 I want to thank everyone for being here today to focus on the growing problem of lithium ion battery safety. This isn't a new issue for the CPSC or for many of the experts in this room, but it's an increasingly deadly and destructive one. In recent years, there's been a noticeable increase in micro mobility battery fires in an urban environments like New York City. It can be particularly deadly, quickly spreading through apartment buildings or multifamily households. Fires tied to e-bikes, scooters, powered by lithium ion batteries have resulted in countless injuries and far too many deaths. CPSC staff has been working closely with officials in New York, as well as other places to investigate fires and get to the bottom of how and why they're occurring. Staffs also challenging industry and voluntary standards groups to incorporate safer designs and performance requirements into products. And they've been working on looking at products and seeking to recall defective ones. In December, CPSC called on manufacturers, e-bikes, e-scooters and similar devices to comply with baseline voluntary safety standards or face possible enforcement action. We also reached out to retailers to encourage them to review the products that they're selling and to only carry products that are compliant with those safety standards. In order to the public to only use batteries and chargers that were approved for their specific device. Unfortunately, we're continuing to see micro mobility battery fires and lithium ion batteries are being used in more and more consumer products. So, we're all going to have to work together to understand and address existing hazards and to work proactively to design safety into the next generation of products. And that's why this forum today is so important. The key players in the room, all of whom will be need to be involved in any solution going forward. We'll be hearing from members of the New York congressional delegation who are prioritizing this issue. We'll hear from the commissioner, the FDNY, who has seen the impacts of these fires firsthand and been a leader in pushing for safety improvements. And we're going to hear from researchers, standard developers, industry, and consumer advocates who are steeped in this work. I'm glad that you all stepped forward to share your experiences and perspectives with us. If we're going to make progress, we must prioritize safety every step of the way. So, thanks also to my 3 colleagues who are with me on the dice today. All of you have encouraged us to hold this forum and I appreciate your close involvement. And I look forward to the conversations that we're going to have today. We're going to start out the day by showing recorded videos submitted by Senator Chuck Schumer, Senator Kirsten Jilderrand, and Representative Richie Torres. So, if you could please go ahead and play those videos. Hi, everyone. It's Senator Chuck Schumer. And I want to thank Chairman Ho and Sarrick and commissioners Boyle, Feldman, and Trumka for bringing everyone together to discuss lithium ion battery safety, an issue affecting so many communities in New York and in around the country. I also want to recognize our great fire commissioner, Laura Kavanaugh, who's with you today. She's been a strong advocate for battery safety in New York City, and we're grateful for her and the FDNY for keeping New York safe. As we all know, e-bikes, scooters, and other micro mobility devices are more popular than ever. Millions of Americans rely on them every day, commuters, delivery workers, small business, and more. But the rapid surge of these devices has outpaced safety measures, especially when it comes to their lithium ion batteries. Many bikes and e-scooters are powered by cheap, Chinese made lithium ion batteries that are more prone to overheat and then explode, sometimes causing severe and sadly deadly fires. In New York, there have been over 400 fires caused by these devices in the last four years, resulting in over 300 injuries and 12 deaths. Too often, it's hardworking immigrant to live at Eastus and their families who are the victims. That's why I've worked with Senator Gillibrand and Congressman Richie Torres to introduce the Setting Consumer Standards for Lithium Ion Batteries Act, which requires the Consumer Product Safety Commission to establish national safety standards for lithium ion batteries used in micro mobility devices. Our legislation would be an important step towards preventing these devastating fires and protecting the lives of consumers, families, and our first responders nationwide. So I look forward to working with you all on lithium ion battery safety moving forward and thanks again for holding this important discussion. Hi, I'm Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and I want to welcome you to Consumer Product Safety Commission Roundtable Discussion on Lithium Ion Battery Safety. This has been such an important issue in New York where malfunctioning lithium ion batteries used in e-bikes and other micro mobility devices have led to a number of deadly fires. It is essential to make sure products containing lithium ion batteries like micro mobility devices are safe and I will keep fighting in Congress to address this concerning issue. Hello, I'm United States Congresswoman Richie Torres proudly representing New York's 15 congressional district in the Bronx. I want to thank the Consumer Product Safety Commission for the opportunity to speak with you about a rising public safety challenge facing communities across the country, especially my own. In New York City, the number of lithium ion battery fires has been on the rise from more than 30 in 2019 to more than 40 in 2020 to more than 100 in 2021 to more than 200 in 2022. The trend is simply too alarming to ignore. We must take proactive measures to mitigate the risk posed by lithium ion batteries and the e-mobility devices that contain those batteries. Earlier in the year I introduced the Setting Consumer Standards for Lithium Ion Batteries Act. The legislation would require the Consumer Product Safety Commission to establish final Consumer Product Safety Standards for rechargeable lithium ion batteries employed in personal mobility devices like electric scooters and bikes. At a time when these batteries power so much of our lives it is vitally important that government regulatory bodies and industry stakeholders come together with urgency to set rigorous and responsible safety standards that will save lives. I'm encouraged to see the Commission is actively looking to deepen its understanding of the issue and it's investigating the adequacy of present voluntary standards and battery designs and I hope through the legislative process my bill can build on the extraordinary work as we explore possible solutions to the problem. There is nothing more important than the safety of the people we serve and it's our responsibility to do everything we can to prevent the catastrophic fires that bring untold devastation to communities like mine. Thank you again to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and to everyone participating in the forum for the time and attention you dedicated to this issue of fire safety. So I want to thank the members of Congress for sharing their thoughts and their continued interest in this matter. At this point in time I think we're going to introduce our first panel. The Commissioner could come to the table please. So we have Laura Kavanaugh who's the Commissioner for the Fire Department of the City of New York and with her at the table is Daniel Flynn's Chief Fire Marshal. Welcome Commissioner Kavanaugh and thank you for being here and please begin. Thank you so much. Good morning Chair, Owen Sarek and all the members of the Commission. My name is Laura Kavanaugh and I am the Commissioner of the New York City Fire Department. Thank you for the opportunity to share with you the New York City Fire Department's experiences with fires involving lithium ion batteries and micromobility devices. The New York City Fire Department has been carefully tracking the increase in fires caused by lithium ion batteries and micromobility devices. These batteries are commonly found in e-bikes, e-scooters, and other devices such as electric skateboards and hoverboards. In New York City the use of powered mobility devices multiplied dramatically during the pandemic. They have become ubiquitous among delivery workers fueling around the clock convenience the consumers have come to rely upon. The upward trend of fires caused by lithium ion batteries has had truly devastating effects on New Yorkers whereas an injury stemming from a lithium ion battery was a relatively rare occurrence in 2019 when we saw only a total of 13 such injuries in New York City. By 2022 we experienced 147 of those same injuries. In 2023 we are far outpacing that number with 87 injuries to date. We have already experienced 13 deaths in these incidents this year. We have reached a point of crisis in New York City. Lithium ion batteries are now a top cause of fatal fires in New York. Lithium ion battery fires present challenges to firefighters that are substantially different from other types of fires. In addition to what we might consider a traditional fire these devices go into a process known as thermal runaway. This occurs when an excess of heat is generated within the battery resulting in an uncontrollable self-heating status that can be safely dissipated. It causes a domino effect within the cells of the battery and creates a truly explosive state producing an injection of gases, shrapnel, and particulates. Thermal runaway is evident by popping noises and billowing white smoke that is created. The smoke is toxic and highly flammable. A fire in a single lithium ion battery can easily spread to materials around it. If it is located near other lithium ion batteries the process may be repeated increasing the intensity of that fire. Even when it is not the original cause the presence of a lithium ion battery at a fire caused by another source makes fighting that fire significantly more dangerous. Many of the fires that we've experienced in New York City have been intense and high profile. In one incident FDNY members responding to an e-bike fire in a Manhattan high-rised were forced to make a rope rescue of two individuals via a window on the 20th story of that building. In another two teenagers escaped a lithium ion battery fire by climbing out of a fourth story window and shimmying down a drain-inch pipe. Unfortunately a neighbour perished in that incident. One of the reasons that these fires are particularly dangerous for residents in apartments is that users tend to leave bikes or other devices by the door to charge. When a fire occurs it often blocks their sole means of exit and the sole means for the firefighters to get in to rescue them. Another challenging aspect of lithium ion battery fires is that the danger is not over when the fire is out. The battery is still essentially a box of chemicals and it is not unusual for it to reignite. Once these batteries are damaged or involved in a fire they may reignite hours or even days after being initially extinguished. Even a thorough inspection may not predict if or when a battery may reignite, something that we have seen time and time again. I was recently present at a bike repair shop during an inspection and as members of HAZMAT removed the batteries one burst suddenly into flames. Given the unique difficulty with suppressing this type of fire we dispatch FDNY HAZMAT units to every lithium ion battery fire to ensure that the batteries are properly handled. HAZMAT has pioneered a procedure to eliminate the threat of damaged batteries. However as the numbers grow and we experience these fires with greater frequency it has become a challenge to find ways to dispose of all of them. As more devices appear in our communities the number of fire incidents has rapidly increased. Other cities across the country have begun seeing these issues as well and municipalities that are not yet experiencing this phenomenon may be facing similar incidents in the future. The department has observed several factors that contribute to these fires and we've incorporated this knowledge into outreach pieces and our safety materials. We advise the public not to leave devices unintended while charging them, not to leave a charging device on a couch, a bed or a pillow, to only use devices that are certified by a qualified testing laboratory, to keep batteries at room temperature and away from anything flammable, to only use the manufacturer's power cords or batteries that are associated with that specific device and that if a battery overheats or the user notices a change in shape, color and odor leaking or noises to immediately cease using the device. Our challenge is to ensure the safety of the public and our members while also recognizing that people depend on these devices for their livelihood and for critical transportation alternatives. Manufacturers and retailers have a responsibility to produce and sell safer products. Delivery app companies that encourage workers to use the devices longer and faster than they were ever intended bear responsibility as well. In New York Mayor Adams and the City Council have implemented a series of new laws restricting the use and the sale of unregulated devices. As a city and as a department we are attacking this problem at every level from the Mayor's Charge Safe Ride Safe Action Plan to working with state and local representatives, members of Congress as you saw, industry representatives, testing entities and an ongoing dialogue and engagement with our partners here at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. We have developed and released new public service announcements and safety materials. We continue amplifying our outreach to the community. These efforts we know will be effective over time but we also know that there are unsafe devices in the hands of our citizens right now so we are doing everything we can to mitigate those potential dangers. It is absolutely paramount that devices themselves become safer and that process will depend on many of the people who are here today including members of the Commission, elected officials, researchers, scientists and engineers as well as manufacturers and industry representatives. It is my hope that through collaboration with fire departments and events like today's hearing the Commission will continue developing expertise and will act to regulate these products and incentivize safer designs. I urge the Commission to adopt a national standard and enforced against manufacturers that fall short of that standard. We've seen that this technology moves very quickly so regulations need to be forward-looking in order to keep pace. I encourage you to explore standardizing battery safety features such as tamper-proof casings and mechanisms that automatically shut off when a device is fully charged or becomes overheated. You have tools available that can make a significant difference. Good morning to my backers, issuing recall mandate and seizing products at the time. We're trying. Here's the wire department. We're going to go back to that later. The FDA wants to show you and testing and evaluation of existing battery Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate and specifically to their laboratory located in New York City, the National Urban Security Technology Laboratory or New Steel. New Steel recently established a program to support the fire service and other emergency responders in better understanding the public safety impacts of lithium ion batteries and other new energy advancements. New York representatives, Nydia Velazquez and Richard Torres have introduced legislation to address different aspects of this issue. We have advocated for a holistic approach to this problem at all levels of government from regulations, standards, policy changes, enforcement actions, education and outreach and further research and testing. We are also very pleased that we have found a willing and enthusiastic partner in the Consumer Product Safety Commission. I have exchanged ideas and suggestions with Chair Hans Sarek and members of the commission and FDNY Farm officials have worked closely with the CPSC staff. We have had a great working relationship and we will continue sharing data and evidence from the fires that we are seeing in the field to help CPSC experts learn about these incidents and how these products function. I am deeply appreciative for the time and the attention that the commissioners have given to this issue and I am grateful for all the other witnesses who are testifying today. Micro-mobility lithium ion battery fires have taken a deadly toll on New York City and they endanger the lives of the first responders who answer the call when they occur. These incidents present a growing danger to member of communities across the country. Working together, I am confident that we can solve this problem, improve the technology and the way people use it and ultimately save lives. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Much appreciate it. We are going to now begin discussion with the other commissioners. Each commissioner is going to have 10 minutes for rounds of questions, multiple rounds of questions if necessary. So I am going to start and just say, Commissioner Cavanaugh, thank you so much for being here and sharing your experience with these fires and the ways you have been working to improve safety. Your department has been the center of the crisis and I really appreciate, as you mentioned, the collaboration with CPSC staff as investigations to these tragic fires have been carried out. I also want to acknowledge the good work that CPSC field staff has been doing as well and the agency recently commended a senior product safety investigator for her efforts related to lithium ion battery investigations in New York area and her work and that of her colleagues couldn't have been done without the access and support you and others at FDNY have given to our investigators. The information that they're gathering is critical to our efforts to identify defective products, build a case for recalls and supplement our knowledge as we're looking to work on safety standards. So again, I thank you for your support and welcome and strengthening of that relationship in order to advance safety. I also want to recognize the letters that you wrote to me last summer in this winter as you wrote to me in August, the most equitable solution would be for manufacturers to design their devices to be safer rather than simply relying upon customers and delivery workers to bear the burden of mitigating risk. So I heard you then and I hear you now and I'm going to be certainly talking to other panels about this but you know I'm very sympathetic to what you're saying about the needs for mandatory safety standards and electrical systems and immobility devices and for replacement batteries and chargers. Can you talk a bit about how mandatory safety standard would improve the safety in the New York area? Yeah I would like to speak to that briefly and also hand it over to our Chief Fire Marshal. But you know we are have seen in most of these deadly fires and certainly many of them are caused that they are devices that don't have basic safety standards that we see in most other consumer products that are safe whether or not they were implemented by the CPSC. So you know things like tamper proof containers, things like automatic shutoffs, we are almost always seeing that one of those things is missing in the investigations when we're looking at the fires that are most deadly. Chief Flynn, add to that. Yeah as the commissioner said you know a lot of these fires post-fire we are able to examine what is left of the product oftentimes not much. We work closely with your investigators who have been a tremendous asset to not only the CPSC but the fire department I believe and on a national level as well to share what information we're able to gather post-fire from these products. Recently our mayor signed in a local law that takes effect in September which will require all of these devices that are sold within the city to be certified by UL or recognized national testing laboratory. We think that's going to go a long way. We are encouraged by that and we feel that that will make a difference. A lot of these fires that we have are from substandard products we believe. We're doing that research along with your help. We're sharing that data. We're identifying products. We're trying to find products that seem to be failing more often than others. So yeah I think the standard that we put in place within the city if implemented nationally I think we make a tremendous difference. And also to stress this is not a New York City problem. I think it gets lost sometimes and talking to other fire departments. If you don't have it now you will have it in your cities. So recognize that if you're coming so get out ahead of it and understand the dangers of some of these devices. I may I'd like to add one thing to that which is there are other consumer products that don't have these issues everything from electric vehicles to the smartphones that we use. And while there's you know different forms of regulation for those one of the things that makes us most able to make sure they're safe is we know who the manufacturers are. We know who we can hold accountable either legally legislatively or via PR. And so you know those very very rarely have these sort of incidents because these are coming you know they're much cheaper devices they can be manufactured much more easily and they're coming from all over the world. We don't have that ability to call up you know even to know who most of these manufacturers are let alone to call them up and work with them and put pressure on them to make their devices safer. When one of these bursts into flames we often don't know where it came from and there's no one that we can hold accountable. And so I think that makes these sorts of standards from your agency and from the federal perspective much more important in this realm of these devices where we don't have some of these other tools available that we do in other consumer products. I think it's a really important point I think in other areas where you do have these large device manufacturers you know who is doing it they are large companies that are generally want to have a product that people are going to want to come back and buy especially when they have the secondary market of batteries and chargers where the products aren't even the original manufacturers it's hard to track them down it's hard for us to find them and if they don't have a presence in the United States it's hard to hold them accountable. And as you know you've touched on this but I think what we've been seeing on the the e-commerce side of things has made it all the more difficult and do you have any experience as to where some of the the double seven failing or causing fires are coming from is whether or not those are the ones that I think you said sort of the the cheap ones that are coming into the country. So we keep incredibly detailed information about every fire I think the most important thing to note is because we're responding after a fire there's often significant damage that makes it even harder to know the type of device the manufacturer but our our fire marshals do do extensive interviews and we've shared those with your investigators so we do know in some cases you know certain companies certain types of devices that seem to be failing at much higher rates and you know it does seem that those are like as I said before they are in large part these you know secondhand resailers you know people saying even that they bought it online and they presumed that meant that it was safe and in fact does not chief win anything like that yeah that that's absolutely true and you know within New York City really our ability lies with the brick and mortar stores to conduct enforcement we don't we don't really have the ability to limit what products are being shipped to to consumers within within a certain line we we do a robust enforcement with those brick and mortar stores we've we've conducted close to a thousand inspections at these locations issued over a thousand violations and summonses at these locations for unsafe practices many times related to electrical issues that that occur with with the charging of these devices and the modification and repair in reckless manner of these devices so we're very limited in the city as far as boots on the ground we this is an all-inclusive effort from the fire department as well as other city agencies we've developed several task force to address this issue we yet we go out every day not only to conduct enforcement but education fire safety education is out there every day trying to educate not just the people that use this in commercial for commercial practices but people just use it for recreation and commuting this is not just a delivery delivery driver issue we've had many fires where people use these just for recreational issues we've had unfortunately we've had children die from these children that have charged them in their room we stress the safety issues to to the people that have these fires don't let your children charge them alone in their room understand the danger we had a fire about a year ago where a child was charging it in his room the the fire the father of the child actually heard the device fell he could hear the fire and he reacted immediately and the fire was so intense that he was unable to get in there and save his child that's how fast these