Embattled WA E-Bike Maker Disputes Consumer Production Battery Warning

A financially-troubled WA state e-bike maker is steadfastly refusing a warning from the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

  The CPSC has warned about safety concerns over some of the bike batteries

According to Geekwire, the warning is about lithium-ion batteries:

"The product safety warning urges consumers to immediately remove and dispose of hazardous batteries that “can unexpectedly ignite and explode, posing a fire hazard to consumers, especially when the battery or the harness has been exposed to water and debris.”

However, Rad Power disputes the claim, saying they stand behind their products, all aspects of them and they strongly disagree with the warning about the Chinese-made batteries.

The CPSC warning is aimed at the following models and their appropriate batteries:

"RadWagon 4, RadCity HS 4, RadRover High Step 5, RadCity Step Thru 3, RadRover Step Thru 1, RadRunner 2, RadRunner 1, RadRunner Plus, and RadExpand 5."

The CPSC says Rad Power has refused to agree to what they called an "acceptable recall" of the batteries.

Rad Power e-bikes are among the best-selling models in the world, although over the last couple of years, sales have slipped after peaking at the beginning of and during COVID.

Rad Power has been looking for more investors and financial support, and has had to lay off some of its workforce. A WARN Alert from WA Employment Security was issued almost two weeks ago about a layoff of 64 Rad workers.

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The CPSC says 31 fires have been reported associated with the bikes batteries, including 12 reports of property damage from those fires exceeding a total of over $734,000.  Rad says the CPSC's "all-or-nothing" recall approach would force the company to close, as they could not absorb that volume of returns.

Rad says the fire incident rates represent a fraction of less than 1 percent of the total number they have sold. To read more on this developing story, click here.