Several coroners have warned about the dangers posed by these batteries and have issued at least five Prevention of Future Deaths reports since 2023, with recommendations to improve public safety.
Among those cases was eight-year-old Luke Albiston-O’Donnell from Birkenhead, who died after inhaling toxic fumes from a house fire caused by an e-bike battery on charge in 2024. Following an inquest, coroner Anita Bhardwaj warned: “The general public do not appreciate the life-threatening risks involved with having lithium-ion batteries, from electronic bikes in this case, stored in domestic properties.”
Mohsin Janjua, a 28-year-old man from Bradford, died in similar circumstances in 2023. Later investigations found a “catastrophic failure” of the battery in an e-bike conversion kit purchased online from China was “more likely than not” responsible for the fire.
Other coroners linked fatalities to e-bikes and e-scooters that did not conform to UK safety standards.
Steve Garidis from the Bicycle Association said retailers have invested in developing safe and legal e-bikes but this can be “undermined by illegal and unsafe products often sold through online marketplaces to unsuspecting consumers”.
The Bicycle Association and the Association of Cycle Traders run an “E-Bike Positive” scheme, external to help consumers identify distributors, retailers and manufacturers that have met current safety standards.
They have also called on the government to crack down on the sale of unsafe e-bikes through online marketplaces and tackle the demand for cheap e-bikes and scooters driven by the gig economy.
A government spokesperson said: “Unsafe e-bike and e-scooter batteries can pose a serious fire risk, which is why we are taking action to protect consumers.
“This includes strengthening the responsibilities of online marketplaces to better protect consumers, working with local authorities to identify and remove unsafe products from sale, and helping people make informed choices through our ‘Buy Safe, Be Safe’ campaign.”
Methodology
BBC Verify sent Freedom of Information requests to all 49 fire and rescue services in the UK, asking for data on fires where the source of ignition was recorded as an e-bike or e-scooter, including associated batteries. Forty-one provided comparable responses. Greater Manchester and West Sussex were unable to provide data on casualties, fatalities, and the number of fires that happened in dwellings.
While some fire and rescue services log e-bikes and e-scooters as a distinct category, others provided data by performing a text search for “e-bike”, “e-scooter” and similar keywords. While this provides a reasonable estimate of incidents, some reports may not have been picked up in this search if e-bikes or e-scooters were not mentioned directly.
In analysing this data, BBC Verify removed any clear incidents of arson, as well as any incidents that related to mobility scooters.
