City officials shut down dangerous e-bike battery charging station in Chinatown

Dangerous conditions turned an illegal e-bike battery charging operation found this week in Manhattan’s Chinatown into a “ticking time bomb,” New York City Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said Thursday.

Firefighters’ discovery in a Canal Street building of as many as 130 lithium-ion batteries — some of which ignited as they were being brought outside for safe disposal — came as authorities stepped up enforcement and inspection of more than 200 known e-bike shops after a fire last week at a Chinatown shop killed four people.

“There were multiple fire hazards, damaged batteries, overloaded powerstrips and not enough space between units,” said Kavanagh, speaking at a news conference where she displayed photographs of racks dense with charging batteries and called the operation a “ticking time bomb.”

Fire officials described the location as a charging hub where people rented charging space and swapped depleted batteries for newly charged ones. They said they issued multiple criminal and fire department summonses, but did not specify the violations or name the people who received the summonses. The building was vacated, officials said. The building owner could not be reached.

Since last week, when the city announced an urgent public outreach and inspection campaign, Kavanagh said, city officials have done more than 179 inspections, resulting in criminal and FDNY summonses — and at least one order to vacate.

“These operators are staying ahead of the law,” sometimes adopting business practices — like concealing work on refurbished batteries — to skirt city laws that forbid such work, Kavanagh said. “Even as we’ve done education, taught these folks to operate safely, they continue to go back to this behavior, and we continue to see these popping up, presumably because there’s a market for it.”

In May, authorities issued summonses to a respondent at the site related to the charging and storage of batteries, they said. In March, the city enacted a package of laws aimed at addressing battery fire danger.

In 2022, according to the city, there were 220 fires caused by lithium-ion batteries, with 147 injuries and six deaths. This year, there have been 110 lithium-ion battery fires in New York City, resulting in at least 13 deaths and 71 injuries, according to the mayor’s office.

Most of the deaths were in residences, not commercial sites, making inspection more difficult and education more important, Kavanagh said.

Many devices, including laptops, cellphones and tools, use rechargeable batteries with lithium-ion technology. But those batteries are often smaller and safer, with higher quality control, said Nick Petrakis, an engineer with Energy Safety Response Group, an energy storage system consulting firm who helped design New York City’s fire code for mobility devices and energy storage systems.

Mobility device batteries typically link many cells, creating the risk of a chain reaction if runaway occurs in one of them, he said.

After the lethal Chinatown fire, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)announced a $25 million federal grant to fund safer charging stations in city public housing.

Supporters say the devices are convenient and environmentally friendly, but in a Sunday news conference Schumer warned that “poorly made” batteries can “explode and cause fires.” Most battery fires are caused by cheap Chinese imports, he said.

In an email, a New York State Department of State spokesman said the state’s code does not address “use or charging of lithium-ion batteries” for e-bikes, scooters or similar devices in buildings. That code applies to all buildings in the state except for in New York City, which has its own code.

International Fire Code, one of the models the state uses for its own code, has no similar language for the devices, but a proposed 2024 update would cover them.

Nassau County’s chief fire marshal said officials there are developing their own code to regulate the devices after seven lithium-ion fires since last year caused at least one death and seven injuries.