FDNY Arrests E-Bike Shop Owner for Allegedly Selling Illegal Batteries | Hacker News Reader

FDNY Arrests E-Bike Shop Owner for Allegedly Selling Illegal Batteries

thecity.nyc

53 pointsPaulHoule66 comments

> Starting last September the city outlawed the sale of these batteries, requiring that all batteries be certified as safe by a consumer safety group such as UL Listed.

(Thinking as a hacker/tinkerer,) Googling for the law, it seems like it applies to mobility devices or their batteries that are sold, leased, or rented in New York City. Meaning it would presumably not apply to DIY/home-built batteries used personally (which I think is a good thing on-balance).

Right, if you're ordering individual cells/packs and DIYing something you are taking some responsibility for that. If a consumer walks into a shop off the street and buys a scooter or bike, they aren't expected to try to figure out whether the battery is from a reputable manufacturer or has a proper BMS or charging protection.

I still would think twice about doing DIY battery work in a multi-family unit. I wanted to get into FPV drones but reading about the concerns with battery charging and issues with minor damage, I decided I had nowhere to safely charge and passed on it.

I haven't looked into it too much, but I'm also curious if your insurance would have a major issue, and if you open yourself to possible criminal/civil legal troubles if you start a fire due to a botched unattended DIY battery setup.

We had a shorted phone battery go off into our workshop. It wasn't fun and we had to evacuate and vent the place for an hour. The smoke is awful. It's best to have a metal bucket of water and a metal shovel to throw the thing inside the bucket and take it outdoors. Easy outdoor access is needed. Using other non igniting chemistries like LiFePo shall mitigate the dangers. LiIon/Poly is too dangerous, to the point that it will get banned as soon as there is a safer replacement.

in the meantime the market for lemons that is sketchy batteries has caused many residential buildings in NYC to ban e-bikes entirely which is unfortunate

Exactly. For an arms-length sale to an off-the-street consumer, I think laws requiring certification or otherwise demonstrated compliance with established standards are reasonable. I just hate it when those laws inadvertently (or intentionally) preclude DIY/hobbyist/experimentation.

People shouldn't be tinkering with Lithium batteries inside homes, especially multi-tenant homes.

They should be treated with the same caution you would a combustion engine or meth lab.

I think people should be able to tinker with internal combustion engines as well.

Tinkering with internal combustion engines in a personal garage? Sure.

In an apartment of a multi-family dwelling? Less sure.

Exactly, guy in Queens literally killed his family doing commercial lithium battery work on his kitchen table..

yes but thats where a garage, driveway or some space other than "inside homes, especially multi-tenant homes" comes into play

This is a big deal. I'm amazed we don't have even more disasters. I'm glad to see criminal charges, and hope other cities follow suit.

Not even more? For a commonly available technology, this should be far too many?

> More than 660 e-bike battery fires have erupted across the city since 2019, killing 28 New Yorkers and injuring 400 more.

Everyone wants an e-bike that weighs like a feather while being able to travel for long trips between recharges. This is how our corrupt advertising system manufactured people desires: everything is possible and there are no technical limitations, so as a result everyone thinks they can buy everything, and manufacturers are forced to cram all power to the last milliwatt to be able to put something on their ads. A more educated advertising system would help people to become less demanding, more critical and a lot more selective wrt what to buy and especially what not to. Problem is that educated people usually spend less, so I'm not sure there are many incentives in that direction.

>”Problem is that educated people usually spend less”

Where did you get this notion? In my experience, experts almost always have the best & most expensive gear in their area of expertise.

Take something like work boots as an example: You might buy a $300 pair of Red Wing work boots that’ll last effectively forever. Someone who can’t afford that might buy a $100 pair of work boots from Walmart, which will need replacing more often.

So, in the category of Work Boots, you are indeed spending less.

The Vimes Theory of Socio-economic unfairness.

https://terrypratchett.com/explore-discworld/sam-vimes-boots....

I came here to say this.

Only their welted work boots are resoleable, any other will last as long as the tread holds out. Beyond that you work conditions, how much you sweat, temperature, humidity, and whether or not you rotate with other boots will drastically effect the lifespan.

It's also worth noting that a lot of their lines are now made in cut-rate outsourced shops and the quality sucks.

Maybe shoes are not the best example, because even the most expensive shoes will only last a few years.