fires move and you know these this is new to us it's not um these the speed that these these fires travel is is something we've seen traditionally in incendiary fires where gasoline pours where the fire moves very very quickly generally our traditional fires start small and then become large these fires are large from the start so that that creates unique challenges to our firefighters as well as the residents in the in the occupancies thank you thank you both um noting my time i'm going to turn to my fellow commissioners um thank you mr chairman thank you for organizing today's hearing and thank you in particular to on a late and on your staff for the heavy lift of organizing all of this and of course thank you to all of our witnesses today on this panel and the ones to come for being here to share your thoughts and experience and expertise the issue that we're here to learn about today lithium ion battery safety is a challenge cpsc has faced for some time now and as we've heard and we'll hear from today's witnesses this it's a complicated issue it involves a hazard pattern that spans across a variety of product categories and while we're seeing these fires manifest acutely in micro mobility devices including e-bikes and hoverboards we know that the battery fires can occur in other products as well so while today's discussion will focus heavily on micro mobility as it should it's important that we keep a broader view of other product categories to make sure that cpsc and our other federal partners stay ahead of the hazards uh today's testimony and discussions will underscore what we already know intuitively that uh this is an issue that implicates not only product design and safety standards which is cpsc is core area focus but also supply chain integrity counterfeit interdiction consumer outreach and education among other issues so effectively mitigating against this hazard involves not only cpsc but a whole of government approach and that's why i'm glad that we heard today from members of the the senate and the house and i appreciate the interest from senator schumer and jillabrand and representative torres and i i look forward to working with congress and other stakeholders like the fdny uh as we work to address the hazard so uh commissioner cavanaugh and and chief flin thank you for being here i i want to thank you for for sharing your expertise your department is at the forefront of the fight to improve safety uh and i appreciate not only the testimony that you've offered today but the work that you all do day in and day out to keep your community safe so i i want to start with the question that i think most americans want to know are these batteries safe i think that's a great question um i would say right now if you have one of these in your home you don't know and that's pretty scary um to that end and i agree uh are you comfortable with the status quo and if not what else do you want to see from cpsc should we proceed to a mandatory standard here um we definitely believe we should proceed to a mandatory standard i'd say that both based on the risk we have right now the rate at which that risk has gone up um the rate at which we've seen manufacturers go around local laws and standards and regulations and what appears to be rapidly evolving technology and you noted that um in your opening remarks and i appreciate that because one of the things we've really focused on um is the fact that just this technology alone is evolving beyond the regulations and so i believe we need to go above and beyond and much further today um because we will probably have to meet back here again i think even as we uh regulate these you know this this technology is going to keep sort of pushing the boundary um of some of these safety issues but also that just generally we're moving towards the electrification of many of the devices and things we use and that's some of the work we're doing with the department of home insecurity is to try to look at that those you know five 10 15 year plans yeah and understand what the other new technologies and what other types of electrification well they may not present the danger these present today what they might present in the future okay um to that end in in a recent trip to arizona my staff and i learned about a lithium ion battery in in suburban phoenix uh the commission recently announced a recall of hoverboards that were manufactured by the jets and electric bike company that involved two tragic deaths in heller town pennsylvania a 10 year old girl and her 15 year old sister who died when a hoverboard ignited in their home um so while you touched on this what while new york city features prominently in the discussion about lithium ion battery safety we know that these issues aren't limited just to new york rural heller town and suburban phoenix uh showed that the diversity of geography uh and in circumstances under which these uh fires can occur do in fact vary um so what advice can you offer other fire departments across the country that might not have the resources that fdny has at its disposal and in particular uh i'm i'm curious you know your your department dispatches hazmat teams to assist with battery disposal i'm curious what lessons your hazmat team has learned that you can share and what advice do you might have for smaller departments across the country on how to handle these fires safely so it's a great point and i think one of the things we'd like to reinforce most of all but also we've uh reached out to other departments and i really want to give credit on to chief flin and his team that they adopted this early and proactively which is knowing that these fires are occurring and keeping the data on them um as you've pointed out we have found this to be an issue in other places and to the extent that um it's not seen as one we often find that's just not that they're they're not keeping that data right now we do have uh luckily much more resources than a lot of smaller departments and we are actually working with the national fire administrator to talk about some of that data sharing and i think even the commission would say that the data we've shared has been helpful you know the type of data about you know who is producing the dangerous devices what circumstances are producing them are critical for regulating them so i think you know data is one of the the key parts of this and certainly we are you know a leader on this and we're reaching out to other departments but we're also asking them to reach out to us um to see how our not only our resources but our early experience you know it's so often true in new york where there's simply more people right and more density we often see things happen first in new york and we want to be able to get ahead of it before it's as acute of a problem elsewhere but it certainly already is a problem and that the same thing is true with hazmat you know we're a regional resource and we were on the hill yesterday talking to much of our congressional delegation and that's one of the things we were reinforcing is that you know we are funded for a reason so that we can be an asset to other departments born as large and i certainly as i mentioned in my testimony one of the things i would flag that we need to work on together is the sheer quantity of these batteries that are being produced and shipped here presents a real problem for disposal at every level you know the more there are the more dangerous they are collectively and the more of you know these various types of mitigation measures we need to have and even we are finding that the amount of batteries we're finding there's not enough places to put them i appreciate that answer and and i want to end on a note of personal privilege in june 2021 there was an apartment fire building in hell's kitchen at west 50th and ninth avenue where my uncle steve has lived since the late 70s and there was significant property damage the fire spread across three floors but property can be replaced and thanks to the quick work of the fdny the injuries were minor and there were no fatalities so the professionalism of your department and the bravery of your firefighters is something that we feldmans know well and personally now so i want to thank you both for that and for being here today and for your continued commitment to work with cpsc on this issue thank you very much i have no further questions thank you for having us and i'm biased but i agree with you i'm our folks are the best in the world we're lucky to i'm lucky to work with them thank you commissioner commissioner trumpka thank you uh mr. kavanaugh chief lin thank you so much for being with us today for your testimony and for your tremendous front line leadership on lithium ion battery fires you know i i appreciate your point that this is a nationwide issue it could happen anywhere but at the same time it is uniquely and disproportionately harming new york city and you your department and the city have taken solving it into your own hands in a tremendously commendable way and so i thank you for that at the same time you do deserve more help from us and so i'd like to talk about your solutions what's working and how we can further help so you mentioned that new york city recently passed a series of laws to deal with the problem and one of those laws requires batteries to be compliant with ul 2849 2272 or or similar standards like that i appreciate the logic of pointing to standards that exist for the sake of triage as we deal with this problem in the immediate term and we've also done that and i think most if not all of the the witnesses here today seem to be advocating that we should at least adopt those standards as part of a solution but as we contemplate a more complete fix there are some additional areas that we may want to consider so commissioner cabinet i know you're seeing hazards caused by illicit repair shops that are opening batteries mixing and matching cells repairing those things when they put it back together it may pose a risk but that may not be knowable to someone looking at it it may look the same it may even still bear a ul mark that was on the outside container do you think it would be useful to include more tamper resistant solutions to make it harder for consumers to open the batteries and to make it more obvious if someone has opened it up yeah i i do i think we both need to look at how to make them more tamper resistant but also how to tell that they've been tampered with um you know i think that our marshals have encountered that our um bureau fire prevention that does a tremendous amount of our enforcement um often as you've pointed out people can do this work and put them back together and it's not always obvious they've been tampered with but they're incredibly dangerous at that point in fact even a ul certified battery that's been tampered with is then dangerous so we would definitely welcome both ways to prevent that tampering but also easier ways for both our experts but also even the average consumer to be able to tell just from either looking at a battery or a simple way of testing that you could know that that battery was unstable or dangerous in some way and you've also expressed concern about the mismatch between chargers and batteries uh can you walk us through what a preferred solution for you looks like to that issue we would like to see i think two things one is that they're automatic shut off so but that battery is either shut off when they're done charging or when they reach a certain temperature um that's critical you know we do see that in a lot of other devices especially computers and cell phones and we believe that's very critical um we also want to see the devices that won't work won't charge if they're not with their manufactured issue device um a lot of again what we're seeing is a term they say frankenstein bikes but bikes that are pieced together you know both the battery the bike the charger even parts of the bike didn't come they all came from different manufacturers and again that substantially increases the risk also makes it easier for people to make something that's not compliant um by piecing something together so devices that don't work if they're not with their manufactured issue device would help significantly in stemming that particular type of device and with the automatic shut off that you mentioned it it's my understanding and that good batteries have that type of shut off in the battery itself but maybe not necessarily with the charger that comes with it should we consider redundancies having that required in both parts of that equation yeah i think redundancy is you know from a safety perspective are always critical i'd say they're especially critical in these bikes you know a lot of what we see especially when it comes to the delivery worker example is that these bikes are using being used in a way they weren't necessarily manufactured for so they're being used much longer for more hours and rougher conditions you know um salted roads potholes that kind of thing which could mean they're also more easily damaged again even a safe device can um become damaged through that kind of really rigorous use and so to us the more redundancies built in can also help when you're accounting for other uses that might not be the recreational one that the bike was designed for and one of the things that so cars have check engine lights when you know to alert people and there's something that's not properly functioning do you believe that it would be useful to have something similar for e-bikes where users would be able to see battery health issues pop up on their handlebars something like an early warning system so they could take action or maybe even something that would prevent the bike from operating when that alert would be triggered i do i would defer to the folks who are testifying after me in terms of what would be the most effective metric um or even how to do that but what i would say is what we've discussed here and a couple of the other commissioners have raised which is does a consumer what i tell them right now that the bike in their home is safe and i can't right and that's one of the trickiest things is there has been both a lack of regulation so many different manufacturers lots of people selling second hand devices um even selling them online where people may not realize that they weren't certified or that they were second hand is right now it's nearly impossible for a consumer to really look at the device in their home unless they're an expert of some kind and know for sure that that's a safe device and so i think anything that can give them an easy indication of that um would be incredibly helpful in the future so that you know in addition to all of the regulation when we're doing education there's an easy way for us to say here's the one thing you do or the one or two things you do rather you know than right now it can be very complicated right and more sent you know especially in New York City where people don't have outdoor space we're trying to give them five or six things to do that only mitigate the risk don't don't make it go away so the simpler we can make it the better and i think safer it will be yeah that that's a tremendous point and i think putting information in consumers hands should maybe be one of the biggest takeaways we have because we can't look at everybody's battery but if they can do some some some assessment themselves giving them that opportunity i think would make all of our jobs easier and preventing preventing runaways one other thing there that you know i've heard a number of times that these battery fires are so intense that when you look at it after after it causes a fire there might be nothing left of the battery it's tough to assess what the product was the the consumer might not remember the exact manufacturer where when they bought it with the battery would it be useful if these products had something or would it be feasible in your experience if these cars had something or sorry if the bikes had something with the battery said something like a carbon number something that was was matched an etched metal that could survive a fire i think anything where we could you know track back to the manufacturer is helpful i actually defer to the chief just to talk about the amount of damage they see and what these look like when they actually collect them after a fire yeah that would be helpful in certain situations sometimes that casing is not available to us after after fire after overall overall is process that firefighters take it post fire to make sure there's no fire extension make sure that we've been able to get to every area of of the occupancy that that had fire damage so it's pretty extensive that when we get there to do the investigation the amount of damage is extremely extremely extensive but everything helps that there are times where that would would be effective for us as the commissioner mentioned a lot of these devices that we're discovering are bought from the secondary marketplace so the person that owns it doesn't really know is subjected to before they took possession of it they don't know where it was purchased from or when what it was used for those are questions that we're asking the consumer a lot of that a lot of our information is gathered via investigation which which is very helpful for your investigators as well you know we we do investigations we do interviews it's not solely based on the physical examination of the device due to the fact that so much damage is caused by these fires thank you thank you so much for letting us your expertise today and for your help on this issue and and for your continuing work on this going forward thank you miss you miss your wall thank you mr chair and thank you commissioner kavanaugh and chief flin for your testimony today i really appreciate your willingness to work so collaboratively with us it's really important in advancing the issues as a new yorker from brooklyn and my family is now in rockaway which as you know is home to many firefighters from new york so i really am grateful for all that you're doing and continue to do a lot of good questions have already been asked and i just want to follow up a little bit on something you said chief flin about it being you know it's not just a new york city issue and you're on the vanguard for sure i'm just wondering if you've actually consulted with any of your international counterparts i'm understanding that there are fires in london as well um they don't seem to be of the same magnitude as in new york although i would say london and new york new york always a better the top city but you know they are certainly comparable and i'm just wondering if you have consulted with your international counterparts certainly uh not not just internationally but nationally uh we we actually held a symposium last year last september where we invited fire departments from all over the world to to attend and to express to them the issue that we're facing here i think that was attended by over 300 300 people from all over the world many from the united states but others from outside the united states we've been in touch with london also london faced this issue as well as the asian countries well before we really recognized this problem they were they were going through this problem i think the uh the use of these devices started earlier there uh than than we experienced it so we have been in in touch with them uh regularly and we actually plan another symposium uh next year where we actually uh are expecting thousands of people to attend to share not only what we're experiencing but what they are experiencing also and i think a few countries actually adopted that standard uh the u l standard and and they did uh experience a dramatic decrease in in these do you have information on what those countries were and if others what other standards different countries are using well one i could i could say with singapore i uh we review the sing Singapore study um they they expressed that when they adopted that standard they they experienced that 33 percent decline in uh fires caused by the mic mobility devices powered by lithium ion batteries thank you very much i don't have any additional questions and just want to say thank you again for coming i do really appreciate it thank you thank you commissioner um thank you commissioner kevin oh the chief flin really appreciate it um that's going to conclude our first panel we have a full day afterwards so thank you again both your time and for making the trip here today sure we look forward to working with you on this it's very important so thank you for having us we're now going to move to our second panel if the second panel can come up as uh get ready and i pause for a minute because i know that there is a lot of people right as people are settling in i'm just going to introduce our second panel uh we have dr judy and please correct me when i get your name wrong uh jiva ronge jiva ronge and thank you vice president executive director for u l research institutes electrochemical safety research institute we have dr michael peck peck director and distinguished professor for the center of advanced life cycle engineering at the university of maryland we have dr uh drew i'm gonna also i've herrera thank you very much um somebody whose name can't be pronounced either i tried but uh often fail in terms of getting people's names right dr perrera is research and development manager uh for satira satara thank you sataria battery innovation group uh matt moore general policy council for people for bikes coalition we have michael fritz uh chief technology officer for human powered solutions on behalf of the national bicycle dealers association and we have luring carly vice president for outreach and advocacy at the national fire protection association thank you all for joining and for your cramped quarters so um with that uh please begin that good morning thank you chairman saudek for that introduction and thank you commissioner boil commissioner uh felman and commissioner trumka for holding this hearing today i think we are all aware of the importance of this issue and i applaud you applaud you all for taking the necessary steps to understand and address this issue with lithium ion battery fires lithium ion rechargeable batteries first commercialized in the 1990s still maintain their rank for the battery chemistry with the highest energy density long cycle life low self discharge and no memory effect and today they're also capable of being used used in high rate applications due to the nature of this battery chemistry and its high energy density it is used in a multitude of applications from consumer devices to electric vehicles and stationary grid energy storage it has also become a common energy source for marine as well as space applications associated with this high energy density though is the potential for cells to undergo catastrophic failures generating fires and toxic gases if not designed manufactured or used correctly in batteries commercial lithium ion cells used in low voltage and low capacity designs to power cameras camcorders and laptops in the late 1990s are currently used in kilowatt hour and megawatt hour and gigawatt hour sizes in battery designs internal protective devices used in these commercial cell designs used to protect from off nominal conditions such as overcharge and external shot however these devices are only effective when they are used in these low voltage and low capacity battery designs limitations of the internal protective devices actually make them a hazard when they are activated under high voltage and high current conditions causing catastrophic failures and hence external battery controls are required to prevent these from actually activating under these off nominal conditions the use of dedicated chargers that are designed to charge a battery pack after an initial handshake is critical for safe charging of all lithium ion batteries irrespective of the battery size and when I say battery size I mean voltage and capacity the handshake between the battery and the charger confirms that the charger recognizes the battery chemistry the voltage the maximum current for charge state of health whether the battery has been overt overcharged or it has experienced other off nominal conditions and also the temperature of the battery wherever it's applicable and the uses and uses the relevant charge protocol to complete the charge this is critical since lithium ion battery chemistries are varying end of charge and end of discharge voltages and the lack of a dedicated charger usage can lead to an overcharge or an overdischarge of the battery that may result in an unsafe condition immediately or may lead to a subsequent catastrophic event in the field this leads to a recommendation that universal chargers should never be used to charge lithium ion batteries the proliferation of lithium ion batteries for applications in our daily life has made manufacturing of lithium ion batteries a lucrative business this has increased the production of low quality and counterfeit cells and batteries that are sold online at an inexpensive cost these low quality and counterfeit cells do not have the required protective internal safety features typically found in commercial cells manufactured by high quality original equipment manufacturers certifications to standards for such products is also lacking or the certification paperwork as well as the stamps may be counterfeited too which will inspection of these products does not allow one to identify them as low quality or counterfeit unless obvious mistakes such as spelling errors