February 16, 2023: New York Metropolis hearth commissioner Laura Kavanagh calls on US shopper security chiefs to do extra to maintain substandard lithium ion batteries in a foreign country and to manage chargers and e-bikes, after a whole bunch of battery fires and 6 deaths within the nation. metropolis final yr.
Kavanagh stated in a February 10 letter to the US Client Product Security Fee that the town skilled 219 fires brought on by lithium ion powered e-bikes, e-scooters and different electrical micro mobility gadgets in 2022 that led to 147 accidents and deaths.
Final month alone there have been “a number of accidents” and at the very least one loss of life attributable to fires brought on by e-bikes, Kavanagh stated.
Kavanagh praised the security fee for issuing recollects of e-bikes attributable to hearth hazards and for selling the “trafficking” of non-certified merchandise, however he urged the physique to proceed – together with confiscation of the ports of gadgets arriving within the nation which have did not the minimal. business requirements.
He additionally requested the fee to think about rules that make it tougher for folks to open batteries, which he stated might be a supply of security issues.
In the meantime, Kavanagh stated hearth chiefs help draft legal guidelines made by the New York Metropolis Council to ban the sale of refurbished batteries and require batteries and electrical micro mobility gadgets to be offered within the metropolis. licensed by a nationwide testing lab.
Kavanagh’s calls observe figures launched in November that confirmed firefighters have been referred to as to lithium battery fires practically 5 days every week for the reason that begin of 2022. The fires included one in a Manhattan house on the twentieth flooring.
Photograph: FDNY