They are talking about boots. A good pair of boots while last you a long time and once they wear down they can be resoled and repaired. A pair of Red Wings can last you indefinitely if you maintain them.

Stuff you wear 8h a day while sweating in it due to hard labor, every day? Unless you can magically change whole interior of the boots, that ain't a good proposition at all.

I do hiking and other mountain sports a lot, wear top notch european stuff from ultra light to heavy full leather huge&heavy boots (sorry no good US products in this area sold anywhere in Europe that I am aware of), but happy to change them once every few years, the best I got on Meindl ones was 10 years. Its not just exterior that goes to crap over time, its everything and keeping them forever is unhygienic.

Also don't understand your logic - people overall spend more on lower quality equipment long term. The phrase 'I am not rich enough to buy cheap stuff' is solid one and confirmed endless times across every aspect of existence.

"Best" and "most expensive" are not necessarily correlated. Plenty of companies will sell you $100 worth of stuff for $500, especially in this era of fly by night brand names sold on no-liability marketplaces.

There are plenty of people (I know a few) who will buy very expensive items that they don't understand in the hope it will solve all their problems or in lieu of skill. Experts often have a more nuanced take: match the requirements with what the product offers and no further.

True, but I wouldn't underestimate the amount of money they don't waste in useless crap, or low quality products they have to buy multiple times.

I find that experts and enthusiasts are usually willing to spend more than the average person, but they often avoid products with high margins and are hard to convince with marketing. An e-bike expert won't buy a janky fire-hazard Alibaba white-label battery, but is also unlikely to buy a luxury brand with proprietary components.

So, I think that personal e-bikes are basically a small percentage of e-bikes in the city. Most of the e-bike users are food delivery drivers / couriers. As they talk to each other, I'm sure they all have the most cost effective option. (NYC has had e-bikes forever. They were illegal until 2020, but they have been a mainstay since the early 2010s.)

The problem these delivery drivers face is that the battery doesn't last for an entire shift. As a result, they've almost all switched to mopeds. (A moped, as far as I can tell, is the world's loudest lawnmower engine attached to a drivetrain.) I thought it was over-regulating e-bikes that led to this trend, but I think it's actually an energy density concern.

The TL;DR is if you see e-bike fires going down, it's because everyone ditched their e-bikes for fossil fuels. Very sad.

Delivery-oriented ebikes like the Arrow models in NYC use very large battery packs, and some deliveristas carry a second battery on a rear rack. My impression is that, as deliveristas have moved to working for apps rather than specific restaurants over the past few years, the expected delivery radius has expanded, which drove a lot of the range issues that have lead to widespread adoption of gray-market motorcycles with no plates.

Said unlicensed mopeds are current subject to widespread seizure in NYC, so it does seem like ebikes are coming back.

One major delivery-oriented ebike importer, 'Fly Ebike', has gotten a model UL certified.

We have multiple issues:

* Delivery guys need to charge batteries a lot

* Not all batteries are safe and we have too many deadly fires

* Delivery guys go too fast

* Citibike batteries need to swapped in, rather than charged at the station if the utility (ConEd) allowed that

* Citibike has imbalance issues at rush hour, with empty/full stations, which they try to fix with vans and so called Angels, who are told to bike from A to B in exchange for points

My solution: plug Citibike stations into the grid, add more stations and bikes, require/encourage delivery guys to use Citibikes (which have a safer speed cap) at a substantial discount and also let them double as Angels.

The high torque needed when starting from zero is a lot more dangerous than the need for high speed. The former creates current bursts that can overheat the regulator circuitry, while high speeds need less current and also provide better airflow to cool down electronics (and batteries). The main problem to me however is the need for very fast charging which quite often overheats batteries without any airflow; I'm not sure battery packs can detect if any of the cells is overheating, as placing a few thermal sensors here and there cannot monitor all of them. They simply have to stop this fast charge thing that aside being dangerous also lowers batteries life significantly.

To me the problem with high speed is primarily safety for pedestrians and other bikes. Given also that the state has just given the city the green light to reduce the speed limit on most streets to 20MPH, the delivery guys will stand out even further.

If you run out of juice, you just get another bike (and attach whatever you use to carry the deliveries). Battery safety and longevity should be better when charging and monitoring across an entire fleet, using e.g. slower speeds as you mention. This, of course, would require getting more stations and bikes into the network, which would be a win also for regular users in outer areas who are sorely underserved right now.