are made it is best to avoid procuring of batteries from third-party sources online especially if they tout extremely high capacities or if they are very inexpensive and can be obtained within a very short turnaround time like within a week high quality cells and batteries can take up to three months to procure since testing is typically carried out on these cells and batteries before they are shipped under a procurement in addition to these concerns counterfeit and low quality cells are being procured and and batteries especially for micro mobility devices are being built in spaces that are not certified for battery manufacturing the batteries do not have the required safety controls chargers are not designed with the relevant controls for safe charging and fire mitigation and suppression methods are not available so what can we do about the concerns regarding the safety of lithium ion batteries used for consumer applications which can include portable electronic devices power tools as well as micro and e-mobility products the following are some of the important factors to keep in mind when procuring and using devices and products with lithium ion batteries procure only high quality products from OEMs that's original equipment manufacturers are from reputable retailers and suppliers recommended by the OEM and do not procure inexpensive products from online sources confirm that the products being procured have the required certifications which are reflected by certification stamps or marks use dedicated chargers meaning they are designed for that particular product by the original equipment manufacturer and avoid using universal or aftermarket chargers if building batteries keep the procurement practices mentioned above in mind and confirm that all safety controls have been tested stringently and in the order required complete required safety certifications for each model of battery product that is being manufactured and lastly educate and create awareness on the safety hazards of incorrectly designing manufacturing charging and using cells and batteries again thank you all for the opportunity to address the commission while this may be the beginning of this conversation I look forward to continuing to work with all of you on this very important matter thank you thank you Dr. Pacht so my group at the center for advanced life cycle engineering at University Maryland conducts research on reliability and safety of electronics components products and systems and this includes battery cells and packs to date we've conducted thousands of failure analysis of batteries including those that didn't perform properly were resulted in fires and explosions in addition we audit battery companies I personally conducted quality audits of over 50 battery manufacturers in China as well as in Korea Taiwan Thailand in the US ranging from companies who make billions of batteries per year to restaurants that part time make batteries maybe hundreds or thousands per day my teams found that the production of high energy density lithium-ion cells today requires extremely high quality manufacturing cleanliness is key to having safe batteries but regardless of the manufacturing processes in place and the standards applied even the so-called good companies have had problems and have had to recall products I think we should all remember to be aware of this LG Chem has caused fires in the Chevy Balta Hyundai Aconic there's recently fires in the Stellantis and BYD vehicles and in the past I think we all know of problems with Panasonic and in laptops Samsung notebook and the user in the Boeing 787 and all of those companies passed all the their products passed all the appropriate UL and IEC standards clearly the safety risks are greater for the low volume lower volume and mom and pop shops who are making cells and I have an example of that so this example is about a company called MXJO they advertise as being in Taiwan Hong Kong and Chen Chen with specific locations given in their website they had advertised and documented on the internet that their batteries pass all the appropriate battery standards such as UL and IEC and their batteries appear to be properly labeled my team has checked some of their cells and indeed some of the bikes and hoverboards in many cases their cells appear to work properly in some cases the cells have been shown to quickly degrade and in many cases have been known to explode and and cause fires my teams investigated a number of fires caused by them in my visits to Hong Kong and Taiwan and address there was only a post office box no employees could be found and by the way MXJO is registered in the US as well my teams examine numerous battery cells that are being incorporated in the products not only MXJO that are rewrapped with labels from well-known companies for example it is expected that most if not all of the LG Chem 18650 batteries sold on Amazon eBay and other such sites are not real or counterfeit or rewrapped they could have been scrapped they could be reused and in some cases there are other models of actual LG chem batteries in my team's view standards and regulations are important and help but they're not enough to stop the fires and explosions UL has put out notices over 10 years ago that companies can counterfeit the UL labels this is it's it's easy but we can't trust the labels and the company's websites and even verification steps can be easily sidestepped and also this is understood by some of the big battery companies as noted by LG Chem's ad in the Washington Post in 2020 stating that the cost consumers shouldn't buy their cells because what you see on the internet is most likely false one solution may be to hold the end product OEMs and the pack manufacturers more accountable for example pack manufacturers must show that they actually audited the cell manufacturers that supplying the cells and perhaps show how they address some kind of minimum quality standards or practices I also recommend that there be something like a guide up alert so guide up is the government industry data exchange program we use that for electronic components because of things like these same kind of problems or something similar to that to be established to make manufacturers aware of problematic cells and cell manufacturers thank you thank you very much uh Dr. Perrer thank you I should have some slides coming up but to start introducing at Sotaria we started a project focused on doing e-bike battery tear downs to kind of look at them from the front end as the commissioner stated it's kind of hard to analyze things after damage has already occurred to those battery packs so we're trying to do a standard analysis of e-bike battery packs available today so next slide all right I'm going off the slides here so in general the product project description is we have five popular OEM e-bikes that are packs that are being torn down as well as five what I would call third-party cheaper packs that we purchased online that are compatible with those same e-bikes to get kind of a comparison there and just to recap a lot of the danger in e-bike battery packs happen at the cell level based on mechanical abuse electrical abuse defects in the cell itself and then environmental damage to the cell which can be moisture heat salt water on the roads things like that and so I just wanted to cover some of the most interesting results from the study so far but just disclaiming that this is a ongoing project that started in 2023 and we're still collecting data now so next slide so really quick I wanted to just talk about an example of an OEM and third-party pack comparison and just again there's likely reputable third-party packs available out there where an OEM can improve it but in this case I'm showing sort of the extreme on the other side and so looking at the pictures on the left the the packs on the left look the same they have all the same stickers they they operate the same from the limited information about the packs available online they have the same specifications and so as a consumer when you're looking at this the only significant difference is price in particular in this example the price difference was $500 between these two packs and sometimes there's differing availability the OEM might not have packs available and so you're forced to go the third-party route and so just diving deeper looking on the right hand side of this slide now we see some major pack construction differences just to describe it really quick the OEM pack had frames that held the cells and in a certain pattern between each other with enough space to prevent cell-to-cell propagation that's when one cell goes off and will cause the neighboring cells to go off meanwhile the third-party pack was glued together in a different square pattern with no spacing and that has a significantly higher impact on cell-to-cell propagation also looking at the cells themselves we opened them up and look at the construction of the specific cells and found that even though they had the same labeling from the tier one manufacturer they were actually very different cells in both performance and design which indicated to us that there was likely in either a very old model of the cell or perhaps a counterfeit cell that was being used in the third-party pack and so these differences are pretty pretty shocking there and so next slide and then one of the biggest findings we found from this study so far is gaps in BMS implement implementation so BMS is battery management system it's what's controlling all the cells to work together and a battery pack which is usually made in e-bikes are somewhere from 30 to 60 individual cells and so some of the things we found in the gaps are a lack of cell balancing there's an issue if you have a one problematic cell and you're running the pack and all the cells are being run the same way that cell that's out of whack or not doing too well will likely be the cause of a safety incident or thermal incident in a pack and so cell balancing is one way to keep all the cells at the same level and this is largely not done in battery packs the e-bike battery packs that we've been looking at OEM and third party and we didn't see cell balancing addressed specifically in a lot of the standards that we had looked at some other features on BMS's aren't being implemented properly in particular we find chipsets that don't use the temperature sensing capability there's two ways that this happens on one BMS we found that it had temperature sensing capability but they just didn't attach a temperature sensor to do a shutoff once it reached a high enough temperature and we found that same BMS that did have a temperature sensor which could have had the feature actually didn't operate properly just due to the temperature cutoff not being set appropriately is way higher than the cell's recommended range and so there's tons of better BMS's out there that just aren't being chosen there's off the shelf options but the cheaper option is kind of the one that doesn't have the features we would recommend and so last slide just to summarize quickly I did the slide change I'm not seeing it oh there we go so pack certification I want to reiterate what the others have said pack certification helps quite a bit we only found out of our 10 packs that we looked at we only found three that had any kind of certification and so we need to think about that and then also how to protect consumers from counterfeit certifications and then my summary slide is last so next steps in this project is to continue profiling the riders to understand the abuse cases of these e-bike packs we have a project where we're going to fix data recorders to e-bikes and actually send them out to sit the city to evaluate what vibrations temperatures things like that that they go into so we can better understand how those packs are being treated and maybe what we're missing in just doing the packed tear downs and then work together with standards developers to improve and go with the evolving marketplace of e-bikes and so the good news kind of a nice note at the end of this is that these technologies that can improve e-bike safety are available today and so we certainly can make a change very soon using low hanging fruit technologies that are already available and some manufacturers have shown a promise for doing this so thank you for your time thank you mr. Moore thank you chair and commissioners my name is matt moore i am policy and general council for people for bikes people for bikes is the sole trade association for us bicycle manufacturers suppliers and distributors of bicycle products including electric bicycles i think we've been referred to today as the reputable manufacturers our 335 members represent companies that produce goods in every segment of the bicycle market from high-end competition bikes to affordable kids bikes and our overall mission is to make america the best place in the world to ride a bike by advancing good policy safe products and improved infrastructure people for bikes urges a broad regulatory response by the cpsc that would require testing and certification of all lithium ion batteries for all electric mobility devices within its jurisdiction including emerging categories of battery powered off-road devices this would ensure that these products have a robust battery management system the agency should adopt established consensus standards for batteries such as those referenced under ual 2049 and en 15194 a widely used standard for electric bicycles as well as the other battery standards already cited in the commission's december letter to manufacturers this would require manufacturers importers and distributors to use third party laboratories and create a general certificate of conformity to establish their compliance with the mandatory regulation secondly people for bikes calls upon the federal government to act to stop the flow of unsafe batteries and immobility products across our borders if the agency follows through and creates these regulations those regulations alone will not be enough our research has shown there are over 400 online sellers of e-bikes who are not our members companies that are not present in the united states accept to sell their products to consumers there are hundreds of generic chargers and batteries being sold direct to consumers that come in under the eight hundred dollar de minimis threshold for a formal customs entry but people for bikes ask congress to react to exclude immobility devices traction batteries and chargers from the de minimis treatment and require submission of entry documentation at import to allow the agency to perform its task of policing our borders i note that the european union has proposed legislation to do just that eliminating de minimis on all products coming into that european union to increase regulatory compliance and also to raise revenue these regulate regulatory and legislative changes will not have the desired effect if the cpsc and us customs do not have the resources they need to enforce them while it may be unprecedented for a regulated industry such as ours to make such a request people for bikes calls upon congress to provide adequate resources to the cpsc to enable it to effectively perform its mission of stopping the flow of unsafe mobility products and batteries into the united states as we've heard from other speakers today this is a complex problem with many causes contributing factors other steps must also be taken to address the thousands of unsafe batteries already in use people for bikes people for bikes supports the proposed e-bike act which would help consumers with limited resources to purchase new tested and certified e-bikes we also support many states and cities who have created e-bike incentive programs and many of them are now requiring certification of the products in order to take advantage of the incentives battery recycling is also a concern people for bikes has created an e-bike battery recycling program through a partnership with call to recycle manufacturers who participate currently pay into the program to make sure that batteries they import and sell are disposed of properly and have a safe path to recycling people for bikes also supports the cps request that the ul 2049 2272 working group investigate ways to make batteries and chargers safer more resistant to tampering and to reduce the availability of generic chargers finally education is sorely needed people for bikes has launched a consumer facing website there was co-developing with our advocacy partner the league of american bicyclists we are also soon publishing a new e-bike owners manual that contains a wealth of information on on safe practices as well as unsafe practices for consumers of e-bikes other challenges our infrastructure unfortunately there there are accidents occurring in new york city and elsewhere that are not related to fire but the number one threat faced by a e-bike user is actually a motor vehicle people for bikes will continue to work and we've launched a great bicycle infrastructure project just yesterday to help bring safe places to ride to more communities across the country we are sincere thanks for hosting this forum and bringing together all of these great minds to try and work towards common solutions thank you thank you mr fritz good morning my name is mike fritz i'm the chief technology officer for human powered solutions we are a consultancy specializing in the micro mobility industry with specific focus on bicycles and electric bicycles human powered solutions is currently on retainer to the national bicycle dealers association we advise the nbda on many issues associated with bikes and e-bikes not the least of which is is the battery fire issue that is the focus of this meeting today and we also very much appreciate the opportunity to present our perspectives on this issue and in our thoughts and recommendations relative to addressing it i have spent the bulk of my professional career in the bike and e-bike industries i joined the schwin bicycle company immediately after graduating from college in 1973 holding positions in machine design product safety research and development and engineering management upon leaving schwin in 1990 i worked in engineering management and product development capacities at huffy bicycles brunswick bicycles specific bicycles in 1998 i was hired by liaya coca after he retired from chrysler as vice president of engineering and product development and charged with the responsibility of developing and sourcing electric bicycles for his nascent company i have since focused my career on the development and production of electric two-wheelers with a specific concentration on lithium ion batteries as our primary source of energy storage the advent of high energy density high power density lithium ion battery chemistry is the energy storage breakthrough that has led to the development and rapid proliferation of electric mobility devices lithium ion batteries enable the storage of sufficient energy and the delivery of sufficient power to make electric cars and micro mobility devices practical and useful for any number of transportation missions however lithium ion batteries like any energy dense storage medium carry risk associated with the uncontrolled release of the energy that they carry gasoline is an excellent analogy careless storage usage handling of gasoline can result in tragic consequences but we've learned how to safely utilize the latent energy in gasoline since the onset of practical automobiles and until just recently gasoline has been the energy storage medium of choice for our mobility needs we have learned how to benefit from gasoline and the multiple multitude of transportation applications and to do it safely fortunately we have developed a comparable level of of competence with respect to our management of the energy contained in these lithium ion batteries we know how to engineer manufacture assemble and integrate these batteries into our mobility devices properly designed produced and used lithium ion battery packs are safe and reliable for this incredibly important application with a very very low probability of catastrophic failure when they do fail it is usually due to misuse damage or other factors that are out of our control those of us in the e-bike industry that recognize and embrace our responsibility to provide quality products have an excellent track record of providing safe products to our consumers however safe reliable lithium ion battery packs and associated charging systems are expensive representing up to a thousand dollars of the of an e-bikes retail price this often drives the cost of an e-bike out of the range of affordability for many users especially those that rely on light electric mobility for their financial sustenance unfortunately not everyone in this business brings the diligence and care necessary to develop safe lithium ion battery powered micro mobility products these unscrupulous distributors compromise quality and safety by building e-bikes utilizing substandard components to achieve costs low enough to enter our country with no scrutiny at the ports this is particularly problematic with respect to their batteries they take advantage of the economic situation of lower income users such as the delivery messengers in new york city cheap lithium ion batteries are dangerous lithium ion batteries as the experience in new york city has clearly revealed what have we done to allow this or what how have we allowed the situation to develop in retrospect we have failed to implement appropriate mandatory standards as we've discussed this morning we failed to implement a use and safety protocols and broad based education for our constituencies necessary to ensure the safe and reliable utilization of this remarkable energy storage technology this lack of oversight has allowed the introduction of dangerous immobility products into our streams of commerce we have failed to implement controls to block importation of substandard battery powered products by distributors more interested in profits than consumer safety we have failed to design and implement a distribution infrastructure that can mitigate and contain the effects manifest when one of these battery packs fails human powered solutions will continue to support the national bicycle dealers association with its effort to work to raise awareness of these issues and to work to develop and circulate best practices for dealing with lithium ion batteries in their retail outlets we will continue to support the nbda as it lobbies for the development promulgation and enforcement of appropriate standards we will continue to support the nbda as it further lobbies for resolution of our current de minimis rules as they relate to the ability to import products that represent a substantial hazard to our consumers and again we thank you for this opportunity and we make ourselves available in any way possible to help the commission in developing effective solutions to this problem thank you thank you it's carly thank you mr chair and commissioners the national fire protection association appreciates the opportunity to be here and share some insights on how we can better protect the public and first responders from the growing threat of fires associated with lithium ion battery powered devices such as e-bikes and other micro mobility devices and fpa is a self-funded not for profit organization dedicated to the elimination of death injury property and economic loss due to fire electrical and related hazards but more than 127 years we've been helping governments businesses and the public reduce loss from fire and other hazards through codes and standards training research and public education we appreciate the collaboration from the cpsc and its staff in each one of these elements make no mistake evidence by our discussion here today that is the use of lithium ion powered products is growing the challenges with their associated hazards are on full display every day and in communities all across the globe with lithium ion batteries are one of the newer and emerging fire threats in our communities we can employ however the same strategies that have been successful against other fire challenges we must attack the problem using the framework of the fire and life safety ecosystem which is a comprehensive framework of eight components that are interconnected and have to work together to keep people and property safe for this challenge we need to look specifically at the regulatory environment the use and enforcement of current codes and standards well equipped and trained first responders and an informed public a little detail on each one of these more established regulations need to be in place and enforced around the distribution sale and repair of e-bikes e scooters and other such powered products regulations related to the use of tested batteries and components storage guidelines and limits on the number of devices in various types of buildings can enhance fire safety and fpa consensus codes and standards include requirements for safeguarding the use of these devices through proper electrical installations and other fire protection features depending on the use of the building and fpa one which is the fire code has just been updated to include criteria on how to better protect people and property where micro mobility devices are stored and charged there are product standards as we've heard related to batteries and components in these devices regulation should require testing and certification to these standards the hazards that lithium-ion batteries face represent not only difficult but their unique set of circumstances we