predictable and testing will show up whether the safety systems are sufficient to stop a predictable short becoming a battery fire. A few things need to go wrong before a battery gets to that stage. Normally a short would just stop the system working and need diagnostics to fix it or replace the right part.
“MPs and safety groups have
“MPs and safety groups have made the case for third-party certification to ensure e-bikes and their batteries are approved by an independent body before going on the market, safety standards which are currently already in place for other high-risk products such as fireworks.”
– There already is 3rd party testing in place and available, the current EN standard for E-bikes in the EU and UK markets covers battery testing. SGS, Veritas or other accredited test houses can provide certification of that testing which is the way to demonstrate compliance with general product safety regulations.
What’s needed is enforcement of that testing, not a pay-extra-for-the-sticker process that would be needed by bike brands who already test to the correct standards.
Great comment. The neo-libs
Great comment. The neo-libs within the the Tory Party have been promoting the idea of less regulation for decades. As a result we don’t enforce many of the regulations that we already have. We have massively cut budgets for the organisations that should be enforcing regulations inc Trading Standards, HSE and EA. The staff become demotivated and actually they’ve lost a lot of very specific technical expertise to do the work.
Absolutely. There is always
Absolutely. There is always a tension between “let’s just / change” and “did you think it through?” There is a strain of politics – notably in the US (Trump the tip of the iceberg) but also here – which sees in most “governing bodies” or “regulators” nothing but the dead hand of bureacracy, with no benefits except to themselves.
I assume the idea is that “the market” will take the place of regulation, because consumers won’t buy stuff that doesn’t work / is harmful; further they can directly “vote” on e.g. companies whose policies / side effects they disapprove of by not buying stuff. This will presumably be aided by the ever faster information sharing we have.
Of course we can see there may be … some problems with that idea. Meanwhile the “bureaucracy” is dispensed with. Unfortunately one of the jobs that does is maintain continuity and some basic standards. So when we discover a new problem (well – same old problem – people selling defective and/or dangerous stuff, or things with deleterious side-effects) there is no-one experienced who can address that.
That’s it. And what suprises
That’s it, enforcement is hard when budgets are cut right back. And what suprises me is that this EN testing already existing is rarely discussed in these articles. What we have are MPs talking about needing a solution and the families of those affected by battery fires demanding action, all the while not seeming to understand that a solution is already available – or if that solution is insufficient in any area then let’s talk about why and how to resolve it, rather than ‘UK kitemarks’ or similar which would take a long time to be any more rigourous and effective than the current EN standards.
On that note we also have the media overall not giving (from what I’ve seen) enough of a voice to the UK Bicycle Association who know more about all this than almost anyone. It’s almost as if creating a media problem for the e-bike industry had appeal to some, but that’s me getting cynical.
james-o wrote:
Excellent points you make there.
I don’t know if the media covers e-car fires more or less than e-bike fires, but it’s fundamentally the same problem of quality control. At least e-cars are generally charged outside of the residence (excepting certain instances of https://road.cc/content/forum/car-crashes-building-please-post-your-local-news-stories-276441) but then the fires tend to be a lot fiercer due to the large number of batteries.
I think the ultimate solution would be to standardise on a good battery format for e-bikes and e-scooters and then provide free/subsidised charging facilities. Ideally you could rock up to a charging facility and swap your discharged battery for a newly charged one. By centralising the equipment, it would be easy to ensure that all out-going batteries have been checked for soundness and capacity. For consumers, it should be convenient to just turn up and get your battery swapped within a minute or so and it would also provide an incentive for people to use e-bikes and e-scooters rather than big heavy e-cars.
hawkinspeter wrote:
Electric car fires get way more coverage than they should, they are incredibly rare when compared to ICE vehicle fires.
I suspect more Ferraris catch fire per year than electric cars.
The HSE still have some teeth
The HSE still have some teeth, but they are predominantly concerned with employer/employee duty of care relationships.
Everything else I wholeheartedly agree with.
You only need to look at the failings of Boeing and the simultaneous decline in the US FAA to see what real world impact the tightening of budgets for regulatory bodies can do
“MPs and safety groups have
“MPs and safety groups have made the case for third-party certification to ensure e-bikes and their batteries are approved by an independent body before going on the market,…”
Classic distraction tactic, from those needing to deflect attention from the facts:
How many of these fires were caused by ebikes from reputable manufacturers? I suspect, none. How many were caused by goods (universal chargers – for stolen ebikes, aftermarket battery packs, conversion kits, etc) from sellers who pay no heed to product safety regulations or certification, yet are allowed – by those whose duty it is to govern – to proliferate in our markets?
This is not about more product safety standards. It’s about those who have been in power for 13 years actually running (not ruining) the country.
Yes agreed, I said similar in
Yes agreed, I said similar in a reply to another post below. I believe fully tested and unmodified e-bikes from reputable suppliers are not what’s causing these fires yet the whole category is tarred, it’s similar with Surron use where e-motorbikes are just described as e-bikes in the press. Overall I don’t see what enforcement of the current regs wouldn’t do to remove the risks of poor quality products or incompatible items being used for repair, charging, etc.
I dont see the problem here.
I dont see the problem here.
We have a way to go before it exceeds the volume of deaths caused by cars and since we dont do much about those……
(yes its sarcasm)
I struggle to understand the
I struggle to understand the point of comments like that. The baselines are orders of magnitude different, but you blithely juxtapose the numbers regardless.
It’s a comment [very clearly
It’s a comment [very clearly stated as being sarcasm] which is pointing out how we stupidly ignore and outright deny [particularly with car deaths] much, much bigger problems if they have been around for a long time. Whilst making a huge fuss about new far less dangerous issues. The baselines being so different is the point.