You may remember a while back that NYC created a trade-in scheme for delivery workers, whereby they could trade in any e-bikes that weren't certified by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) and receive a new e-bike and two new UL-certified batteries—a win-win by all accounts. Well, the third-party company testing organization might actually be doing a great job. Enter Rad Power Bikes.
Federal watchdog, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), issued a warning on November 24th, which stated that batteries in certain Rad Power bikes can "ignite and explode" without warning. Now, usually only a few incidents happen before an emergency warning to immediately stop using a vehicle is issued, but this took a few. The lithium-ion batteries with model numbers RP-1304 and HL-RP-S1304 were linked to 31 reports of fire, which included 12 reports of property damage that came to a whopping $734,500, according to the UPSC report.
At the time of writing, I can only find four Rad Power e-bikes that meet UL certification, and those are the Radster Trail, Radster Road, RadWagon 5, and the RadExpand 5 Plus. All these models use a UL-certified 2271 lithium-ion battery pack.