need to ensure that our first responders are educated and well equipped for dealing with these fires last fall uh nfpa sponsored a symposium with fdny foundation and u l uh entitled lithium ion batteries challenges for the fire service that event continues to provide important information for the fire service in addition the affiliate of nfpa our research affiliate the fire protection research foundation has conducted numerous studies to inform hazards protection and response on lithium ion batteries research and learnings must continue the public must be made aware of the potential hazards that these batteries present they must also understand how to use and maintain these devices safely and avoid those potentially deadly fires this can be done through educational campaigns as we've heard about and why distribution of safety information i commend the work of commissioner kavanaugh and fdny on their ongoing and very aggressive efforts to reach the public with these lifesaving messages nfpa and many other safety organizations that we've heard from have created tip sheets and other resources that provide that important safety information for public educators buildings and store owners the fire service electricians on the hazards of these batteries and that the actions to stay safe everyone plays a role in ensuring that this information gets into the hands of those who need it most a well informed public we know must act and take action for their own safety so thank you again nfpa stands ready to support the cpsc as you tackle this very important issue thank you and thanks to all of our panelists today uh we're going to turn now to questions from the commissioners 10 rounds each with multiple rounds is necessary and you know recognize my self to start and actually it's going to be more of a statement than than a question a lot of you are talking about the research you were doing a number of you were talking about specific products that you were doing research to and finding that there are problems with them i would urge you to share that information with the commission so if there are specific products that are out there that we can investigate as well and take action as appropriate um without mandatory standards we have to look at things in an individualized basis and knowing that there's a problem with something is the first key step in that which also goes to everybody else as well saverproducts.gov is out there to be available for people to let the consumer practice safety commission know about dangerous products that are in your home if you're having an issue with any device including an ebike scooter or anything that we're talking about please let us know so that we can do our job and investigate as well also available for you to take a look at what other people report on saverproducts.gov but the first step for us is finding out about these specific issues and then investigating so with that being said and that invitation being out there to all of you it sounded like that there were a the range of products that are out there vary from ones that seem to be built safely to ones that are built extremely poorly and i guess my question and it will be difficult to know who of all of you to pick from so maybe start with somebody and if other people have comments to be away and after that maybe Dr. Pereira are there easy ways to tell which are the safe products or versus the unsafe products when somebody is buying them? Great question i think not to most consumers from the outside in my experience with buying OEM and third party packs there's a lot being done to make the outside look very similar and opening them up is really where you start to get that additional information about whether they're safe or not but of course that that goes into some of the questions we have about tampering and being able to open it up where we don't necessarily want to tell everyone to go open up their batteries and make sure their welds look good or or something like that so overall i would say no it's not very obvious. Anyone else? I would say you know if you find that the the batteries for the cells are really very inexpensive and then they tout a value that is not practical and that is also something that people need to know the background on for instance an 18650 cell has maximum capacity of 3.3 amp hours but if you see five amp hours on it then you should know there's something wrong with it and also you know if you're going to get it online within like they say it's available immediately and they want to sell it to you then you've got to look out for that and that's what we have published a paper on that on on low quality what i would call low quality and counterfeit and we bought cells that were that said they were from an OEM and but we were able to buy it at one tenth the price it had the same capacity rating it had the same label it had everything that looked identical only when we carried out some of the early tests which were off nominal tests we found out that they did not have the safety features and after we after that we completed our testing opened up the cells and they didn't they were nowhere near what the other manufacturer the OEM was so some of those you know those destructive analysis may not be something that people can do but i think they can actually look at things like the like i said the capacity that has been in on the labels the ease which which you're getting at the the cost those are all things that i think people can watch out for and make sure that they're not doing buying it like that if the deal is too good to be true it's probably not a good deal for your safety side following up on that can you provide specific examples sounds like online is where you're seeing most of these lower quality i mean are there where are you finding them online are the specific places that you've bought sort sort of batteries and chargers and other things that you have found problematic i mean the site that we bought from was alibaba so we but we did that on purpose because in 2015 i actually was called in by a colleague to look at some of the cells that they had bought online and when i looked at it you know it it said 5 000 milliamp hours and you know when we opened it up we actually found that they had taken a youth cell and placed it inside another container and then put an external circuit board and then another label on it which said 5 000 and i knew the the bad they had bought it from so we went back to that same site to buy some of the same products as well as some of the others which said that they were from an OEM so that's you know that's a way to go in and get them and we have seen that there have been problems it's prayer you know just differentiating at the pack level versus the cell level we were buying at the pack level and pretty much just typed into google e-bike brand or model and then packs and then we would go to the websites that looked cheap and so in that case it tended to be a dhgate aliexpress and amazon were some of the sources that we we got them from but again yeah the labeling on the outside can be whatever they want it to be and it becomes even harder to analyze the cell the cell differences when it's all put together in a pack that's that's less likely to be opened up and looked at for further inspection Dr. Brett you seem to be nodding was there anything else that you wanted to add to them the only thing that I would be concerned about is that companies learn how to make money so even though it's cheaper as soon as you find that they can't sell the cheaper one they'll make it more expensive like there's 20 grades of Rolex counterfeit watches you want to pay $10 you want to pay $50 you want to pay a thousand dollars and I think the battery companies who are doing the counterfeiting and all this other stuff can address these issues once once the consumers understand what the problem is so I think we really need to get more to the source of the problem which is how do we stop these companies or how do we have the audits on these companies who are making these products well maybe a follow-up question on that to to when you did identify them from Alibaba or from DH8 and Amazon was there any outreach to those platforms and inform them of the problems and did they take any action when you if you did reach out to them and flag issues we didn't reach out to any of them but we I have actually talked to some of my colleagues in the OEMs OEM you know companies but what they said is that it's very difficult for them to go and take an illegal action on these people because first of all sometimes you can't find them or where they're manufacturing these things and the second thing is it's not worth the money to go after them there's some big companies some of the top 10 companies who've sent letters I know I know this because of litigation who sent letters to eBay and Amazon Alibaba Timu Taobao there's all these websites that and it's not only the websites it's it's warehouses as well and distributors so I think you you can't just say websites if I could add in this space seem like a simplistic solution consumers shouldn't have to worry about where the cell comes from consumers shouldn't have to worry about whether or not it's a counterfeit cell or a genuine cell and the easy way to do that is to purchase your products from reputable vendors you know I I could represent the the top that represent but I can speak for the top brands in this e-bike industry responsible e-bike manufacturers source cells from reputable pack manufacturers they specify the source of the cells and and they they integrate those cells into their products in a safe and reliable way the regulations for the high quality e-bike manufacturers are basically redundant because they're they're already doing this they're providing safe products that's what I alluded to in my in my statement so the the simplistic approach to consumers is buy from a reputable vendor buy from a brand name that you know do your research ask the ask the vendor for certifications to the safety standards that is a growing reality now primarily or thankfully through the efforts of of nbda as well as ul we're publishing lists of manufacturers who represent in cell certified product the follow-on to that then is always replace your battery pack with a genuine oe replacement pack that you've procured from the same source that you got the bike not only will you be certain that the pack is safe and reliable it will match the charger that you bought with the bike in the first place so that's not the cheapest solution by any stretch because you know these these brand name bikes are expensive but they're expensive for a reason they're well engineered they're well manufactured they're safe and reliable product and and again it's it's the old adage you get what you pay for you know buy a good bike and maintain it with help from the oe source of it yeah I know that at my time is out I would take a minute or a few seconds and say I agree with you which shouldn't be on the consumer it the consumer when they buy something should buy something that's safe certainly it's a retailers out there who are the you know the original manufacturers who are doing this and doing meeting the voluntary standards it's going above and beyond that that is the best but honestly I think some of the platforms as well or anybody any of the retailers are out there should be looking to sell things that are safe for their customers and it shouldn't be on their customers to question about until such time as these regulations are promulgated and enforced the old adage buyer beware has to be considered do your research and buy from a reputable source I'm out of time uh commissioner Feldman thank you mr chairman again thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today dr pack I want to start with you uh you ran through in your testimony a litany of examples of products that purport to comply with existing standards but nevertheless uh experience hazardous incidents can you speak to whether you believe that the existing standards including the two u l standards that we referenced in our December letter and that we've heard from a number of folks here today uh that that were being asked to adopt this mandatory um are sufficient and effective obviously performance standards uh don't protect against manufacturing defects we're talking a lot today about supply chain integrity issues and that's not something that the standard in itself can address at the heart of those issues but but is that what we're seeing effective standards but a breakdown in the supply chain in the manufacturing process or are the existing u l standards do they fall short I think the standards are are good and sort of what what the other gentlemen said if it's a good company they'll follow the standards I think these are in my personal opinion in my groups what we've been doing I think it's not really the chargers I think it's not really the bms I think it's it's the quality of the supply chain and it's at the cell level not really the pack level either so um maybe you could have a standard that says that if the moisture is not controlled and if you have a clean room environment then elite but those are all the things that cost money and make the good manufacturer as he was saying so maybe you could have a standard that says that and you audit the company but if you're not auditing the company then you're going to be in trouble okay and you you speak to this in in your the testimony that you submitted and presented as well that that a key part of this discussion is is monitoring and controlling the the supply chain and I agree supply chain integrity is a critical part of the discussion and and not only this but but any number of safety issues that we as a commission face and it's just at the at the forefront of so much of what we see day in and day out I've expressed a particular interest in the application of blockchain technologies to improve integrity and traceability of consumer products and also to assist us on the back end with forensic work and and for tracking products in the marketplace for recalls we've seen these technologies applied successfully in other areas including notably agriculture but I'm curious to hear your thoughts and thoughts of others on the panel about other approaches stakeholders might take or possibly are taking right now with with existing manufacturers that seem to have some semblance of control over their over their supply chains about what what works in terms of monitoring and control and what you recommend again speaking from from a basis of experience with with reliable vendors it's a very in-depth process associated with identifying and qualifying quality pack manufacturers understand there are several levels of of in the supply chain relative to an e-bike battery pack it has has been pointed out on numerous occasions you know the cell is the foundation you know an 186 650 cell looks like an overgrown AA cell the quality of that cell is paramount and I would agree that the primary cause of lithium ion batteries are a failure of a cell either due to a defect or an improper integration of that cell into a battery pack yeah and we've seen that with the 186 50 cells right that we know that that a particular hazard pattern that that manifests is it presents when consumers open up and separate an 186 50 pack into the individual cells and either refurbish or or use those in ways that they're not necessarily marketed and intended to when they're sold at the pack levels this question is for you dr jivarajan with respect to the 186 50 battery cells you know I'm curious what other options exist to address this particular hazard of breaking packs open and separating into the the the individual cell components I'm aware that certain jurisdictions have simply banned the use of 186 50s as standalone consumer batteries at the same time we as a commission could require a protective circuitry either to the battery packs themselves or or to the products that use the battery packs to make sure that they're being used as intended is you well currently looking at protective circuitry as an option to address the hazards associated with the 186 50s is that something that a standard is even feasible to address so the standard actually there are different standards one is at the cell level looking at you know certifying the cell and there's there are also standards at the battery pack level that look at the battery pack and then there are standards for different applications too depending on the application but what I would recommend having worked with lithium ion for more than 27 years now and you know in this I worked at NASA and I certified the first lithium ion battery that flew for human rated spaceflight I've seen 186 50s actually become a hazard because people try to remove them from battery packs and then they actually short-secure them because when you look at an 186 50 cell there are some safety features in the header area and the PDC is one of them and when you're trying to actually cut or remove the cell you could go across a positive and the negative which are right at the top and you can activate a PDC but the PDC resets itself and you never know that but when you put it in the in a next application that PDC activates at lower currents and lower temperatures and so you could ignite it and that's something that people do not understand so I would never recommend that you actually take a 186 50 cell that's already integrated into a battery and then try to reuse it or re reuse to build it into a different battery so that's something I would I would never recommend you could buy new 186 50 cells from a reputed manufacturer and then build up your battery but again you know going back to what I just said people need to understand how to build a battery they need to get certified there are opportunities to do that and actually know how to build a battery pack it's not just you know there are two ways one can create a hazard in an 186 50 cell any lithium ion for that matter one is of course the manufacturing you know quality that Dr. Peck talked about but the other one is also making sure that you design your batteries correctly and you use the relevant chargers because you could create an internal shot in the field because you did not design your batteries correctly with the relevant controls that need to be in place or with the relevant usage specifications that it needed to be used to or charged to so I think you know just to answer going back to that question I would not recommend rebuilding with the with a battery that has all that with cells that have already been in earlier packs okay but via the standardization process is is is there's something more that a voluntary standard organization like UL can do to make that consumer activity more difficult or to to to put safety prophylaxis in place and if the UL standard doesn't or can't do that is is that something that we as a commission might consider adopting as part of a mandatory standard there is a UL standard for reuse of you know batteries that I think it was written more for taking electric vehicle batteries and putting it into grid energy storage applications and so we go through and you know we've actually written three papers on aging and safety so we it goes through all the different tests that need to be carried out and if that is all done stringently then you could take you know modules and put it into newer battery packs because there are some really stringent tests that can be done to confirm that you know your batteries are safe to be used I think that would be you know a good standard to follow the UL 1974. Is there a technology that disables a battery pack if the cells are broken apart? The health of the battery can be under the did you say redone or battery that if you take a battery pack at the pack level and separated individual cells is there technology that's available to disable the individual cells I'm seeing some head shaking now right now no okay commissioner if I could speak to that yes sir one of the one of the things that people for bikes has been concerned about is the recent introduction of a lot of state level right to repair bills they ordinarily exclude electric motor vehicles but they don't often exclude electric bicycles scooters and mopeds these would require manufacturers to provide essentially all the information technical information used to design and service the product to consumers who lack the skills to do so this is a big concern for us the laws are certainly well intentioned to allow consumers to fix consumer products however we don't believe that electric bicycles and mobility products should be included on that list and it is a growing concern as my own home state of minnesota has just passed a bill that would do so and really would be inappropriate as we've heard today I appreciate that perspective I see that I'm over time thank you very much thank you commissioner commissioner trump just more you prevented me from guessing I was wondering if it was upstate new york or minnesota I always get the two accents confused I didn't know I had an accent until I came to thought it on just a couple of words so you know I we have a lot of expertise gathered before us I want to get the benefit of all that so I have a series of questions that I'll ask all of you to address some of the might require technical expertise I know that not everybody's an engineer feel free to pass if it is not something you would know and I've also tried to draft them in a way that would allow for concise answers because I want to cover a lot of ground so you know I know that there are certain conditions tracked in battery management systems to try to detect dangerous conditions before we have a problem voltage temperature etc you know can you say about one that I haven't heard discussed in that context but that we might want to be thinking about and that's the state of health which I think you started to mention at the at the end of the questions to Commissioner Feldman it was way down over time they get damaged and it's my understanding that can also pose a risk of thermal runaway so but what's state of health and maybe expressed as a percentage do we start getting worried about that is it a number that that each of you could offer we can start with Dr. Givarajan and and go through each of the the witnesses state of health is very it's not easy to define for lithium ion if you look at its age typically if you look at most battery chemistries we say at 20 capacity fade it's no longer to be used but with lithium ion because it can still function and it can still provide a lot of power we say that it can be reused in new applications as long as we go through all the testing and certification that's required for a second life when you look at state of health I think the BMS or the battery management system should actually recognize when there is an off nominal condition that the battery has been exposed to that that is something that can be incorporated and we do know and you know given going back to some of the work I've done before with the Boeing 787 investigation there was a signal that would actually come up on the display that said the battery was actually overdischarge but then it would stay on for some time and then it would disappear so unless the mechanic or the technician was actually looking at the screen while that message was going on they would never know that this particular battery had been overdischarge and the manufacturer had said anytime the battery was overdischarge never use it again so there are ways that you can actually tell if you know it had gone beyond its limits in terms of whether it's temperature whether it's voltages and so on that can reflect as a state of health another thing would be if you see really you have a wealth of knowledge and I can see it spilling over but if we're talking about current capacity over original capacity a simple definition I'm thinking of for the state of health you mentioned so 20 percent degradation so so 80 health might be a number to watch out for that really doesn't let's go down the line respect you say that's a no what do you say mr fact I don't think there's any value I mean people keep their cell phones for a long time they just charge it more often so you could I think Judy's actually saying that you can go down to 30 percent state of health it's still okay just don't over discharge yeah I would differ a little bit overall I agree but state of health at some point you're overworking the cells and cells that are overworked are more likely to deviate from each other and heat up at different rates and I think that non-uniformity in the pack is where it becomes a more significant issue but overall it's you know pretty standard I think 80 percent to 60 percent state of charge is kind of a common rule to follow but that the cell themselves degraded that much is actually safer because it has less capacity to release it's the non-uniformity of the cells and the overworking of those cells that becomes the issue so the 60 to 80 that you mentioned is for the entire pack uh yes okay well and individual cells individual cells okay I would defer to my colleague mr fritz here I believe he has an answer okay uh capable properly programmed battery management systems integrate a lot of intelligence and a lot of capability a state of heart a state of health I would agree with Dr. Judy basically relates to service life a battery management system can count the number of charged discharge cycles that a battery has gone through it can also identify and flag conditions under which that battery pack may