Rad Power Bikes’ batteries receive major fire risk warning

The batteries that powerfulness Rad Power Bikes’ e-bikes “pose a hazard of superior wounded and death” and owners should halt utilizing them, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The warning, issued Monday by the CSPC, is owed to a hazard that the batteries tin ignite oregon explode. The CPSC has linked the batteries to 31 reports of occurrence truthful far. Twelve of those incidents resulted successful spot damage, and immoderate of them adjacent occurred erstwhile the batteries were not charging, according to the commission.

“The hazardous batteries tin unexpectedly ignite and explode, posing a occurrence hazard to consumers, particularly erstwhile the artillery oregon the harness has been exposed to h2o and debris,” the CPSC writes.

The artillery fires and the CPSC informing are coming astatine a peculiarly atrocious clip for Rad Power, which told employees earlier this month the institution volition unopen down for bully successful January if it cannot find caller funding.

The CPSC said Monday that Rad Power “refused to hold to an acceptable recall,” and claims the institution said it is “unable to connection replacement batteries oregon refunds to each consumers” owed to its fiscal situation.

Rad Power told TechCrunch it “firmly stands down our batteries and our estimation arsenic leaders successful the ebike industry, and powerfully disagrees with the CPSC’s characterization of definite Rad batteries arsenic defective oregon unsafe.”

The institution said it “offered aggregate good-faith solutions to code the agency’s concerns,” including upgrading customers to its latest batteries, which are not taxable to the authoritative warning. “CPSC rejected this opportunity. The important outgo of the all-or-nothing request would unit Rad to unopen its doors immediately, leaving nary mode to enactment our riders oregon our employees.” (The Verge first reported Rad Power’s disagreement with the CPSC.)

Rad Power claimed its batteries comply with “the highest manufacture standards” and said the “incident complaint associated with the batteries successful the CPSC’s announcement is simply a fraction of 1 percent.”

“While that fig is low, we cognize adjacent 1 incidental is 1 excessively many, and we are heartbroken by immoderate study involving our products,” the institution told TechCrunch successful an email.

Owners tin find retired if they person batteries covered by the informing connected the CPSC informing page. The committee is telling customers not to propulsion the lithium-ion batteries away, oregon bring them to accepted recyclers. Instead, they should bring the batteries to “municipal household hazardous discarded (HHW) postulation center[s].”