You charged your laptop to 100% last night, closed the lid, and put it in your bag. However, when you take it out the next day to get started on your work (or browse the web) it won't turn on—the battery is dead!
Embattled electric bike maker Rad Power Bikes is facing another challenge as the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a warning to consumers Monday to stop using some of the Seattle-based company’s bikes because of danger posed by their lithium-ion batteries.
The product safety warning urges consumers to immediately remove and dispose of hazardous batteries that “can unexpectedly ignite and explode, posing a fire hazard to consumers, especially when the battery or the harness has been exposed to water and debris.”
The CPSC said Rad “has refused to agree to an acceptable recall” for the batteries, which are manufactured in China.
The batteries were sold as replacements and with a variety of Rad bikes via Rad’s website, Best Buy stores and independent bike shops. The battery model number (HL-RP-S1304 or RP-1304) is printed on a label on the back or rear of the battery and bike models included: RadWagon 4, RadCity HS 4, RadRover High Step 5, RadCity Step Thru 3, RadRover Step Thru 1, RadRunner 2, RadRunner 1, RadRunner Plus, and RadExpand 5.
The report adds another significant obstacle to Rad’s continued operations. Earlier this month, Rad revealed that it was struggling to survive due to financial difficulties, and the e-bike seller said that it was in danger of shutting down by early January.
On Monday, Rad disputed the CPSC’s findings. “Rad Power Bikes firmly stands behind our batteries and our reputation as leaders in the e-bike industry, and strongly disagrees with the CPSC’s characterization of certain Rad batteries as defective or unsafe,” the company said in a lengthy statement provided to GeekWire (in full below).
Rad said the significant cost of CPSC’s all-or-nothing recall demand would force Rad to shut down immediately with no way to support its riders or employees.
CPSC Warns Consumers to Immediately Stop Using Batteries for E-Bikes from Rad Power Bikes Due to Fire Hazard; Risk of Serious Injury or Death www.cpsc.gov/Warnings/202…
— U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (@cpsc.gov) 2025-11-24T19:03:26.293Z
Rad said it offered “multiple good-faith solutions” to address CPSC’s concerns over at least 31 reports of fire, including what the agency said were 12 reports of property damage caused by Rad batteries, totaling approximately $734,500.
Rad said the incident rate associated with the batteries in the CPSC’s notice is a fraction of one percent.
“While that number is low, we know even one incident is one too many, and we are heartbroken by any report involving our products,” the company’s statement read.
The company said its batteries were tested by independent third-party labs as part of its typical product testing and again during the CPSC investigation, “and confirmed compliance with the highest industry standards.”
Rad upgraded its bikes to what it calls the Rad Safe Shield battery in early 2024, and the company said it offered to upgrade consumers to those batteries at a substantial discount as part of one of its solutions during the CPSC investigation.
The company stressed in its statement that all lithium-ion batteries, not just in e-bikes, can pose a fire risk if improperly handled or exposed to significant water, and the company promotes proper care and maintenance in its user manuals and customer safety guides.
Rad Power Bikes, headquartered in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, launched as a direct-to-consumer brand in 2015.
The company saw huge demand amid the pandemic as more people bought e-bikes. Its sales and workforce surged and it raised more than $300 million from investors in 2021. The company was valued at $1.65 billion that year, according to PitchBook, making it one of a handful of “unicorn” startups in the Seattle region at the time.
The company has attracted nearly 700,000 riders around the globe, but a series of missteps and macroeconomic challenges in recent years have led to more than seven rounds of layoffs and a remarkable downfall.
A spokesperson told GeekWire on Monday that Rad’s filing of a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification with the Washington state Employment Security Department earlier this month was due to the company’s financial circumstances and its obligation to comply with state law. It was not related to the CPSC investigation.
Three years ago, Rad issued a recall on its RadWagon 4 electric cargo bikes over an issue with tires and rim strips that created a fall and crash hazard.
In 2023, The New York Times reported on a rise in micro-mobility device fires or overheating incidents caused by poorly made batteries that the CPSC said was particularly acute in densely populated areas like New York City.
The CPSC urged consumers on Monday to immediately remove affected batteries and dispose of them following local hazardous waste procedures.
Rad Power Bikes statement regarding CPSC warning:
Rad Power Bikes firmly stands behind our batteries and our reputation as leaders in the ebike industry, and strongly disagrees with the CPSC’s characterization of certain Rad batteries as defective or unsafe.
We have a long and well-documented track record of building safe, reliable ebikes equipped with batteries that meet or exceed rigorous international safety standards, including UL-2271 and UL-2849. The CPSC proposed requiring these UL standards in January 2025, but has yet to adopt them. Rad ebikes have met these standards for years.
Reputable, independent third-party labs tested Rad’s batteries, both as part of our typical product testing and again during the CPSC investigation, and confirmed compliance with the highest industry standards. Our understanding is that the CPSC does not dispute the conclusions of these tests. It is also our understanding that the battery itself was not independently examined per industry-accepted test standards.
Context Matters
The incident rate associated with the batteries in the CPSC’s notice is a fraction of one percent. While that number is low, we know even one incident is one too many, and we are heartbroken by any report involving our products.