have been improperly used or overcharged or over discharged a capable battery management system generally will render a battery pack unusable if one of the key parameters is violated for for example depth of discharge if if you completely drain your battery pack and let it sit for an extended period of time there is a certain amount of self-discharge in the system the battery pack powers the battery management system you can draw the cells down to a point beyond which they become dangerous and under those circumstances a capable bad battery management system will turn it off it will not be able to take a charge it will not be able to be used again it essentially needs to be recycled so there is that capability and I think maybe the the issue that you're pursuing here is how does the user know that or how and and there guess my next question there are technologies that are integrated into battery management systems that do communicate those conditions um in my experience with battery management systems several years ago you needed to open the pack and connect to a data port on the battery management system and download that experience to a personal computer then you could go in and actually look at all of the service experience that that battery pack is realized um you can look at the flags you can you can check the error flags to see whether or not there was a condition at any point that threatened the health of the battery if you will um a lot of the more sophisticated bikes now are integrating communications between components primarily via a technology called CAN bus CAN stands for controller area network that's what controls the electrical system in your car we're bringing it to e-bikes CAN bus allows the battery management system to communicate with the battery charger Dr. Judy was talking about that handshake that you know whereby the the battery management system looks at the charger and says okay you're compatible I'll accept the charge from you but it also has the ability to communicate error flags to the display which will tell you that's that's ongoing there there have been technologies around for years now that actually integrates a modem on the battery management system that can communicate with your cell phone that communicates then with the battery manufacturer to identify the health of that battery and whether or not there's any hazardous conditions developing so to answer your question the technologies exist they're they're in the process of being implemented but again it costs money and and if you're if you're trying to target a user group that can't afford these technologies you overlook them we were talking earlier about temperature sensing capability and I I need to be rude I'm so sorry Dr. Carly can we give you a chance on this okay well so you know maybe I was naive to think I had crafted a question that lent itself to a quick answer but I think we should answer that question if we think there's a concern there and there should be an exact percentage that we require as we think through this for battery management systems if this is an issue for thermal runaway so I'd like us to think about how to answer that and let me flip this one a little bit differently then you raise this should consumers be able to know this does anybody think consumers should not be able to know this please so we all think consumers should have some ability to learn this information to draw the analogy to cars you know when you get that check engine light you know there's a problem you want to get it diagnosed we need something comparable does anybody disagree with that concept that we should have something comparable there this is tremendous progress I like that idea so okay Dr. Rajan CPSC asked UL in February to examine how to make battery packs more tamper resistant what options are there to make it hard to open batteries and to make it obvious if a battery is tampered with I do have to say that I'm not part of that part of UL UL is three organizations when I take maybe Rob Sloan will answer that question in the in the app known but I think if you look at some of the high quality OEMs they actually have a sealed device and so it's very difficult to open up your device put your new battery pack in and close it back up again and have it work again the handshake you know needs to happen so I think if you go with the high quality OEMs it's not easy to tamper with them and I would recommend the same they're usually ultrasonically welded so it's not like you can open it up and you know stick it back in so I would recommend that similar practices be used okay and let me ask one question on that does does everyone agree that battery packs and you alluded to this Mr. Moore should be inaccessible to the average consumer is there any disagreement on that I believe so however Europe has taken the opposite approach and are now requiring that cell that battery packs for mobility devices have cells that are replaceable at the cell level it's very interesting they also have I believe it's a criminal statute that that prohibits tampering with with with e-bikes to increase their their speed capability okay I am noticing my time is up thank you all for the information thank you mr. commissioner wall thank you mr. chair and thank you to all the panelists I really appreciate your testimony and I feel like I have learned a lot just to follow up a little bit mr. Moore on your response to commissioner trump can you just elaborate a little bit more on what the EU you did you say it was the EU standard I'm sorry yes the the European Union has a pending regulations not yet in enforce but it is a sustainability approach to e-mobility and to kind of solve this problem of the expense of a replacement battery because e-bikes are so prevalent there and and and used in daily life by many people for transportation they have decided that they need to take up kind of a entire product life cycle circular economy approach to e-bike batteries so that a user or a you know qualified repair shop would be able to take your battery replace all the cells and and return it to you or evaluate for cells that need or bad cells that need replacement within the battery perform required certification functions and then return that battery to use but did I understand you to say but because it's accessible to the repair shops it will be equally accessible to consumers or a lot more accessible it it it's difficult to it would be difficult for a manufacturer selling in both markets to make it both very hard yeah to open and and capable of being opened without having to replace the case and essentially you're replacing the entire battery at that point thank you I'm going to stick with you and Mr. Fritz I think both of you have talked about how you believe there's compliance and and the I think you said reputable companies are are doing the right thing can you each speak to what if to the extent you know what the level of compliance is within the industry to the voluntary standards given that the mandatory or the standards are mandatory now in the in the city of New York the companies that I work for in our aware of are working very hard now to analyze their products to see where they fit in that spectrum associated with the standard itself my statement earlier was not necessarily that they currently comply my statement implied that they manufacture a good product and now we're at a point where we've got a standard let's look at our good product in comparison to that standard to make sure that we're hitting all the check boxes we are as I say through the nbda starting to publish a database of companies that do have compliance with the relevant standards companies are working as we speak to ensure that their products will comply so the higher end of the industry and I apologize if I seem to be a little bit discriminatory here but but good products have been good products and will be better products once they're compliant with the standards because that'll make sure that we're hitting all of the checkpoints I guess that how do we know it's a good product then if we don't know it complies the the reputation of the company if you will for the time being because you know the companies that we represent embrace their responsibility to provide good high quality safe products to our consumers and I would say that many such manufacturers are already marking their product you know with the appropriate certifications test lab the UL mark were appropriate so that the consumers can see that on the product already I would say that as as we discussed with staff in January there are multiple standards and I understand that the commission has indicated its preference for UL 2049 for electric bicycles many manufacturers were voluntarily manufacturing to the european standard EN 15194 or 4210 part 10 which is a technical specification not a not a standard yet but looking for the the highest standard out there available and and designing and manufacturing and testing their product to that standard to ensure that's as safe as possible so many of those products are perfectly safe and then a process of being also tested and and conforming to UL 2049 as the commission has directed so just to clarify I'm not sure I got a complete answer on if there's a sense of what the level of compliance is right now we have not done a survey and asked members to indicate whether they're compliant with UL 208 49 or not but our sense from speaking with them is that they're they're well aware of the expectation and striving to meet as quickly as possible I think my colleague Jeff Jamboa can speak with how long it takes to achieve UL 208 49 certification using the very stringent processes and requirements of that standard and but you're not ready to speak to that I don't have a percentage okay I'm sorry commissioner looks like you want to I can just us as a snapshot we looked at five popular us oems only two had standards but I would agree that probably the pack that had the most safety features in our opinion didn't have any standards and it's likely that they're working on incorporating those and so right now I would argue that it might be a low lower level at this time but it's definitely being addressed and is that because of testing costs that there's you know there's work being done but the testing actually doesn't happen is that as I referenced the European standard because it is a global market for many manufacturers and there was a greater requirement or expectation in Europe they they chose the EN 15194 standard to design their products to and as of December you know the airplane catch up to also meet that standard you know with a standard you really need to design your product from the get-go to meet that standard to satisfy all of the tests the processes the the quality control checks that are performed by the certifying laboratory so you can't even though you have a very safe product you can't go in and say you know and get your test report in a week it can sometimes take months or years to work through that and make changes needed to meet the especially if we have a lot of a lot of SKUs or a lot of specific products in your in your portfolio because every system needs to be certified as a system specific to that particular model so if you've got five or 10 or 15 different e-bikes in your in your stable everyone needs to be tested and certified so cost is an issue I don't know that it's considering the the ramifications of a failure if the cost is really relevant at this point because we need to make safe product but it does certainly consume a lot of time to go through that process okay thank you both let's see Dr. Yajiva Rajan I want to say that when I was looking at your background I was really impressed about your I read about your background at NASA and how seriously you took your responsibility in relation to batteries at that time and I hope you don't mind but I am going to read a quote from you that I think the spirit of which should guide a lot of our discussion and you were are quoted as saying these batteries were being flown in space for a human rated environment in a confined space I took it very seriously because there were lives at stake for the crew members it was a high risk situation if there was a fire and as a team of scientists behind it we had to ensure that safety was our top priority hence we never took shortcuts did the hard work and did everything in our capacity to reduce any risk whatsoever so I think those words apply equally today and given your history and background on these issues I wonder if you could explain a little bit more than you have to accept as we're looking at developing standards how we can anticipate issues so that we're not in the situation as Commissioner Kavanaugh said in a year or two down the road dealing with evolving issues that we haven't anticipated today so I'll ask you to look at your crystal ball a little bit and see if you can shed some light on that. Sure as you know as leading the institute on electrochemical safety research our goal is to advance a final distorted through science so currently we of course we do a lot of work on lithium ion fire and fire suppression that's been one of the areas of interest for us but we also anticipate you know like you said we anticipate what's coming so one of the areas we're working in as hydrogen as a fuel and so we're looking at you know how to safely generate and store transport as well as use hydrogen as a fuel especially in vehicles or other applications so it is you know just with all the experience we have in what we've done before we just look at industry and that's one of the things we did when we looked at aging and safety like I said we published a lot of papers and all of that went into writing the UL 1974 as a standard so we work very closely with the standards organization to make sure our data gets transferred to them we've done recent work on flow battery safety and we transferred that information and that information is going to the UL 9540A and the UL 9540 so our research is very oriented towards making you know everything safer and of course the standards is one way that we can get it implemented I also chaired the IEC subcommittee for battery standards and we have about eight working groups there and we do the same thing that we make sure that we update our standards as we learn and the proposal to look at the quality of cells was one of the things that I had proposed a couple of years ago it's it's very difficult to introduce you know new requirements and standards mainly because you have a committee or a group working group that consists of all sectors from the manufacturers all the way to you know people who are selling them so it's very difficult like you know we talked about it is expensive to do a lot of the tests so we have to weigh and make sure that we have some good rationale for bringing in new requirements and standards but I think we made a lot of progress about of the seven proposals I provided five of them were actually incorporated and we are getting a new standard out sometime soon this year with IEC 6213-2 so I think you know our goal is to help the standards organization with our science and we will continue to do that by forecasting. Well thank you very much I appreciate it and thank you again to the whole panel thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you and I have a request for another round of questions so we're gonna start again and I'll I'll start with just a hopefully a simple one I mean obviously we're focusing a lot and this is a little bit follow-up on the question that the U.S. Commissioner Boyle focus a lot on on e-bikes because we're seeing fires related to them scooters but obviously doctors are just talking the this is a larger issue with lithium ion batteries I'm just wondering from your perspective are there other products on the horizon that we should be particularly conscious of or is the sort of e-bikes scooters unique because of certain of the market the price point and other things along those lines but start with you but maybe talk to the rest of the panelists too what should be thinking about next I think any consumer device you know has high risk if it's not built correctly it can it could be just a single cell battery pack as Dr. Peck you know mentioned the Samsung Note 7 they were you know they recalled it and a lot of manufacturers do that but sometimes they do it after two years because they really haven't tested their product before it gets into the market and so what I would also recommend is that you know that that type of testing at a lot every lot level should be done really quickly and and you know if anything you know is seen as a flag that product should be removed so I would say to answer your question I think every battery product that would take a lithium battery type battery should be people should be aware of the risks and the manufacturers and the integrator should be aware of that and make sure that they take all of that into account by using string and string and testing and certifications thank you to anybody else on the way in um yes I I think I alluded to my testimony to two products that are in the e-mobility space that resemble e-bikes but don't fit within the definition of a low-speed electric bicycle either because of their their power motor power or speed capability um and so a regulation that created a new standard specifically for e-bikes as is under consideration by the commission wouldn't necessarily apply to those devices and I think some manufacturers as they apparently want to do are uh but specifically designing their their products to not be e-bikes but to be something else perhaps an off-road product that looks like an e-bike um and sold as an e-bike but is not under that definition and technically the a new regulation wouldn't apply to that product it would be essentially unregulated unless there were a overarching battery safety standard that that would be applicable similarly we've seen you know e-bike like products that don't have pedals they aren't they aren't low-speed electric bicycles they're I guess low-speed motorcycles and the question is you know who regulates that and and what standards should apply to those and and as we've heard the bad there needs to be a battery standard for those products no matter how many wheels they have or what their capabilities are if they're consumer products thank you go ahead I was just going to comment that in in particular any small battery packs where the cost margins don't justify having a good battery management system like a large electric vehicle they certainly have really good battery management systems those are particularly at risk right now as I think there's a lot of safety technologies being left on the table with those small margin packs I would say I would just add just from a bigger picture viewpoint the rate of innovation and new product development has increased significantly and so how do we look at that from the standpoint of we love those innovations that help power all of these new things in our lives but how do we make sure that safety is going alongside of that and we're anticipating what those risks and challenges are so that we can not impede innovation but do it in a way that protects people and property thank you thank all of you Mr. Bellman did you have additional questions I do we were talking a little bit in the last round about the the difference of experience in the United States versus versus the EU and elsewhere and I'm just I want to push on that a little bit more you know what can we learn from EU's adoption of a battery standards here we know that that it's very specific with respect to the requirements for individual cells that there was mentioned earlier of you know criminal penalties that are on the books you know the simple fact that Europe has a mandatory standard in place while we don't are there significant differences in the safety outcomes in that market with European consumers versus American consumers and are there differences in the marketplace are Europeans in a position where they're still able to reap the benefits of a healthy market and all the attendant benefits of the adoption of the use of e-mobility solutions and everything that that that comes along with that I would take it over to you Mr. Mark so the European standard has been in place since 2009 so much longer a period of time that it's been in place he's cycling is really core to the European transportation experience there are probably 10 times as many e-bikes sold in Europe 10 million a year or so a large number of e-bikes are also made in the European Union which enables you know higher quality manufacturing and greater scrutiny by government regulators I will say that Europe continues to use self-certification by manufacturers the European Union sets the standard the expectation manufacturers are expected to test and certify to that to that standard and label the products appropriately we heard reference to outbreak of fires in London and my understanding from media reports is that those are largely related to conversion kits that are coming into the UK that conversion kit is a battery a motor usually a rear hub motor and a controller that can be essentially bolted on to a conventional bicycle to turn it into an e-bike that is something that any future regulations should definitely address again by way of the battery standard especially because as it's not a complete e-bike it could find itself excluded from a bike a regulation directed at electric bicycles okay does anybody else have anything that they'd like to add um attendant to that I'm curious whether somebody can crosswalk for our benefit the EU standard versus what we're currently seeing out of out of UL are there differences between what's currently in place and what's voluntary in place in the United States and would there be conflicts should we move to adopt the UL standards as mandatory standards that that is also a great question for Jeff Gembois and the CAFs panel we'll get into really expert on that and and my understanding there's about a 85 percent overlap some of the same standards are used in both the approach is very similar but there are slight differences okay I appreciate that I'd like to make a comment on that I think there's a difference between regulations and voluntary standards and in in Europe it's usually a regulation and people take it seriously because otherwise they get a penalty so I think that's you know when it when it comes to voluntary standards it's not required so only people who want to do the best they do do what they can but since it's voluntary there's no need or there's no requirement or regulation for them to follow it I appreciate that perspective thank you very much thank you Commissioner Commissioner Tromka thank you um also appreciate that perspective coming from a voluntary standards group the value we can bring with with a mandatory standard so Dr. Pereira you mentioned cell balancing earlier on in your testimony and explain why that is important for safety is that something that's currently required to be addressed under the UL standard under the 28 49 and 22 71 and 72 I didn't see it addressed specifically they did cite some other standards for BMS certification and those might have addressed by I didn't see it directed directly addressed in the UL standard I've got trouble untangling all the related standards too but but would you agree that it would be a good idea to be included if it is not I think they have really good guidelines for a lot of the BMS functions and and having making sure cell balancing is accounted for both passive and active balancing capabilities would be a good opportunity for growth Mr. Moore you've indicated that there may be up to 400 foreign importers doing to direct a consumer fulfillment through online orders because of the improperly high $800 de minimis level for imports I very much hope you succeed in fixing that with Congress but in the meantime if you haven't already shared it with us with our staff can you please send us the information you have on those 400 companies I'd be happy to follow up on that with you all right thank you and Mr. Fritz you mentioned well studied failures on high quality battery packs that have been closely analyzed and if there's data analysis on that point that that you have that you haven't already shared can you also share that with our staff please certainly okay thank you last question here you know right now I understand the best advice we seem to be giving folks in certain situations is to not charge batteries overnight actively watch them while they're charging I get why we're saying that but I really hate that it's come to that because it's not realistic certainly not in the long term and I don't believe we ask consumers to do that with any other product or that we should ask consumers to do that with any other product I don't think they are so I want to solve the problem I think we all want to solve the problem that would take away that kind of burden and it's my understanding that that might not be necessary with a properly functioning battery system that's compliant with the UL standards we've been talking about that the battery you know the battery would have a shut off if it's working right the the BMS would shut the battery off in an overcharged situation if it's working with the charger that it came with but under the UL standard and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this I don't see a requirement that the chargers are also required to have a shut off safety shut off for overcharging so that if you use the chargers that that are interchangeable