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Media Coverage
July 3, 2023
Experts Share Insights on E‑bike Battery Safety
It’s likely that recent fires in New York City related to lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries involved products from manufacturers that cut corners with battery design and testing, UL Research Institutes Senior Vice President and Chief Research Officer Christopher Cramer recently shared with The Washington Post.
“Well manufactured devices really are quite safe,” he said.
Cramer and other safety experts – including the chief fire marshal with the New York Fire Department, general counsel for a bicycle safety foundation, an engineering professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and the CEO of a battery recycling organization – all provided their insights in an article on e-bike battery fire risks in the Tech in Your Life section.
Why can lithium-ion batteries be a fire risk?
Cramer discussed how Li-ion batteries hold more energy than conventional batteries in smoke alarms or flashlights. The bigger the battery, the more energy it holds. A smartphone battery can be less risky than the larger battery in a laptop, and both of them can pose less of a risk than even larger batteries found in e-scooters and other electric vehicles.
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