The government has shared its plans to address the fire risks associated with e-bike batteries as part of its Product Safety and Metrology Bill.
Announced during the King’s Speech, the Bill will ensure the UK is “better placed to address modern-day safety issues, harness opportunities that deliver economic growth, and ensure a level playing field between the high street and online marketplaces”.
This includes responding to new product risks and opportunities to “enable the UK to keep pace with technological advances, such as AI, and address challenges, such as the fire risk associated with e-bikes and lithium-ion batteries.”
The Bill also seeks to identify new and emerging business models, ensure that the law can be updated to recognise new or updated EU product regulations (including CE markings), enable improvements to compliance and enforcement, and update the legal metrology framework:
“There is an urgent need to legislate to respond to emerging threats to consumer safety, for example, to address issues such as incidents from ingesting button batteries, and e-bike fires where there was a 78 per cent increase in e-bike fires in 2023 compared to 2022 in London according to the London Fire Brigade,” the briefing notes state.
The Bill has been welcomed by consumer charity, Electrical Safety First (ESF), and trade association for the UK cycle industry, the Bicycle Association (BA). As previously reported by the FPA, in 2023, ESF put forward a proposal bill calling on the government to introduce “better measures regarding safety assurance, responsible disposal, and comprehensive fire safety”. The proposed bill covered both e-bikes and e-scooters.
In a social media post, ESF called the announcement of the Product Safety and Metrology Bill a “major positive step in protecting the UK public from unsafe e-bikes and devastating lithium-ion battery fires” and a “significant campaigning success for our charity”.
As reported by Zag Daily, Wayne Mackay, Head of Public Affairs at ESF, said: “We are thrilled to hear of plans by the Government to finally address the prevalent risk of e-bike battery fires, following our extensive campaigning work on this issue. This Government now has a golden opportunity to turn the tide by introducing third-party certification for e-bike batteries, bringing them in line with other high-risk products already subject to extra safety rules.”
In a statement, BA said that it welcomed the measures announced around “e-bike battery safety and the regulation of online marketplaces”.
“The UK cycle industry welcomes this urgent action from the new Government on the e-bike fires issue.
“The announcement reflects the industry’s sustained calls for Government to act on this issue, since even before the BA instigated a cross-Government roundtable on the issue in early 2023, and most recently in our pre-election UK Cycle Industry Manifesto.
“The proposals outlined align very closely with two of our three main ‘asks’: the need to take urgent action, and to address unsafe direct imports via online marketplaces.
“We also believe that an essential part of addressing the battery fires issue is to require ‘gig economy’ operators to provide safe and legal e-bikes for delivery riders, to limit the demand for unsafe e-bikes and conversion kits. We hope that this aspect may be addressed in other legislation.
“The industry stands ready to work with Government as this legislation is drafted, and to support its implementation in due course.”
According to Consumer Voice, Craig Carter, Assistant Commissioner for Protection and Prevention at the London Fire Brigade (LFB), said:
“This is a really welcome step in the drive to reduce the worrying risk of e-bike and e-scooter fires, ultimately by decreasing the chance of customers being exposed to buying unsafe products, such as lithium batteries, chargers, and conversion kits which are dangerous and do not meet UK safety standards.
“In London, we have seen a significant number of fires involving e-bikes and e-scooters, which have devastated lives and livelihoods, and last year three people sadly died in the capital as a result of these fires.
“As part of our #ChargeSafe campaign, we have been warning about the lack of regulation of products for e-bikes and e-scooters products sold via online marketplaces and the need for legislation to ensure these products are more strictly regulated.
“We hope this Bill will set a pathway for the necessary action to be taken to protect people from these types of fires, allowing consumers to purchase with confidence and use these products safely.”
(Photograph by the London Fire Brigade)