with other systems together you might have a non-compliant or refurbished battery and a charger that doesn't have a shut off so neither would have a safety shut off for an overcharged situation and I've heard folks talk about you know limiting interchangeability of batteries and chargers but but I'm curious if there could also be value in shut off requirements for both the battery and the charger to have a redundancy to take care of that situation I mean can anybody speak to whether there would be value in that as well yes certainly we you know talk about batteries being independently fault tolerant and so they should not be depending on the charger to provide that protection and it goes to what he said about having your over voltage over under voltage over temperature high current all those you know we have cutoffs in the high quality battery but going back to the charger the charger can also should also have the sensing capability to know when a particular battery you know is really not healthy so if it can if the handshake happens then it can actually know if that battery had been over discharged and then it will never charge that battery again so that kind of logic is usually built in with some of the high quality manufacturers and I think if everybody was able to do that then I think that would be that would provide an additional step towards safety and reducing the risk I would comment that I think it would help mitigate problems when you do have DIYers tampering with their own battery maybe having if they bought the OEM bike and charger and full system and just swapped out the battery the charger might help save any flaws that they might have introduced into their DIY replacements or things like that so I think it would help yeah anyone else want to weigh in on that any redundancies that we can build into the system are beneficial right thank you all so much I don't have any more questions but I do appreciate you sharing your expertise with us thank you commissioner commissioner wall thank you mr chair I don't have any more questions just thank you again to the panel I do really appreciate it so thanks to everybody on the panel again at this point in time can excuse this panel and we're going to take a break and let's say resume at 120 thank you welcome back everyone welcome to our final panel of the day we have with us Robert Sloan who's senior vice president chief scientist for ul solutions have michael becker manager technology specialist engineering storage for csa csa group jeff chamois electrical compliance engineer for trek bicycle george kirchner executive director for prba the rechargeable battery association brandon martin vice president of battery and electronic products and industry affairs for outdoor power equipment institute heather mason president of the national bike dealers association and gave night safety policy analysts for consumer reports so thank you all for being here and mr slone why don't we start with you hi good afternoon my name is robert slone i'm chief scientist for ul solutions thank you for the opportunity to be on this panel today i want to cover why lithium-based battery powered e-mobility products present a fire and electrical hazard and how these hazards can be mitigated with adherence to both battery and end product safety standards of the many products powered by lithium-based batteries hoverboards provide a helpful case study of how product safety standards and certification can mitigate product hazards even for emerging products hoverboards were a popular item over the 2015 holiday season but soon became a safety crisis as a number of these devices failed catastrophically when this crisis emerged ul solutions technical experts analyzed these devices to understand their failure modes looked at the safety of the full system their findings helped lead to the first draft of ul 2272 the standard for the safety of electrical systems for personal e-mobility devices ul 2272 takes a systems approach to the potential fire and electrical hazards within the device the standard covers requirements for the design and construction of the device including requirements for the device materials components and batteries as well as the electrical mechanical and environmental testing the devices must pass to demonstrate that use where and misuse scenarios will not result in a fire or electrical shock hazard for the battery ul 2272 requires certified batteries designed and tested for the device it is powering ul 2849 the standard for electrical systems for e-bikes published in 2020 also takes a systems approach covering the electrical system for e-bikes powered by a lithium-based rechargeable battery including both electric power pedal assist and non-pedal assist types of bikes the systems approach is critical no matter what the battery is powering because the fault that causes the product to fail could be anywhere in the electrical system for example the equipment could have high quality battery cells but those cells could be improperly balanced or controlled by a poorly designed battery management system the battery pack could itself be perfectly fine but mismatched with an aftermarket charger not designed to operate with that specific battery pack this mismatch itself can cause a thermal runaway and fire or quality wiring between the battery pack and the motor or battery management system could also lead to thermal runaway in the lithium ion cells there are many possible scenarios and the equipment design must account for the hazards of each component and their assemblage together as an electrical system to reduce the risk of fire and electric shock in order for ul 2272 ul 2849 and the dozens of other battery and product safety standards to benefit consumer safety products must comply with these standards actions from the cpsc new york city and others are helping to improve the safety of the marketplace still evidence suggests that without stricter oversight the likelihood of non-conforming products on the market will remain high the safety risk of non-conformance increases with batteries that are uncertified or that are being used in end products for which they were never designed applications that involve motion or are worn near the body deserve more scrutiny as they are more subject to wear vibration and environmental stress batteries being used in products or chargers for which they were not designed and uncertified poorly manufactured batteries used as replacement batteries also present a danger to consumers both oems and non oems can offer certified battery packs that are specifically designed as replacement batteries for a given certified end product is incumbent on manufacturers retailers and dealers as well as the product safety community to educate consumers on the necessity of using compatible batteries and chargers with their equipment while the commission's focus today is on the batteries and the products they power this ecosystem now also includes containment products and infrastructure like charging cabinets and charging stations all of these products should comply with safety standards or they risk providing a false sense of safety to consumers i thank the commission for the opportunity to speak with you and look forward to any questions thank you thank you mr beggar thank you chair and commissioners micro mobility vehicles have surged in popularity over the last couple of years and continue to do so these vehicles can include devices such as e-bikes like we've talked about electric kick scooters and other powered mobility devices according to market research the global micro mobility industry is projected to grow 12 and a half percent between 2022 and 2027 however as we've seen along with the increase of consumer micro micro mobility devices comes an increase of risk of fires due to these battery failures although we've seen battery failures in new york city micro mobility device fires continue to be a challenge in many parts of the world and especially in densely populated cities where many use these vehicles for transportation or employment new york city recently created legislation mandating that micro mobility devices and the batteries and chargers used in them be certified to recognize safety standards these recognize safety standards require that products sold and used for mobility purposes are designed and tested for safety and robustness to the hazards identified in the current edition of the standard today some batteries are not certified to these safety standards and in some cases are sourced from facilities lacking the required production quality or replaced with aftermarket new or used batteries that have not been tested and certified for the designated use consumer batteries and the products that use them may not be subject to the same enforcement of safety standards as larger batteries stationary battery energy storage systems such as those installed in residential or commercial applications are required to be inspected by local authorities having jurisdiction this includes electrical inspectors fire marshals and other code enforcement officials in contrast micro mobility devices can be sold to consumers on any platform that may not require them to be certified to safety standards although related product standards do exist such as csa ul and ic they are typically not mandatory unless referenced by an installation code or legislation csa group is a global leader in standards development testing inspection and certification as these innovative technologies emerge csa group collaborate with the global standards community as we've seen here to be part of the development of these by national standards such as 2849 2072 and 2071 however manufacturers may be concerned about the cost and timeline to submit their products for evaluation to these standards nationally recognized testing labs or nrtls have attempted to make markets more accessible through various initiatives the three standards listed above are by national which allows products evaluated them access both to the us and canadian markets these batteries also use components such as individual lithium ion cells that also need to be certified to recognize safety standards through osha's nrtl program these components can be accepted by all nrtls even if they were certified by another nrtl eliminating the need to repeat work these types of provisions can help to reduce cost to manufacturers to certify their product 2049 and 2072 are standards that cover the electrical system of powered mobility devices the testing in these standards can help manufacturers understand the device's reaction to abuse conditions before they're introduced into the market 2071 and 2580 also require normal and abuse testing to be done on the battery to simulate real world use conditions this type of testing could include overcharge short circuit over discharge temperature vibration testing drop testing and more both 2072 and 2580 also require a robust safety circuits design commonly referred to as the battery management system or bms the bms monitors the state of the battery including voltage current and temperature if any of those conditions go outside of normal operating limits the bms can terminate charging or or discharging one standard relating specifically to the bms is csa and c 22.2 number 340 this new standard evaluates the bms's ability to perform its safety functions reliably the bms needs to be designed in a way that it can be relied upon repeatedly to either perform its safety functions or fail safely but not allow unsafe operation of the battery pack in summary csa group as a global leader in product safety works close with manufacturers to ensure the products they produce are certified and tested to recognize safety standards however consistently deploying and requiring certification at the local state or even federal level can help to establish a minimum level of safety for all micro mobility devices in the industry thank you mr shambhal first i'd just like to thank the consumer product safety commission for the chance to speak on this subject today as an electrical compliance engineer at trek bicycle my job focuses on safety standards and regulations and their application to e-bikes around the world so it goes without saying that i'm passionate about e-bike safety i'll start today by outlining treks experience with e-bike technology what we have learned and my recommendations based on each of these lessons trek developed its first e-bike in the late 90s so trek has had decades of experience in this area i believe the development of lithium ion and battery technology was a catalyst for the global e-bike boom we're experiencing today and this is also when treks involvement in e-bikes really started to grow over the next decade decade track is shipped over a million units globally and we have sold e-bikes in over 50 countries around the world e-bike growth in the various markets around the world led to the development of minimum safety standards for example china's gb 17661 standard in 1999 en 15194 in 2009 you'll 2049 in 2008 and most recently iso 4210 part 10 which was published in 2020 throughout all of this trek has participated in the development works closely monitored each one of these standards and we continue to participate in these standards committees today and this leads me to our first lesson learned minimum safety standards work they promote safety and they promote growth in the market based on our observations markets that require certification to minimum safety standards have seen far fewer issues with fires and general battery safety with with e-bikes requiring minimum safety standards also improves consumer confidence and regular regulatory consistency which promotes continued growth in a market and so based on this lesson we recommend that cpsc require that e-bikes batteries and their chargers meet certain safety standards specifically we suggest mandating the requirements from you'll 2049 clauses 11.1 and 11.2 for the battery safety and also clause 23 for battery charger safety the battery and charger present the most risk in an e-bike system especially when considering fire risks so this this course of action immediately addresses the core risks of these products also these requirements align with the requirements being used by other markets and industries that have been shown to be effective of course standards only work when they're uniformly applied across an industry and so our next lesson learned is that we need to ensure consistent application of these standards standards are only effective if they're applicable to all the players in the market as such we need to address two major loopholes currently impacting the application of these standards and that's de minimis import exemptions as well as product scope issues and so this is our second recommendation that these standards should be applied equally across the whole industry and this can most effectively be done by either testing with an accredited laboratory and self-certification or certification by an accredited laboratory we also need the cpsc's help to remove immobility products and batteries from the de minimis import rules and to push other agencies to enact similar rules for the products which they like which look like e-bikes but do not fit the definition or the scope of cpsc 15 12.2 and are instead light electric vehicles products covered by these two education's exhibit an equal and often a higher risk to consumers and so failing to capture these products and standards requirements is likely to lead to disappointing results overall. Finally I would just like to touch on a couple other quick points there's a lot of detail and nuance that could be not be addressed in the five minutes I had to talk today I am more than open to discuss this further so please don't hesitate to reach out with further questions and discussions. Our position on the fair repair and refurbishment should be that only that should only be taken on by the OEM lithium batteries are far too complex for the average consumer or even the average repair shop to take on there's cell balancing there's BMS programming there's a whole plethora of technical details that need to be addressed. Finally we echo a lot of the discussion thus far between battery and charger pairing although we don't think that the battery and the charger need to necessarily be paired together that's a function of design but we do believe that the battery and the charger should be able to talk to charge efficiently to have redundant safety features involved but one of the things we look at in the future is cars, e-bikes are going to be very similar they're going to have to be charged on the street New York wants to put in charging stations and things like that will need batteries that can be charged by multiple different chargers not just the one that's sold with it so I think it's going to be really important to navigate this carefully. So in conclusion we believe that the consistent application of safety standards to batteries and chargers across the whole industry are the most important and impactful steps that can be taken to address the primary risk associated with e-bikes getting this right now will enable the entire industry to continue to grow into what we believe will be a large and important part of our future transportation while protecting our consumers from the primary risks currently being attributed to e-bikes thank you. Thank you Mr. Kersher. Good afternoon I'm George Kersher I'm the executive director of PRBA PRBA was established in 1991 and has for the past 32 years addressed the regulatory policy and legislative issues on the safe manufacturing transport recycling and storage of rechargeable batteries at the local state national and international level PRBA members manufacture approximately 55 percent of the lithium ion cells produced in the world today our members also include leading manufacturers of cellular phones notebooks power tools outdoor power equipment medical devices electrical vehicles e-bikes stationary energy storage systems as well as battery recyclers retailers testing labs and packaging manufacturers lithium ion batteries are an unprecedented success story the batteries have absolutely transformed our lives over the last 100 years or has transported our lives over the last 30 years and more than any other battery chemistry over the last 100 years over the past 32 years we have seen lithium ion batteries replace older rechargeable and non rechargeable battery technologies and consumer and industrial applications for the past 12 years PRBA has tracked the import and export of lithium ion batteries and many lithium ion battery powered products to and from the united states using your u.s. bureau of the census trade data in 2022 our compilation of data shows that approximately 281 billion dollars worth of lithium ion batteries and lithium ion battery products were safely imported into the united states by all modes of transport that 281 billion dollars for their products uh included almost 1.2 billion individual products and batteries many of the lithium ion batteries and battery powered products in the marketplace are tested to voluntary safety standards which protect against the unique hazards posed by lithium batteries most of these safety standards do not simply require testing of the battery but rather testing of the entire system associated with the battery which includes the charger and the equipment this systems level safety approach is used for products like cellular phones notebooks tablets power tools and outdoor power equipment is our position that the safety standards provide the necessary safeguards for consumers we recognize however the unique situation now facing cpsc with micro mobility devices that may require regulatory action we worked on micro mobility safety legislation this year in the state of new york and anticipate working further with the legislators when they reconvene next year it is important to recognize however that the 2024 international fire code that will soon begin taking effect in many states includes provisions for safety testing and charging of micro mobility devices there is precedent therefore for regulating micro mobility devices should cpsc ultimately decide to take regulatory action on micro mobility devices we request that you consider the application of the ANSI ul 2854 2849 as a mandatory safety standard for electrical system mobile bikes this is a system level certification standard and many accredited labs are authorized to test to this standard we have learned over the last 32 years consumers do not fully appreciate or understand the hazards associated with lithium ion batteries especially when it comes to repairing a product containing a lithium ion battery or the implications of modifying the design of lithium ion batteries we know that such repairs can compromise the safety components in the battery and equipment and cause a thermal event this is the primary reason we have often opposed a right to repair legislation at the state level over the last five years we believe the most effective way to address the lack of consumer awareness and significantly reduce the risk to consumers is with a comprehensive federal state and local consumer outreach and education program on lithium ion batteries supported by multiple federal and state agency and the industry the good news is the environmental protection agency and the department of transportation are also focused on lithium ion battery safety and educating consumers as well as airline passengers in addition every state that has stopped a portable battery collection and recycling legislation over the past four years require battery stewardship organizations to establish a comprehensive consumer outreach and education program on how to save the recycled portable batteries thank you for the opportunity to participate in the hearing today we look forward to working with the agency on these important issues thank you thank you mr. Martin 56 percent in 2022 electric outdoor power equipment shipments represented 56 percent of all shipments within lawn and garden product categories by volume in comparison new electric car sales in 2022 were much less than the total market according to the leading EV industry market reports outdoor power equipment institute was established in 1952 and today is an international trade association representing more than 100 manufacturers of lawn and garden equipment of gas electric and battery power we're also represent small engines golf cars utility vehicles as well as their suppliers opi members represent approximately 90 percent of the us lawn and garden equipment shipments annually so thank you for inviting opi and myself as we appreciate this opportunity for dialogue about existing voluntary standards and regulations opi agrees with its success seen in but voluntary standards as highlighted in cpsc letter to supply chains of consumer operated micro mobility devices which was urging compliance and applicable consensus voluntary standards or safety standards compliance with voluntary safety standards in the electric outdoor power equipment market can serve as a model for success for emerging lithium battery powered equipment opi has been developing outdoor power equipment voluntary safety standards for more than 70 years as an antsy accredited standards developing organization opi facilitates the development voluntary safety standards for more than 20 categories of outdoor power equipment opi also serves as the us technical advisory group administrator to the international organization of standardization and is a member of the us tag to the international electric electrical technical committee or ic which develops international standards for electric powered lawn and garden machinery opi and our members are committed to product safety and digitally working towards continuous improvements every day with our standards battery powered outdoor power equipment has a long and well established history advancement and battery and charging technologies have resulted in significant growth over the past decade and a half the successful story of the industry's electrification is due in large part to the all-encompassing and wildly adopted voluntary safety standards and product certification schemes the all-encompassing six to eight four one series of electric product standards are holistic in design and product scope by establishing requirements for the complete interoperable system that includes the product the battery and the charging system all tested together so as an example manufacturer designs a blower a tremor a mower a chainsaw they all test those batteries to those products and to the chargers that come with that and they all work together for safety in the us lithium batteries are also subject to transportation regulations by the us department of transportation which also establishes safety protocols under the dot's hazardous materials regulations all lithium ion batteries transported in commerce must be a type that has been proven to pass safety tests under the un manual of tests and criteria selection 38.3 these tests address a variety of potential adverse conditions that demonstrate compliance with the requirements and opi members comply with this test however detachable counterfeit and non oem the oem lithium ion batteries that do not comply with voluntary standard safety standards and do not comply with un 38.3 create challenges within our landscape this is a priority concern for our industry promoting general awareness safety is a key initiative at opi and similar industry associations where we dedicate resources to improve consumer