> So, I think that personal e-bikes are basically a small percentage of e-bikes in the city.

Here in Munich, it's gone up a lot - you can clearly spot the e-bikers by them moving to the front at every traffic light and accelerating way faster than conventional bikers, and I jumped on the e-bike train a few weeks ago myself. Delivery drivers here tend to go to electric mopeds or s-bikes (45 km/h).

I will say that we have a lot of e-bikers in NYC as well; but they're the bikeshare bikes. I see those zooming all over the place.

I have ridden one and they are quite fast. Actually scares me a little bit.

yup, the acceleration of e-bikes tends to be quite surprising if you're not used to it. Here in Germany, the top speed is limited to 25 km/h, more than enough in urban scenarios.

One thing I've noticed about my ebike is that riding on the road is much less scary because I'm able to better keep up with traffic so car drivers get much less angry at me and aren't always jockeying to pass. I have mine unlocked to do about 26mph (42kph) and it's about as fast as I feel comfortable with on bike tires and wearing a regular bike helmet.

25kph seems like it is too slow to keep up with traffic. That's barely any faster than a regular bike.

25 km/h is often slower than a mechanical bike if the rider and bike are both in good shape. The goal is not to keep up with car traffic; Germany has dedicated bike lanes on larger roads, and cars are expected to wait their turn on narrow ones.

> cars are expected to wait their turn on narrow ones

Yes, but the drivers don't like that, especially if they're following a bike doing 25kph on a 55kph road. The drivers are much less annoyed if the bike is doing 40kph on the 55kph road.

Ah, we have separate bike lanes on the major streets where cars are allowed 50 km/h, but on the streets where we don't have them the speed is limited to 30 km/h either by law or by congestion.

Citibikes were recently capped from 20mph down to 18mph (29km/h). Delivery guys are another story.

Part of the switch to gas mopeds was due to the fact that most of them were being ridden around completely illegally; without license, insurance, or plates. The barrier to entry there was artificially low because the NYPD didn't prioritize taking them off the street. I think they're starting to crack down now so maybe we'll see fewer mopeds.

I think your theory is people like to do whatever is most illegal, but that doesn't seem right. Mopeds must be preferred over e-bikes for some reason; e-bikes don't require a license, insurance, or plates. (I laugh because this theory appeals to me somewhat; e-bikes were super popular when they were illegal, then they were legalized, and now everyone's riding unregistered mopeds instead. But I think it's a change unrelated to the law; another comment mentions the transition from per-restaurant delivery crews to the apps requiring a larger radius, that seems most logical to me.)

I do hope that peak moped was some time in the past. I can look the other way about maybe not obeying every traffic control device when you're not burning any fossil fuels, but if you're just going to burn gas less efficiently than a car, I can't get too excited.

I think you misread or misinterpreted what I wrote. They don't have any specific attraction to committing crimes, but rather an aversion to spending time and effort to do things legally. Getting licensed and insured is expensive. It's much easier if you can ride without those things.

E-bikes were already in very wide use well into the food delivery app era. The explosion of mopeds in NYC was in the past 2 years.

I believe the reasons were three fold: they are more capable than e-bikes in range and speed, the bargain basement Chinese models are almost as cheap as e-bikes, and the police were not sufficiently enforcing any laws regarding them.

I think more of them would last a shift if they actually peddled. Using the battery to start from a dead stop is just brutal for efficiency.

Seems like there would be a market in NYC for those e-bikes/scooters that can swap batteries at a kiosk like the Gogoro stuff out east.

I for one would not complain if there was more commoditization of ebike and scooter batteries. I hate that every single ebike company ships their own custom battery solution that is outrageously expensive per watt. I'd also love to see the same thing happen with tool batteries.

I think forcing battery standardization is exactly the kind of thing the government should be working on. If your TV remote requires 2 AA batteries, you can get those anywhere. If an ebike or cordless drill requires a battery, consumers have to do too much work and spend too much money and in the end it's wasteful.

Why do you think we need the government to standardize batteries?

because a standard hasn't emerged in the decades it's been for one to emerge. the closest we've got after the AA and AAA is the 18650 and that's not all that common as a consumer battery.

