Ebike Battery Fires Have Killed 12 New Yorkers This Year

New York has recorded more than 400 lithium-ion battery fires in 2025, killing 12 people and injuring 83 — up from 292 fires, 51 injuries and one death last year, according to FDNY data. City Hall has a plan that works. It just hasn't built it.

The human cost is escalating fast. In late October, four members of one family, including an 11-year-old boy, died in a Bronx public housing fire started by an ebike battery blocking the exit path of an 11th-floor apartment. Days later, six people died and nine were injured — among them three firefighters and two police officers — in a Brooklyn house fire where investigators found lithium-ion batteries, though they haven't confirmed they caused the blaze.

"The presence of lithium-ion batteries at the scene is a serious concern, and more must be done to encourage and mandate safe storage practices. Enough is enough," City Council Speaker Julie Menin said in a statement. She has called an emergency council oversight meeting for 20 November.

Why is this happening now?

Partly scale. Americans imported 2.2 million ebikes in 2025, per the Light Electric Vehicle Association — double the volume of three years earlier. London and Toronto report similar spikes in battery fires, typically from overcharging or damaged cells.

But New York's problem is also policy. Riders, many of them food delivery workers, charge batteries in apartments because the city never delivered the outdoor charging infrastructure that would keep faulty cells out of bedrooms and hallways.

What does the pilot data actually show?

The proof of concept worked. In a 2024 pilot, the city's transportation department hired companies to operate battery-swapping cabinets for delivery riders. Participants made more than 12,000 swaps in six months, and home charging among them fell 35%, according to the city.

The city then promised 25 charging sites — but not until 2027. In April, Mayor Zohran Mamdani asked residents where they wanted the cabinets; the announcement put service launch in 2028. The department says it needed to "gather feedback on site selection, design and implementation" and is now "finalizing locations" after summer feedback.

The bigger failure sits further back. In 2023, the city announced a $25 million federal grant to build 173 charging and storage stations across 53 public housing developments. "This means that residents will no longer need to charge their ebikes in their apartments, what we find to be extremely dangerous," then-Mayor Eric Adams said. Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi promised residents would see evidence by early 2024. Three years later, none have been built — because, per the city's transportation department, the federal government allocated the money but never actually handed it over.

Who's moving, and who's blocking?

Popwheels, one of the pilot operators, has installed about 45 cabinets citywide, CEO Baruch Herzfeld says. He wants hundreds more but calls the permitting process "ludicrous" — often six months to approve a single cabinet.

"If I want to put a cabinet that they approve in a parking lot, I have to use an architect to do a drawing, and then they have to come and do an inspection of a drawing of an ebike battery cabinet in the parking lot," Herzfeld said. "This permitting process is why kids are dying."

He adds the city frequently tickets property owners hosting his cabinets over issues like missing fire extinguisher tags or trash. FDNY Deputy Commissioner Amanda Farinacci countered that the tickets involved "not minor infractions but instead significant concerns," and called it "entirely misplaced and inaccurate" to link FDNY regulation with indoor charging.

What changes for riders and residents?

Laura Kavanagh, FDNY commissioner until 2024 and now a visiting urbanist at NYU, thinks the department asks "the wrong question." If "a battery failed in that cabinet outside, it is almost certain that would do no more than property damage. You are comparing that to" 10 New Yorkers dying in fires in the last three weeks, she said. "This is just appreciably worse, and so I think we need to frame it that way."

Mamdani, speaking on MS Now after the Brooklyn fire, said ebike fires "are something that can cause people to lose their lives as well as their livelihoods. And so, we are really looking at every avenue we have to keep them safe." The 20 November council hearing will test whether that urgency can compress a permitting and construction timeline that currently stretches to 2028.