E scooters could catch fire and explode due to dangerous batteries

E scooters could catch fire and explode on Britain’s streets, commuters have been warned.  

Electrical Safety First (ESF) have revealed that e scooters and e-bikes could catch fire, risking a repeat of the hoverboard ‘fiasco’, which saw a spate of the gadgets catch fire due to faulty lithium batteries.

It comes as a trial of e scooters in the UK launched in Middlesbrough to test if they should be allowed on British roads. 

Currently, e scooters are illegal on public roads and pavements amid fears over the safety of the vehicles.

They have already been involved in fatal accidents including YouTube star Emily Hartridge who was en route to a fertility clinic scan last July when she was killed in a crash in Battersea, south west London.

However, despite the fears, an estimated 200,000 e scooters have already been bought in the UK.  

Meanwhile e-bikes, which allow people to travel further with battery-assisted pedalling, are legal for over-14s to ride in the UK, with a survey finding one in seven adults intend to buy an e-scooter or e-bike in the next year.

The ESF charity has now warned that the legalisation of e-scooters will lead to an explosion in popularity of the devices. 

It fears that, when the original batteries run out, people could buy poor quality replacements online. 

There have already been reports of faulty escooter batteries catching fire and exploding in places where the devices are widely used, such as China. 

In December, there was a report of an e scooter catching fire at Dublin home. 

Martyn Allen, the ESF technical director, said: ‘Hoverboards were blighted by fires caused by substandard batteries and chargers that flooded the market when the products became popular. The same fiasco cannot be allowed to happen with electric scooters.’

Under the Government Middlesbrough trial, people can only ride hired e-scooters from approved vendors. Riders must be over 16, have a driving licence and cannot ride the e-scooters at more than 15.5mph.

The trials are being held for 12 months to assess whether the devices reduce traffic and what impact they have on the safety of users and those around them.

International firms are already vying for a slice of the UK’s new e-scooter trade – prompting fears that cities will be awash with them, as they have been in Europe.

Eighteen companies have bid to be part of the trial and they include UK-based shared bike operator Beryl, which has recently launched a range of e-scooters, Swedish scooter startup Voi, Berlin-based scooter company Tier, Amsterdam-based scooter provider Dott and US-based Bird, Lime and Spin.

Tier says it already has 1,000 scooters at the ready in a UK warehouse — and will be shipping over more soon.

Lime added says it has ‘thousands of scooters ready to be rolled out across the UK’.

European cities including Paris and Brussels have seen locals complain about the number of e-scooters now clogging up their roads.

In Paris 13 firms piled into the market in the first year and soon the French cpatial was awash with 20,000 e-scooters.