NYC’s deadly e-bike dangers have now even reached into our homes

 Five members of the Adam-Maine family went to sleep in an apartment in The Bronx’s Patterson Houses on Oct. 27 — and only one survived the night.

Three children and one adult perished in the city’s latest confirmed battery-fire inferno, bringing the year’s total fatalities to nine so far.

This cause of death didn’t even exist back in 2019.

But now that we know the uniquely deadly risks of lithium-ion batteries, it shouldn’t be hard for Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the City Council to assure us: Nobody else must die. 

This family’s incineration fits a familiar narrative.  

One of the apartment’s residents was storing an e-bike in the apartment’s kitchen, blocking the single exit.  

The same thing happened in August, when an e-bike explosion in Brooklyn’s Albany Houses, another NYCHA complex, killed 18-year-old Caleb Matthews. 

And just last week, six people lost their lives in a Sunset Park house fire.

The FDNY hasn’t determined the cause, but battery-powered micromobility devices were present at the scene.  

Since 2020, when New York state and city legalized e-bikes and e-scooters, lithium-ion battery deaths have claimed 44 lives — not counting the six souls in Sunset Park. 

This scourge of battery deaths reversed decades of fire progress.  

Over the past seven years, average annual fire deaths have reached 78, up from 65 annually over the seven previous years.

Already this year, 87 people have died in fires. 

So what is the city doing about this crisis?

Not much, over three administrations running — at least not anything effective.  

Yes, three years ago, Mayor Eric Adams banned the sale of uncertified or refurbished batteries — and the city touts its enforcement sweeps. 

But even a certified new battery becomes a used, corroded, dangerous battery after months or years of exposure to rain, snow, salt and repeat charges — and the city ignores streetside maintenance and repair of these devices, anyway.  

Nothing will work, unless and until the mayor and the council start governing e-bikes and e-scooters as regulated motor vehicles.  

First, the City Council must pass a resolution calling on Hochul and the state legislature to regulate e-bikes as a type of motorcycle or car, not as a variant of the human-powered bicycle. 

As Andrew Fine of the NYC E-Vehicle Safety Alliance points out, requiring registration of these vehicles would be a step toward a system of annual inspections that would remove dangerous batteries from streets and homes.

Second, NYCHA’s board must ban these devices from the city’s public-housing apartments — not just charging them, but storing them, too.  

As the FDNY notes, 59% of battery fires happen when the things aren’t plugged in. 

Third, the City Council must update the fire code to ban e-bikes and e-scooters from private apartments and houses.  

Absurdly, the current fire code allows New Yorkers to keep and charge five such devices in a private home.  

“Charge these batteries outside whenever you can,” FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore counseled on Monday.  

But if it’s that unsafe to charge them inside — which this advice implicitly acknowledges — it should be illegal to do so.

Many private landlords and co-op and condo management companies already ban them from their buildings.  

Yes, banning e-devices indoors would spark protest from the food delivery-worker collective — and intense behind-the-scenes lobbying by delivery apps.

The food-delivery industry depends on e-bikes.  

But delivery apps and restaurants should provide their workers with company-owned equipment.

Those businesses should maintain and store e-bikes and e-scooters at their own fire-protected industrial properties — not force workers to put their families and neighbors in danger.  

What if you’re just using an e-bike to get around town?  

Well, New Yorkers also use cars, motorcycles and mopeds for that purpose.  

But owning them carries responsibility: You can’t store those motor vehicles in your apartment.

There’s no logical reason to treat battery-powered vehicles any differently, given their now-obvious risks.

If you lack a garage or yard for e-bike storage, get a regular bike — or take the bus or train.

And perhaps the city could lease well-regulated sidewalk-shed space to companies that can store and charge these things for a customer fee.  

Finally, Hochul must direct the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to ban e-bikes and scooters from subways and elevators.  

It’s now impossible to avoid them — often rusted, dented and duct-taped — in any subway car.  

Governor: We don’t need your mournful tweets when 100 people die in a subway-car inferno after one of these things goes up and someone pulls the emergency brake, trapping everyone.  

We need your action now, before more tragedies strike. 

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal and a 2026 CCNY Moynihan Center fellow.

https://nypost.com/2026/11/10/opinion/nycs-deadly-e-bike-dangers-have-now-even-reached-into-our-homes/