battery awareness and actively participate awareness campaigns such as the be safe by real campaign which is a global campaign designed to raise awareness among the general public about the health and safety risk associated with counterfeit and non oem lithium ion batteries interagency collaboration with the pipeline hazardous materials safety administration in their federal visor committee the lithium battery air safety advisory committee the epa department of transportation or even state governments as my colleague george mentioned in new york a collaboration on consumer awareness and raising general safety concerns amongst the consumers is key as a potential response so we thank you for the opportunity to participate on this panel for lithium ion battery safety as opi welcomes cpsc dialogue on enhancing battery safety and addressing concerns regarding counterfeit and non oem lithium ion batteries thank you thank you miss mason i am pleased to come before you as the voice of the national bicycle dealers association representing specialty bicycle retailers across north america thank you the national bicycle dealers association formed in 1946 is the sole organization representing specialty bicycle retailers across north america we have over 700 retailer members representing more than 1000 retailer doors we also enjoy association membership from several bicycle brands advocacy organizations and other firms within the bicycle industry our membership represents all segments of the bicycle trade serving consumers of all ages my personal background in the industry is diverse and includes roles in both the retail and supply side of the bicycle industry i have had leading engagements advising both european companies and those based in the us on distribution of bicycle products and sell through to consumers my extensive retailer experience leads me to be an expert in the field of retail operations witnessing the incredible growth of e-bikes and what they've brought to our industry not to mention the benefit to riders this topic is of great interest to me and one that our organization advocates for the safety of the products that we sell along with the safety of our retailers is top priority the industry has been struggling as a whole to adopt safe policy and procedure to best protect consumers retailers and the workplace when it comes to usage storage and charging solutions with this our nonprofit organization has dedicated resource to this topic and have on retainer human powered solutions who heard from my colleague mike fritz earlier today to advise the mbda and industry on many issues associated with e-bikes additionally we work closely with several experts and advocacy organizations many in this room to advise our members we took a leading role and made a statement in july of 2022 to our members and the retailers and industry at large urging compliancy to ul 2849 we asked our retailers to only sell products that tested to ul 2849 i want to stress that the retailers in our organization our members are on board to reduce this risk and have taken measures and shown up to the educational opportunities we have made available and looking at safer past forward we envision a comprehensive solution and our proposed solution is three-folds it includes rulemaking for safer products as we spoke about today enforce standardized policy on shipping receiving storage maintaining charging selling and servicing of lithium ion batteries and finally the production promotion and availability of consumer focused educational materials regarding safer product there is currently no rule in place or safety standards that are specifically applied to e-bikes as defined by 16 cfr 1512 the mbda we therefore suggest the cpsc initiate rulemaking to at as you see best substantially emulate iso 421010 or en 15194 or enforce alternative that all products sold meets ul 2849 2nd we suggest standardized protocols policy and procedure as we know there are currently no rules in place for manufacturers distributors retailers or recycling centers around best practices for risk mitigation so therefore we suggest that the cpsc work with proper firms to initiate centralized protocols policy and procedure we would propose a relationship with people for bikes the bicycle industry supplier organization to ensure that suppliers and distributors certified products the safety standards previously mentioned we would like to see a formalized adopted policy around shipping and transportation of respective product for instance battery imports regardless of value should have documented safety and regulatory certifications in order to be imported additionally accepted safety information and materials indicating best practices on safe storage and handling should be supplied to every retailer strides could be made working with my organization the mbda to adopt a standardized policy for retailers in this we would address several areas that retailers only sell certified products that lithium ion batteries are kept in approved safe storage and charging cabinets that service technicians maintain certification mandatory on repair of devices and that training is provided on best handling finally that retailers have in store risk mitigations resources available the mbda we've already taken strides here with dedicated education and a web page for our retailers and retailers are taking part in this finally around consumer end product education there's no standardized widely accepted documents for consumers so therefore we suggest that steps are taken to initiate centralized adapted documents to be made available to consumers by every reseller supplier local municipality office and others dealing in the e-mobility space we could work with people for bikes this industry supplier organization to ensure that suppliers and manufacturers of e-bike devices are supplying those with a specific owner's manual that outlines the safe storage use and charging of said device the safety of the products we sell is of utmost importance and the mbda is happy to assist as called upon thank you this night thank you on behalf of consumer reports the independent non-profit non-partisan organization i welcome the opportunity to testify about lithium ion battery safety lithium i can you just pull a little closer to the mic sure can thanks sorry about that i've been told i'm loud so thank you i welcome the opportunity to testify about lithium ion battery safety lithium ion batteries are found in a wide variety of products that consumers use in their everyday lives from cell phones to watches to laptops to pacemakers and more people rely on these high power density batteries for their fast charging and long lasting properties lithium ion batteries are also essential to mobility including e-bikes and e-scooters devices consumers use for recreation commuting and their livelihood these batteries can also present serious risks when lithium ion batteries are poorly made overused overcharged or tampered with they can overheat and even explode and cause rapidly spreading fires that are difficult to extinguish as you know since just 2021 micromobile micromobility products using these batteries have been linked to hundreds of fires and over two dozen fatalities including multiple children and the number of incidents appears to keep rising consumers reports is glad to see this forum happening today because it is clear that the existing approach to lithium ion battery safety is not working while there are voluntary standards for e-bikes and other micromobility devices that use these batteries and some companies are doing things the right way too many manufacturers and sellers have failed to take these standards seriously in early december cr published an investigation into the surge of deadly fires taking place at the time we found that only 13 companies were certified to ul safety standard for e-bikes our investigation also found that lack of industry-wide acceptance for these standards may leave lower income individuals at a greater risk than those who are able to afford high-end devices that are currently more likely to be ul certified we were grateful in late december when the cpsc's director of compliance sent a letter to 2000 manufacturers importers and sellers of micromobility devices strongly urging recipients to immediately review their product line for compliance with relevant ul standards or face possible compliance or enforcement action hopefully this served as a wake-up call for those companies that were not putting safety first and ul is seeing an increase in certification for those companies that haven't taken action and continue to leave customers at risk it is vital for the cpsc to follow through on its warning and press for recalls of their hazardous products alerting the public as quickly as possible with the information they can use to stay safe to address this hazard further it is also important for the cpsc to issue binding safety standards indeed e-bikes and other micromobility products are more popular than ever they can be a useful cost effective and fun way to get around so it's all the more crucial for there to be strong binding standards to stop overheating and fires these standards could come about through independent cpsc action or through the passage of the bill sponsored by the lawmakers we heard from earlier which has garnered some bipartisan support and has been endorsed by cr as well as several others testifying today it is urgent for there to be mandatory safety standards governed by the cpsc in the absence of industry-wide compliance with ul standards and quick action to get hazardous products off of streets and out of people's homes it is foreseeable that people will continue to be injured and killed by these fires manufacturers and sellers that fail to be accountable for product safety should not be able to simply continue leaving people at risk without any recourse it's a federal standard applying across the marketplace that would allow consumers to trust that companies must design and build their products to be safe and that they will face real consequences if they do not thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of consumer reports and i look forward to any questions you might have thank you and thanks to everybody on the panel for coming and providing this information statements today i'm now going to move to questions from the commissioners um 10 minutes each multiple rounds necessary so i'm going to start with myself i think it's been an interesting day so some of the things that we've heard about are through the oem side of things we've heard about the products that people are buying on you know additional chargers replacement batteries things along those lines and the the difficulties those wanting to have interoperability for you know charging around the city things along those lines as well as the risks that bring so would be interested to know about how do we deal with this interoperability issue how do you make sure that the replacement battery is not bringing you know risk to your bicycle or that if you're using a different charger whether it's one that you buy separately or whether you're going to um a city charging station that it is safe and maybe i'll start with mr jen vaughn because you're in front of me but others should be able to weigh weigh in and think add to that as well i'd just start by saying that i i'm an evite compliance generalist so i don't i don't know the exact ins and outs of of how batteries and chargers are programmed to to directly communicate together each other i know i know a very generalized view of it but i do know that the ideal situation here i think is to really push all the safety back on the battery um i think dr judy also sort of brought that that point forward as well is that you know the battery should protect itself first and foremost i think that there can be redundancies within the charging system and i think canbus and other potential communication protocols can accomplish that you can also accomplish performance aspects in in fast charging um some batteries need to be charged quickly and then slowed down and trickle charged at the end um all that type of stuff can be i think tackled through communication between the battery and the charger but i don't think that the safety of one should depend on the other i think that's the trick um to be able to have interoperability and be able to to eventually have public charging stations and things like that um i believe the automotive industry is is kind of the pioneering group that's that's been working in that area and if we can emulate that that would be beneficial for us miss slender jay have any thoughts so um i do agree that uh some form of electronic handshake between the charger and battery pack will be helpful in addition though um there are standards and development right now that focus on the charging system itself so there's an effort understandably in new york city to move these chargers out of private residences and put them into if you will public infrastructure sort of places um that will also require some thought as to what those charging systems need to be how they can be compatible with a wider range of of e-bikes and any mobility systems the other thing i would point out is um in many industries uh it's a consortium approach where leading manufacturers get together and agree what the design uh criteria will be and so a similar approach could also work here where manufacturers could decide here's here's a system that can work and not only satisfy 2849 but also provide that interoperability across multiple known brands i think one of the challenges we see right now is just the simple fragmentation of this industry that it's a fairly low barrier unfortunately for someone to manufacture and frankly poorly designed in some cases an e-bike and put it into the hands of consumers and so the points brought up regarding de minimis speak to that there are some aspects of this industry in particular that are particularly challenging you don't see that in an electric vehicle someone's not going to they're not likely to build that in their garage and pass that along to a consumer unfortunately for e-bikes we do see those kinds of cases where that happens so i think whether it's modification of the standard enforcement of the current standards out there that that takes the systems approach of matching charger to battery pack or also an industry consortium approach similar to bluetooth or usbc and those sorts of of agreements among leading players all of those i think could welcome the correct direction and toward consumer safety and the low barrier to entry that you mentioned is something i've heard from a number of people which seems to be taking us more towards the need for a mandatory standard in this area as well because you have too many players hard to know exactly who they all are um you know uh miss mason i mean you talked about your dealers and what are the biggest issues they are finding now you you asked them to go and to you know sell ones that were certified are you having difficulty finding those bikes and bikes and is your supply chains hampered by that yes there's there is difficulty to figure out which brands are certified to what and so the mbda we took it upon ourselves about six months ago to start a database available to retailers so they could see which brands have which certifications i'm listening to the conversation i'm thinking of the earlier question about the comparison to your the european market the difference there is that there aren't as many brands available and many of the sales i'd say more than 80 percent go through a brick and mortar retailer i would say the big issue here is the direct consumer or amazon so if we can figure out how to deal that and deal with that i think we would mitigate a lot of the issues can you expand on that a little bit more you say that the direct consumer amazon where is the issue where the the risks and problems these are the lower quality product that's being sold online that is not certified and ending up in the hands of our consumers for the most part to the extent that you have this information as to what's right is that public information or is this being provided to your your members or is there ways to be able to provide information to the public as to what are the ones that are certified to what our list is available to the public right now i'm also act labs which is a testing facility has a list available to the public and we're working to build up this that database so it's more readily available right um this is a follow-up if you could provide that information to me i'd appreciate that as well yes i'm going to uh i'm curious obviously we're talking about e-bikes at this point in time the batteries but a lot of the issues seem to be cross really about the battery itself um and some of you have talked about in your written testimony sort of the the next products that are out there be curious maybe start with mr slone what are you seeing on the horizon what should we be thinking about as well so thank you a couple of of observations we see obviously lithium ion batteries have proliferated into so many different end uses we are focused on those that are close worn close to the body we see more portable applications there where if there is an issue if they're more on a way you know you think about earbuds and those sorts of of items those are our high impact for consumers so that's something that we we're looking at um and then in e-mobility i mentioned this in the in the statement but having a requirement that you'll do it for nine be used for e-bikes does we know through experience dramatically reduce the frequency of events of thermal runaways it helps ensure that those products will be um higher quality overall but when there's an event it doesn't take away the severity so one thing we see on the horizon is um development of standards that can ensure that the charging and storage cabinets and storage facilities can withstand the conditions that are experienced in a thermal runaway so that's actually u l 1487 which new york city council and others are already you know they're that's what's next for them and their minds eye too because as uh chief flan and commissioner cavinall mentioned earlier today these are not traditional fires these are more explosions honestly than fires new york city twice this year fdny has made it in three minutes three minute response time to homes and in two different incidents with a three minute response time six people have lost their lives two in a story of queens and four in a chinatown fire so having technology on the horizon that we can test and know it will contain for a period of time these fires actually provides consumers and and others who frankly live in the same buildings and have nothing to do with the e-bike but are impacted by it gives them escape time it gives fdny time to get there also so that's why we look at the whole infrastructure yes the system and the e-bike but beyond that so that's something that we think is important on the horizon to to help continue to provide layers of protection for consumers and others thank you i'm coming up to end of my time so i'm actually gonna let turn to commissioner feldman thank you mr chairman and thank you to everybody that that is appearing on this third panel it's been a long day but this has been uh incredibly helpful um i want to start where i left off on the last panel uh i had asked a question uh to and i'm not looking for a full line-by-line crosswalk um but i was told that the question i had about comparing um what we have on a voluntary basis here in the in the united states with uh at least two u l standards and the european standard that that's currently in place on a mandatory basis is the consensus of this panel that those are compatible are there major differences can you speak a little bit about the work that we would need to do uh to to uh further tailor what what's embodied in the u l standard to make sure that there's consistency i can i can start so we actually have and we would be happy to provide a very short side-by-side that would be helpful in uh 15194 to 2849 and where at least we see the similarities which we would gauge it roughly roughly about 85 percent similar between the two standards the 15 percent that's maybe not the same is is largely with the rigor of what the electrical system is is subjected to in terms of testing but largely a match the other thing i would say is based on um our experience i'm sure many others appear on the panel um harmonization is in the future for this these products are too important too widespread too prevalent for that not to be somewhere in the path forward it hasn't happened yet because 2849 it's the nc national standard for the us and canada and so over time we would expect that there would be a global harmonization so that will become with that part through that consensus process a global standard but that's roughly the match and hopefully that provides a little perspective on would it make sense to pursue harmonization at the outset now if we were to take up a mandatory standards process in the near future or are there reasons that we would want to wait on that um to be honest that would would be your standards of engagement our parent organization who would would be able to best everybody's past in the buck but um it makes sense to me commissioner felman that we we should be thinking of it and seeing it because again this is not any everyday area of consumer products we know that this is important they're super important to people's day to day 65 000 delivery drivers and riders in new york rely on this for their livelihood they're not just weekend riders which we also want to protect them so i do my personal view is yes harmonization is in the path forward okay i appreciate that thank you um we heard in the testimony today from from trek that that repairs should be conducted by oems not consumers or even independent repair shops and we heard consistently from the previous panel and frankly from the fdny concerns about non oem repairs as a major contributor to the the risk and the hazard pattern in general and even as as the locus of a number of the fires including fires with fatalities that that have arisen in in in new york for example uh cr hasn't been shy about its position on on right to repair so uh miss night i would direct this question to you how would you respond to to to trek on the repair issue thank you for the question commissioner feldman um specifically with regards to these batteries obviously we've seen a number of issues that batteries that are refurbished often people think they can do it themselves or or take them to non-certified mechanics and we're seeing a lot of issues if so much as a speck of dust gets in there that can lead to problems down the line so when it comes to this particular issue um i would have to speak with our technical folks and get back to you as to our stance on that okay mr jambod any any response i i completely understand where right to repair rules come from being an engineer i'd like to pride myself that i can fix just about anything around the house um but let the mine batteries are one of those technologies that they're just too new um and the complexities with them aren't geared well towards um the uninitiated or the un-technical i think with a long enough time period that could certainly change and i i know some other folks have mentioned europe europe just released like a 400 page super comprehensive battery um standard a lot of it was dealing with the circular economy and repairing and recycling but one of it was that you would be able to replace cells and they actually eventually backed off of that saying that you could replace a string that was in in series um but just because the average even repair shop couldn't handle it and they also are going to be coming up with a scheme to ensure that anybody that does do repair um takes responsibility for the battery as the new producer of that battery and registers it so i think we can definitely sort of let europe have a couple years to work with that and let them guinea pig it and see how that works i right now i just don't think we're in a place where we can do that though okay i appreciate that mr kosher thank you i i think it's important for the the cpsc to recognize what we've got here are overlapping agencies we got the f tc who's promoting uh right to repair we've got the europeans and actually the states in in the u.s promoting battery collection recycling and in that legislation they're promoting reuse of batteries and so now we have these safety issues and so we've got this conflict between state national and international standards and regulations when it comes to recycling reuse and safety issues and again our position all along has been opposing right to repair for this very reason you know consumers opening up products getting into the batteries and replacing cells and batteries in our position is just an unsafe approach and so it's going to be tricky for this agency if you do proceed down a rulemaking to try to address that issue the eu battery regulation that he that he's referring to here is a 400 page regulation that addresses the circular economy and reuse and recycling and such and it's incredibly complex but i think it's important for this agency to recognize what they're up against in terms of these issues with safety and reuse and recycling okay um thank you for that anybody else have comments no miss mason uh i want to be mindful of time you you mentioned in your testimony that uh no consumer um that no standard consumer education