Lately, lithium ion batteries in micromobility merchandise, which might be increasingly more related to unfortunate fires, are ruled simplest via voluntary requirements. From January 2021 thru November 2022, no less than 19 society have been killed via micromobility fires or overheating incidents within the U.S. 13 society in Fresh York Town have died this past in lithium ion battery fires. The CPSC wrote a letter to greater than 2,000 producers and importers utmost December imploring them to agree to voluntary UL requirements for battery protection.
Statutorily, the CPSC can enact necessary requirements simplest as soon as it turns into cloudless that the voluntary same old isn’t operating. Thursday’s listening to all however showed that each trade and the fee imagine the flow same old is subpar.
The chair of the CPSC, Alexander Hoehn-Saric, stated that “voluntary standards aren’t enough” and any other commissioner, Richard Trumka, stated that this kind of extensive crew of mavens in unanimity on necessary requirements was once “not common” and that he heard the message “loud and clear.”
Obligatory requirements from the CPSC may just alternate the soil of micromobility. These days, the field is the Wild West of transportation, with producers sewing in combination e-bikes at the streets of Fresh York, amateurs dissecting, refurbishing and reselling energy-dense lithium ion batteries and customers undecided of whom to accept as true with and the best way to safely fee and virtue the generation.
Time the common worth of e-bikes within the U.S. hovers round $2,000, patrons should buy motorcycles from on-line importers for $600. Regulating the trade would most probably purge ultra-inexpensive e-bikes, that have been the ordinary culprits in awful fires, from the marketplace.
Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Ritchie Torres, all Democrats of Fresh York, kicked off the listening to via boosting a invoice that will require the CPSC to determine necessary requirements for rechargeable lithium ion batteries old in non-public mobility units.
That invoice, if handed, would give the CPSC 180 days to reduce a last same old. Making regulations the usage of categorical legislative authorization is most often a lot quicker than customary CPSC rulemaking processes. For instance, the CPSC thought to be a compulsory rule to deal with fires began via ignited upholstered furnishings for greater than two decades, in keeping with the Executive Responsibility Place of job.
“Developing mandatory standards under CPSC standard statute can be burdensome and slow,” stated Hoehn-Saric. “For that reason, I am grateful for the engagement by Congress and supportive of legislation that would streamline the process and strengthen our authority.”
