Differentiated technical standards and supervision should be introduced for electric bicycles used in the food delivery and courier industries.
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That's according to a proposal submitted by delegates from Shanghai who attended the two sessions ' the meetings of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee ' in Beijing this month.
Data from the State Post Bureau said that there are more than 4 million express couriers in the country.
Despite the convenience such services bring to consumers, the proposal echoes concerns about the safe use of e-bikes, which have arisen over the past few years.
Specifically, the technical standards for battery capacity and the bikes' maximum loading weight should be raised for vehicles used for delivery purposes, the proposal said. A special tag should be attached to distinguish these vehicles from ordinary electric bikes, and a smart control system should be pre-installed to prevent any possible modifications. Also, there should be special regulations for the disposal of such bikes, which wear out quickly as they are used more frequently than regular bikes.
The technical safety specifications for electric bicycles released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in May should be revised to update the related standards, the proposal said.
According to the Road Traffic Safety Law, an electric bike should not weigh more than 55 kilograms, while the battery's nominal voltage should not exceed 48 volts. While the designed maximum speed of e-bikes is set at 25 kph, they should not be driven faster than 15 kph.
Li Feng, a deputy to the National People's Congress and a purchasing manager with Shanghai Panda Machinery, said electric bikes used in the courier and food delivery sectors rarely meet the standards in terms of load and battery capacity, as many riders have added extra equipment to carry more items.
Others have modified their vehicle to raise the maximum speed and have also expanded the battery capacity, allowing the bikes to go much farther and faster.
Of all accidents related to electric bike batteries in Shanghai in that resulted in injury, 31.3 percent were caused by the illegal installation or modification of batteries by delivery riders, according to data included in the proposal.
The delegates also suggested that electric bikes should be registered separately when sold to takeout and express delivery riders, which would make it easier for local governments to carry out targeted supervision and allow easier monitoring of manufacturers.
Differentiated regulatory measures, including punishment methods and fine limits, should also be introduced for riders, the proposal said. Riders with many violations should be placed on a blacklist, while companies should shoulder their responsibilities for safety management to straighten out the riders' illegal driving habits.
Electric bikes are the most widely used vehicles among China's takeout and delivery riders. The Shanghai government estimates that there are about 100,000 express couriers and 300,000 takeout riders working in the city, and each one uses at least one such bike.
Speeding, riding in the wrong direction and ignoring red lights are the most widely seen violations among delivery riders.
Last year, Shanghai dealt with more than 3,000 such cases every day, accounting for 20 percent of all daily traffic law violation cases in the city, according to information in the proposal. It noted that the laws that oversee delivery riders can also be applied to workers in the home decoration sector and domestic helpers, who carry their tools on e-bikes during their daily commutes.
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As electric bicycles continue to grow in numbers in the US, so too have concerns over the safety of their lithium-ion battery packs. A new safety standard just passed in China may soon have a considerable impact on e-bike fire safety.
E-bike battery fires, while exceedingly rare, have become a major concern in the US with significant news coverage. NYC is often seen as the epicenter of e-bike battery fires due largely to the large population of e-bike delivery riders and the low-quality Chinese batteries used on such bikes. Delivery riders' e-bikes usually feature inferior-quality batteries in order to reduce costs to their owners, who use them to perform low-wage delivery jobs.
Keeping the issue in perspective, more deaths in NYC are attributed to space heater fires each year than e-bike battery fires, but the rapid growth of e-bike use in the US means that fire safety will continue to be a growing concern.
With the vast majority of battery fires originating from poorly produced Chinese batteries designed for ultra-cheap e-bikes and e-scooters, it appears the Chinese government is attempting to address the issue head-on. The country just passed new technical standards for the production of lithium-ion batteries like those used in micromobility devices.
Known as the 'Safety Technical Specification for Lithium-ion Batteries Used in Electric Bicycles,' the standards regulate the design, production, and sale of lithium-ion batteries for e-bikes.
The regulations specifically address technical concerns relating to production quality and fire risk, and cover 22 specific aspects of the batteries' design and manufacturing. Issues addressed include battery over-charging and over-discharging, external short circuits, thermal abuse, battery punctures, and several more key areas.
Electric bicycle batteries at a Chinese factory, waiting to be installed in finished e-bikesEnforcement of the new standard is expected to begin on November 1, . After that date, no lithium-ion batteries for electric bicycles will be permitted for sale in the country without conforming to the new standard.
The standard currently only addresses the domestic market, which is much larger than China's e-bike battery export market. There are an estimated 350 million e-bikes on the roads in China, with tens of millions produced each year. In fact, some major Chinese manufacturers alone produce tens of millions of e-bikes and e-scooters each year.
The vast majority of US-based electric bicycles and their components originate in China. I've personally visited several such Chinese factories to see the scale of production that many of these massive suppliers have achieved.
The new Chinese e-bike battery standards are expected to change how electric bicycle batteries are produced in China. Many of the major suppliers of higher-quality batteries likely already meet or exceed the new standards, but the budget-priced batteries known for cutting corners in pursuit of lower costs will likely be weeded out by the regulations.
Unlike in the West, where penalties for breaching standards are often less severe, the Chinese government is more heavy-handed with its control over both private and state-related manufacturing businesses. While that comes with its own litany of issues, it also has the advantage of companies generally respecting and conforming to regulatory standards. That means it likely won't take very long for battery manufacturers not already meeting these new safety standards to either upgrade their designs and manufacturing or else close down production and switch industries.
Importantly, it appears that the regulations will only apply to China's domestic market, not products intended for export. However, with China's market for e-bike batteries dwarfing the rest of the world, it likely won't make sense for factories to maintain separate production lines and designs for a much smaller export market. Instead, this could very well be a case of a rising tide lifting all ships, where an increase in the manufacturing standards for local e-bike batteries means that export batteries will also come from the same improved production lines.
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