and outreach documents exist that that cover things like uh uh you know informing consumers about storage and charging and that's something that that needs attention in the in in the short term um absent standardized documents in that respect can you describe what consumer outreach your dealers are currently engaged or have been engaged in with respect to um yeah i'd like to retract my statement slightly we do have a consumer facing document on the national bicycle dealers association okay page uh that was made possible by human powered solutions prepared for us for retailers to provide to consumers and what does that cover uh it covers how to safely charge how to safely store um you know just basic protocols for using your new e-mobility device i'd like to see additionally an e-bike owner's manual something that really describes the technical aspects to give consumers a little bit more and then additionally safe riding instructions for these e-bikes i mean it's a whole different ballgame when you get on one of these powered it's a smile on your face right away so yeah great mr jambal can you talk a little bit about what track is doing in terms of consumer education with respect to best practices and you know perhaps also with with with warranty maintenance sure and that's a little bit out of my area okay a little bit more in the public relations area but i do get to see i do get input on some of that um being on the safety side and the compliance side um we do rely a lot on people for bikes and and people for bikes and what they're doing to to inform consumers and i know that we do have things on our on our website and we have flyers and a number of communications um i just can't speak much more i appreciate that okay thank you um i do see that my time is ticking down mr martin i just want to recognize your presence on the panel i'm glad that you here as i mentioned earlier i don't have a question for you don't worry um i uh uh uh mentioned during both of the previous panels uh my concern that that this uh discussion uh focused too exclusively on micro mobility i think that that taking a broader look at lithium ion battery safety writ large uh is probably proper at this time for for our agency and for all the stakeholders so i'm thankful that you're uh and for the work that you all are doing um i'll yield the balance of my time thank you very much thank you commissioner commissioner chocolate thank you um mr lonan what options what are the most rigorous options available to make it harder to open batteries and then to make it obvious if a battery has been tampered with so uh commissioner trump the the best options that we've seen include both physical uh so sealing the packages also the way that the certification label is applied uh there there are options there where we could make it obvious that a pack has been broken so that the label itself is then broken um we put a lot of thought and time into the certification label itself this is not your average label it goes on a 2849 certified it's holographic it's difficult to fake um so those are the physical options in addition the electronic ones we've we've referenced before the handshake and ways for the the system to reflect whether or not it's compatible and also if it's been tampered with so those are the best options that we see right now so when you say sealing the battery compartment i mean it would it require packaging options would it require special tools to open or what would i think presumably we would want to send it back to an oem to repair potentially and so those there are whether it's the design of the packaging it's also it's difficult to open or what whether it's obvious almost like pharmaceutical packaging where you have tamper resistant types of approaches where when it's sent back to an oem they could then do the work and reseal the packaging those are the types of approaches we see in other industries that could also be applied here uh for these sorts of battery packs and when you talked about applying like the the u l hologram in a way that would be obvious would that just be because it's cut at the seam or would it would it change the appearance elsewhere on the we've we've not gone to that step just yet but that's that's a step that we could employ if tamper resistant becomes a bigger focus uh as part of the overall protections in place okay um and i thought there was a really good conversation on the state of health on the first panel i won't open it entirely back up but i did hear a few percentages mentioned and an 80 percent uh state of health jumped out just to the extent there's a a different concrete percentage already in mind we should consider i'd ask mr slone becker and jambo perhaps if there is a number you'd throw out there to consider as well or when a battery should no longer be used or when it needs to be replaced sure that or when we should trigger a safety concern yes so i mean first off the way that that this is going to work is is uh it'll be a consensus process where there will be a number that's arrived at i would say that something along the lines of 80 percent is conservative but maybe that is what we need uh for this approach something along those lines should work thank you yeah i won't go into the whole science about state of health again but as far as a percentage you know i think it goes back to the original panel where i wouldn't see that there's a specific percentage because how you calculate the percentage could be different from one battery to the other it's usually pretty proprietary how people actually calculate state of health but if you're just using capacity for instance uh you might get to the point where the battery can't be used anymore for the application so that could vary if it can't provide the current or power needed uh because of the capacity to degrade over time then the battery wouldn't be usable so at some point the bms would prevent the battery functioning if it's degraded past a certain point but there's no percentage that i would say it's jambani i'm red i don't know that i could add too much more to that it it is one of those complex things that there's a number of contributing factors and really the ideal situation is that a bms monitors all those and says up there's one of the issues this this battery is no longer usable in a safe fashion yeah no and i understand that and agree and you know to the extent we can figure out i'm glad you all are thinking about it and will figure it out but where each of those measures that are backering into the bms where each triggers to give us some understanding of what what we're actually looking at inside that system mr slone ul is and you you reference the battery containment cabinets that the ul is looking at with 1487 i'm not so much interested in the cabinets themselves but is there any are there any materials or solutions that you could carry over from that work into the battery pack itself ticket to contain or mitigate a runaway event so we are looking at that we have separately developed test methods to look at the materials so not just in a charging cabinet or storage cabinet but as part of the pack so that that is part of that work we kind of did the test method development to look at the materials then we can test oops sorry we can test this materials in the charging and storage cabinet so both of those have been an investment we've made over the last year so i mean does it seem like there are promising opportunities there to use in the pack materials to be honest yes but these fires are quite intense these are severe severe conditions both in terms of not only the temperature but also the material that's being ejected from the cells so i mean we can also provide those videos so you can see what we're putting these through in terms of the test methods that have been developed specifically for that purpose i mean the short answer is yes we're looking at the pack itself and we're looking at the charging cabinets too because they all provide protection if something goes wrong so let's focus on the yes and put the butt aside for a sec so what are some of the materials and things that you have seen that show promise and that's in the battery pack space so the ones that show more promise are ones that have sort of less of a reliance on polymeric materials you can imagine where a composite is more susceptible to fire degradation more quickly so the higher the amount of sort of inorganic or metallic content in that material itself the better it's able to sustain fire conditions for a longer period of time generally speaking okay i mean this feels like it could be a longer conversation but if there's anything you could share with us to read up on that i'm fascinated by the possibilities there so mr kerchner you mentioned at the at the outset that 55 percent of the cells for lithium ion are produced by your manufacturers how many what percentage of that 55 percent are made in the us i'm going to stay close to zero that might be the problem we're dealing with here but again most of these again obviously there's a lot of infrastructure going on right now in terms of producing cells in the u.s i i jokingly said zero percent it that 55 percent uh we're factoring in our members from korean japan for example and also our members who are us manufacturers who are operating in those countries as well um and it's it's it's it's a difficult number to calculate in most cases but as the cell production starts to ramp up here in the united states um it's you know we see that number going up i would say the percentage being manufactured in the u.s i and all kidding aside you know one of our primary members has a very large factory here in the united states producing for electric vehicles so it's certainly much higher than zero percent okay um mr martin this this is one minor thing um from your written testimony i did just want to correct because it's a it's a minor point i also have no question like commissioner felman but i did want to point it out uh so you referenced the december 19th letter that our head of compliance sent to manufacturers suggesting compliance with with u l standards but you said quote in his letter mr k noted that existing voluntary standards adequately address battery hazards and ensure safer product design when implemented and i just wanted to correct the commission has not endorsed the u l standard as a full and adequate solution i'm sure that's not what you were suggesting but it seemed close enough that i wanted to make that point um that that's the end of the thought there but i just didn't want to point that out for the record uh and then mr slone last question uh you referenced that the u l solution the u l solutions had identified over seven thousand reported incidents of fires and explosions from lithium ion batteries and battery powered products worldwide from 2010 to 2023 if any of that is data and analysis that you haven't already shared with with us is that something you could please provide to the commission absolutely we're happy to share that excellent i think that that's a conservative figure just by its nature because all we were able to do was was scrape or pull the data that's been publicly reported on a global basis so i'm sure the the actual numbers as noted this morning are much much higher okay because there's under reporting okay and one final observation and i am cognizant of the fact that this is out of scope for today but i thought it was worth mentioning so uh u l 28 49 addresses both two-wheeled uh e-bikes and also three-wheeled electric bikes which i hadn't spent much time thinking about but i hope that folks who are are taking a look at stability issues there as well because i don't i hope we never end up in a situation with three-wheeled atvs you know anything like that so hopefully stability is being factored in as well um no more questions thank you very much thank you commission commissioner wall thank you mr chair and thank you to the panel mr slone i did want to just follow up on a response that you gave to commissioner feldman when you talked about the 15 percent difference in the rig between the e u standard and the u l standards and i think you said and correct me if i'm wrong that the difference the major difference is in the rigor of testing between the two is that did you say that for the primary difference area that we see is in the electrical system itself which which makes sense in terms of the focus of 2849 specifically being the electric system electrical system so we can provide the side-by-side and where we see the differences and in detail it's it runs about three pages total no no i know you said you're going to provide that but i thought you in it kind of summarizing it you said that the difference was in the rigor of testing that's what we see we see 2849 as a more rigorous or rigorous okay in terms of the e u standard do you have any reason to believe that there's an association between the maximum speed limits that um e bikes uh can reach in europe as opposed to the maximum speeds that are seen in the u s and what that i would have to go back and look i mean it um it's a great point because 2849 does have a couple of things that that um come into play here uh commissioner boil so one is the need for functioning pedals and and i believe is mr more the in the earlier panel who commented on the need for a standard for e motorcycles there is actually a standard in the works right now already which is 2850 we're not super creative in our numbering so it it does cover that next speed range which oftentimes i believe in the us falls under the department of transportation license vehicles etc some of these devices that we see in consumers hands have been built to exceed the speed limits that a traditional e bike if you will falls under so it is a category that we have an eye on and we're working on on making safer as well okay so you would say that the speed could potentially compromise that needs to be factored in for absolutely yes thank you appreciate that um miss night uh you mentioned that you found that uh 13 companies uh were certified to in the ucr investigation to u l safety centers in december do you have any updated information on that i know i asked that question in the earlier panel about the level of compliance and i didn't get a specific answer so i just wanted to know if if you had additional information on that thank you for the question commissioner boil um so yes at the time the uh investigative story was published there were 13 companies that we found that were you all certified um as to a specific number of how many since then have certified uh no i don't have that information at this time maybe i'll ask miss mason if you have a want to weigh in on that point um yeah i mean we don't have hard data but i will say since uh the letter was published back in december we have had more brands reach out to organizations to get the certification and testing necessary and especially since new york city has indicated uh the protocol for september 20th to go into effect um people are scrambling right now to get the mandatory certifications i don't have the exact number but i will say it's it's definitely notice the difference yeah you have a sense of why there was a lag i think in the cr article there was an indication that potentially costs and the testing cost was what was um prohibiting or stop impeding people from uh pursuing this it's interesting back in 2020 um u l 2849 was being pushed by our industry um and then the bike boom happened and all these brands came to market and i think things just fell apart it maybe money had a lot to do with it i hate that um it's very unfortunate you know and for your database that's the self reporting so there's no sort of confirmation that some a company just asserts correct it is self reporting we do ask for copies of their certifications and we do review those we also ask for copies of their insurance and we do review those but it is self reporting and it's optional thank you go ahead i just want to make a comment on the the reporting of the certificates uh you know certification agencies like csa group u l are required to have online databases that explicitly note who is certified to what standard so that information is is public no matter what nrtl which is mandated by osha uh is certifies to these standards you can go on their websites and and find that information publicly to verify if a manufacturer says they're certified you can go on an nrtl's website and confirm that when you say you is that a how how accessible is that is something a consumer yes it's on yeah it's on it online you don't have even a need to create a login in some instances it's free access so you can go on either yule's website csa's and there's other nrtl's as well okay and any consumer can verify that thank you that's helpful um miss night i i did want to just return to you for a moment um uh you talked about the impact of non-compliance with uh with industry standards is leaving lower income users at a greater risk uh as opposed to those who could afford more high-end bicycles can you elaborate a little bit more on why you think mandatory standards specifically will help that population yes thank you for the question um standards that apply across the marketplace are needed because at the current current situation the way it is uh more expensive bikes are more likely to be u l certified and unfortunately um less expensive bikes are not and of course when uh you depend on uh e-bike for your livelihood and you're not making a lot of money you're going to get what you can afford and if what you can afford isn't u l certified then you know you're going to pay the ultimate price in worst case scenario um that obviously shouldn't be the case consumers expect that what they're buying has been tested for safety um and they should be right about that so all manufacturers across the board it's um it's their duty really and the duty of distributors and sellers to make sure that there is a baseline of safety that is being met and uh right now just going off the commission's letter the minimum for that is the are the u l standards that are available okay thank you very much i don't have any additional questions mr chair again thank you to all of you for coming today thank you commissioner boil um the risk of keeping us here longer i was just going to have a few closing thoughts which i would use the second round if anybody else wanted to have some closing thoughts um really i just want to take a minute to reflect on what i've heard today and that all the panelists have provided useful information raised important issues and said lights on pass each of us can and should be taking to improve the safety of lithium ion batteries and with respect to the current crisis facing us with the deadly fires coming from e-bikes and scooters you know there are a few takeaways that jumped out at me you know first the voluntary standards on the books today set a good foundation the manufacturers should be following right now but they're not perfect cpsc is written to the u l to look to ways to improve it and has been working to strengthen them and i think that needs to continue and continue at a faster pace and second the voluntary standards aren't enough everybody's come uh or most everybody's come to testify before us has expressed support for mandatory standards for the batteries and electrical systems and the e-bike or e-mobility devices and such a standard would definitely make this easier for cpsc to engage in enforcement and provide a baseline safety um for consumers out there yeah unfortunately as many of you are aware developing mandatory standards under cpsc standard the statute can be burdensome and slow and you know for that reason i am grateful for the engagement by the you know congress in support of the legislation that would streamline that process and strengthen our authority enables move forward to be able to establish these mandatory standards so i think senator schumer and senator jildbrand and representative torrez for their participation today stand ready to work with them you know third i would say all of us need to act now to protect consumers here at cpsc you know work with stakeholders to strengthen the standards for e-bikes and scooters including after market uh batteries and chargers and modern the the marketplace for defective products to prevent these fires from happening in the first place but the first line of defense really needs to be the micromobility device and battery manufacturers and importers as well as the retailers and online marketplaces are selling these products the manufacturers and importers need to step up and bring to the market eat you know e-scooters batteries chargers that comply with the standards that are out there now given the hazard there's no excuse for not meeting those standards today and retailers and online marketplaces should protect their consumers by requiring that any products are selling or offering to sell on their their sites that meet these same standards and have systems in place to make sure that they are monitoring the products on their sites so that they can identify when those aren't being met and take steps to get those off and all of industry should be vigilant and you know cease to work with suppliers and sellers who are skirting safety standards you know honestly these practices should be in place for all products but given the you know particular risks that we're seeing with micromobility devices you know one is based special attention for that here today so those are just some thoughts wrapping up I don't know if any of the commissioners Richard Feldman have any other thoughts thank you Mr. Chairman I just in conclusion I do want to thank everybody that showed up on this panel and to our two previous panels the expertise and work that that all you do day in day out the attention that you paid certainly supplements everything that that we're seeing here at the agency and it's invaluable to our decision making process Mr. Chairman this is a form that we've been asking for for a while I'm glad that we were able to work together to get the scheduled the hard work of your staff getting all of the blocking and tackling to make this possible it's been a long day but but I think we're left as an agency with a wealth of testimony and information that's going to help guide our future decision making so thank you and thank all of you Chris Trump any more questions or thoughts we've heard today that lithium ion batteries are now a leading cause of fatal fires in New York City and it's a matter of time before the problem reaches other places in the US at that same critical level and if that's not a wake-up call if we've been waiting for one and that's not it I don't know what would be so I think we all agree we need to solve this and we need to solve it now Americans can make all the right decisions to keep their families safe but with this issue that's not enough you know they could be at risk because they're downstairs neighbors charging a bike they've never seen and we're forcing people to live with that fear because we haven't solved this issue yet we need to and to those listening make sure we do it quickly please hold us accountable today is an incredibly encouraging step towards that end you know it's not lost on me that this broad group of experts you know including industry and voluntary standards bodies are all calling on us to to implement a mandatory standard that is not lost it's not common and I appreciate the sentiment and I hear you loud and clear on that one I'm also encouraged by the the welcomness and agreement on the need to consider things like check battery lights safety shutoffs in both the battery and the charger focus on state of health vinn numbers potentially for identification purposes and making cells inaccessible to consumers and making tamper evident I know that we're all here because we want people to have both protection and peace of mind so I thank you all for your tremendous contributions and getting us there today thank you thank you mr mr wall thank you now I know just a couple closing comments again to thank you to this panel and to the witnesses from the previous panel and thank you to mr chair for putting this meeting together with all of our staffs and special thanks to Anna Layton for all of her work and putting this together it was I know she took the laboring ore and I do really appreciate that I think hearing from the stakeholders is an incredibly important part of the regulatory process and I think today's hearing provided really useful and helpful information I feel encouraged like my colleagues that there is broad consensus that we need to act and that we need to act quickly I know sometimes we move at a glacial pace and it's my hope that the consensus I heard today will lay the foundation for us to move quickly so I'm committed to moving quickly and it sounds like I'm hearing that across the board so I'm very encouraged by that and thank you thank you commissioner and thanks again to all the participants in today's forum it's been a long day and I appreciate you being here and sharing your experience with us I do want to thank the staff who helped put this together including the facilities team the office of secretary the office of communications who is getting everything organized I will join my fellow commissioners and do a special shout out for my deputy chief of staff on a latent who was central in organizing today's forum and finally thanks to the CPSC staff investigators engineers and attorneys who are working on these issues every day and with that this meeting is adjourned