I might be wrong, but I believe the 18650 is the commodity cell inside most proprietary battery packs.

I wonder if they could keep their proprietary pack design, but instead force the individual cells to be replaceable (ie don’t use solder tabs)? That would be standardized enough for me.

Unfortunately it is not that simple. All of the cells in a pack need to be balanced the same so it’s not as easy as just swapping in a replacement for a dead cell. Even if you replace all of the cells at once they need to be balanced.

The biggest time sink when building DIY battery packs is testing and charging every cell to the exact same voltage.

You should definitely replace all of the cells at once, even if you are just using drugstore batteries. If you don't they are not going to last very long.

Manufacturers are not being as careful as you are. They bundle batteries from the same manufacturing batch with no testing and rely on battery monitor and balancing ICs.

https://www.ti.com/battery-management/monitors-balancers/ove...

To increase competition, reduce waste, and reduce prices to consumers.

> This is how our corrupt advertising system manufactured people desires: everything is possible and there are no technical limitations, so as a result everyone thinks they can buy everything, and manufacturers are forced to cram all power to the last milliwatt to be able to put something on their ads.

Oh come on. Technical limitations are there to be overcome; everyone being able to buy (or get) everything is literally the point of the whole thing. We're far from what's physically possible, we're mostly hitting limits of economical feasibility, and those tend to give with increased demand, so a degree of advertising is, arguably, even justifiable in this context.

I'm not sure how to interpret this comment, are you saying that 28 deaths due to preventable battery fires is an acceptable number?

No amount of deaths is acceptable.

That being said, something that kills 7 people a year in a city of 8.3 million can't be too far up on the list of preventable deaths.

No, I'm saying the opposite.

Interesting that it's the fdny itself that is doing the arrest and not referred to the NYPD or something. I didn't realize fdny had the legal authority to actually arrest people

From Wikipedia: "Unlike many other jurisdictions, the New York City fire marshals are armed police officers with full powers of arrest..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_marshal#New_York_City_Fir...

Almost every fire marshall is a licensed peace officer (e.g. arrest power).

I live near a city which only has a single police/fire department, and all officers are both policemen as well as firemen (including the police chief).

It's probably a fire marshall/inspector, they are usually under law enforcement, but not employed by the police. They are hired either directly by the municipality; fire department; or County/State. Since they handle fire laws; fire safety; investigations; and fines, it makes sense.

Edit: Clarity.

Actually everyone is capable of arresting anyone else. It's called a citizens arrest. It is legal but risky (both physically risky and legally risky).

I have once performed citizen's arrest — I would not recommend doing this unless you want to visit the courthouse multiple times (as a witness, hopefully).

I don't know about the FDNY in particular, but lots of agencies beyond FBI / police have jurisdiction to arrest people.

It's comparable to fuel tank fires in the first half of the twentieth century - regulations on manufacturing standards, puncture-resistance etc. need to be implemented in such a way they can't be gamed by industry leaders to prevent competition. Standardization and interoperability requirements should have been set out already.

Actual title: "FDNY Makes First Ever Criminal Arrest of E-Bike Shop Owner for Unsafe Storage of Batteries "

This was the same issue apple was facing with their batteries - basically - the third party alibiba folks weren't doing nearly as much QC as apple did.

Of course, apple got hammered for alerting users to potentially non-apple batteries in their phones. :)

I learned my lesson with I think a thinkpad "hi capacity" battery replacement I got super cheap. Basically burned my lap.

This stuff is a side effect of Silicon Valley centralizing upside and decentralizing the downside with all these app based gig jobs.

These guys don't work for anyone, so you don't have normal B2B procurement for the batteries, nor safe places (warehouses, restaurants, dispatch) to charge. So instead you end up with guys buying & supplying sketchy batteries, charging way too many, unattended, in living spaces and shops overnight.

It also makes enforcement nearly impossible because instead of dealing with 100s or 1000s of business entities, you have 10,000s or 100,000s of individual contractors violating the law. Some gig workers in NYC are even subbing out their ID/account so undocumented migrants can work illegally.. so the lack of accountability only spirals.

I've always wondered why enforcement of this rule didn't take delivery apps into account.

The same way they subsidize rideshare vehicles, it seems like a no-brainer to subsidize much cheaper bikes. They could even use it as a branding opportunity

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