E-Bike Battery Fires Have Killed 18 and Injured Nearly 700
Fires caused by e-bike and e-scooter batteries have killed 18 people and injured almost 700 in the UK since 2019, BBC Verify found, with incidents rising from 32 in 2019 to 605 last year — nearly 800 of the 2,000-plus fires in London alone. The London Fire Brigade said it was “increasingly concerned” by the trend, driven by cheap replacement batteries and chargers, and by batteries charged in hallways and escape routes.
A twenty-fold rise in six years is what happens when a technology outruns its regulation: lithium batteries are small bombs when abused, and the market that grew around delivery work runs on exactly the abuse that detonates them — secondhand bikes, uncertified replacement packs, chargers that never stop, all in cramped flats where the bike blocks the only exit. The deaths concentrate among those with least choice about any of it. The regulatory gap is well mapped — online marketplaces selling uncertified packs, no mandatory standard at point of sale — and campaigners have a bill waiting. Eighteen deaths is usually about the threshold at which Parliament moves. Watch whether the product-safety legislation trailed for the autumn actually includes batteries — and what the gig platforms are made to do.