Why not a mandate for battery certification?

The news cycle has been filled with the stories. Destruction of apartment buildings and deaths. The cause? Battery fires from charging ebike batteries.

That’s all the public sees—ebike batteries catching fire. They assume all ebikes or even lightweight e-motos will combust at any second. Those of us in the industry know that is far from true.

While not every battery is 100% infallible, those that are from the major, professional e-bike manufacturers and those with UL2271 certification are safe. These fires that scare consumers are largely from unregulated companies in China making cheap batteries for low-cost ebikes. This is worsened by users charging these low-quality batteries with incompatible chargers or multiple charges overloading a single extension cord or circuit.

To combat this, New York City made it a requirement that starting in September of 2023 (Int 0663-2022), all ebike batteries sold in New York City need to have UL2271 certification. Additionally, the bikes need UL2849 certification which covers the entire electrical system, and personal e-mobility devices like scooters have to be UL2272 certified.

This is a huge step that will eliminate these fires in products sold after this law went into effect. UL2271 is a thorough and comprehensive standard that ensures batteries are of the highest quality. To pass, the battery is dropped, punctured, shaken, frozen, heated, over charged, under charged and other attempts to cause the battery to malfunction and combust. It would be hard to replicate these conditions in the real world and actually have a UL2271 battery fail.

We can prevent almost all ebike battery issues by making UL2271 a nationwide mandate. It costs manufacturers up to $20,000 per battery model for this certification, but when lives can be saved, that is a price worth paying—much like the addition of airbags to cars.

There are many companies that make very high quality batteries that are not UL certified or perhaps meet the European EN 50604-1 standard. They are not likely to have the issues like the low-quality batteries coming from China. But if there is not one, national standard that ensures a battery is safe, how can we ensure the quality is really present and give consumers peace of mind and safety?

Nobody wants more regulation, but when it comes to a simple way of certifying that batteries will not cause a fire and take lives, that’s one we can live with.