E-bike chargers posing fire risk found on eBay, Amazon and Wish.com
E-bike chargers that pose a risk of fire and electric shock have been found on sale on Amazon, eBay and Wish.com amid a sharp rise in blazes associated with battery-powered bicycles and scooters.
More than a dozen low-cost devices, several with substandard, unfused plugs, were on offer on all three websites, a Guardian investigation with the charity Electrical Safety First (ESF) found.
Fire brigades have warned incompatible chargers paired with the wrong lithium ion batteries are a key source of e-bike and e-scooter fires that can quickly become catastrophic. Since 2020, eight people have been killed and at least 190 injured by e-bike and e-scooter fires in the UK.
A snapshot investigation this month revealed 15 different chargers being offered on Amazon, eBay and Wish.com by British and Chinese sellers that were likely to breach UK safety regulations. Several have clover-shaped plugs that increase the risk of an electric shock. Technicians opened the plugs bought on Amazon and eBay and found they had no fuse.
Responding to the investigation, London fire brigade’s deputy commissioner Dom Ellis said the risk of significant fires was increasing as sales of e-bikes and scooters grew. He urged the public to “always use the correct charger and buy an official one from a reputable seller”.
On Monday, 25 firefighters were called out to a house fire in Newham, east London, caused by an e-bike that had been left on to charge. In March, a man died and 17 were left homeless when a food courier’s charging e-bike battery combusted in an overcrowded flat in Tower Hamlets, east London.
The National Fire Chiefs Council said: “When these batteries and chargers fail, they do so with ferocity and because the fires develop so rapidly, the
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