It is also widely understood that all lithium-ion batteries—whether in ebikes, e-scooters, laptops, or power tools—can pose a fire risk if damaged, improperly charged, exposed to excess moisture, subjected to extreme temperatures or improper modifications to the electrical components, all of which Rad repeatedly advises against in user manuals and customer safety guides. Contrary to the CPSC’s statement, mere exposure to water and debris does not create a hazard; rather, significant water exposure, as warned against in our manuals, can pose a hazard.
These risks apply across industries and exist even in products that are fully UL compliant. Ebike batteries are significantly more powerful than household device batteries, which is why proper care and maintenance are so important and why Rad continues to invest in rider education and safety innovation.
Rad’s Cooperation with the CPSC
Rad hoped this process would be an opportunity to work with the agency and others in the industry to improve rider education and offer clearer, more consistent safety guidance on how to use and store ebikes and their batteries safely.
Rad offered multiple good-faith solutions to address the agency’s concerns, including offering consumers an opportunity to upgrade to Safe Shield batteries (described below) at a substantial discount. CPSC rejected this opportunity. The significant cost of the all-or-nothing demand would force Rad to shut its doors immediately, leaving no way to support our riders or our employees.
A Commitment to Safety and Innovation
Rad has been a pioneer in promoting and advancing energy-efficient transportation, and our efforts to innovate and build safer, better batteries led to the development of the Rad Safe Shield battery. However, a product that incorporates new, safer, and better technology does not thereby mean that preceding products are not safe or defective. For example, when anti-lock brakes were developed, that did not render earlier cars unsafe; it simply meant a better, safer technology was available to consumers.
That kind of thinking discourages innovation and limits the accessibility that ebikes bring to millions of people. Without the adoption of clear, common-sense standards, no electric bike manufacturer can operate with confidence.
Previously:
In our modern world full of planned obsolescence helping to fuel cycles of consumerism, the thing that really lets companies dial this up to the max is locked-down electronics and software. We all know the key players in this game whether it’s an automotive manufacturer, video game console producer, smart phone developer, or fruit-based computer company of choice, but there are some lesser known players desperately trying to make names for themselves in this arena too. Many power tool manufacturers like Milwaukee build sub-par battery packs that will wear out prematurely as [Tool Scientist] shows in this video.
Determining that these packs don’t actually balance their cells isn’t as straightforward as looking for leads going to the positive terminal of each. The microcontrollers running the electronics in these packs are hooked up, but it seems like it’s only to communicate status information about the batteries and not perform any balancing. [Tool Scientist] tested this hypothesis through a number of tests after purposefully adding an imbalance to a battery pack, first by monitoring i2c communications, measuring across a resistor expected to show a voltage drop during balancing, let a battery sit 21 days on a charger, and then performing a number of charge and discharge cycles. After all of that the imbalance was still there, leading to a conclusion that Milwaukee still doesn’t balance their battery packs.
Giving them the benefit of the doubt, it could be that most packs will be just fine after years without balancing, so the added cost of this feature isn’t worth it. This video was put out nearly a year ago, so it’s possible Milwaukee has made improvements since then. But a more realistic take, especially in a world dominated by subscription services and other methods of value extraction, is that Milwaukee is doing this so that users will end up having to buy more batteries. They already make user serviceability fairly difficult, so this would be in line with other actions they’ve taken. Or it could be chalked up to laziness, similar to the Nissan Leaf and its lack of active thermal management in its battery systems.
Thanks to [Polykit] for the tip!
The increasing dominance of lithium cells in the market place leave our trusty NiMH cells in a rough spot. Sure, you can still get a chargers for the AAs in your life, but it’s old tech and not particularly stylish. That’s where [Maximilian Kern] comes in, whose SPINC project was recently featured in IEEE Spectrum— so you know it has to be good.
With the high-resolution LCD, the styling of this device reminds us a little bit of the Pi-Mac-Nano— and anything that makes you think of a classic Macintosh gets automatic style points. There’s something reminiscent of an ammunition clip in the way batteries are fed into the top and let out the bottom of the machine.
[Maximilian] thought of the, ah, less-detail-oriented amongst us with this one, as the dedicated charging IC he chose (why reinvent the wheel?) is connected to an H-bridge to allow the charger to be agnostic as to orientation. That’s a nice touch. An internal servo grabs each battery in turn to stick into the charging circuit, and deposits it into the bottom of the device once it is charged. The LCD screen lets you monitor the status of the battery as it charges, while doubling as a handy desk clock (that’s where the RP2040 comes in). It is, of course powered by a USB-C port as all things are these days, but [Maximilian] is just drawing from the 5V line instead of making proper use of USB-C Power Delivery. (An earlier draft of this article asserted incorrectly that the device used USB-C-PD.) Fast-charging upto 1A is enabled, but you might want to go slower to keep your cells lasting as long as possible. Firmware, gerbers and STLs are available on GitHub under a GPL-3.0 license– so if you’re still using NiCads or want to bring this design into the glorious lithium future, you can consider yourself welcome to.
We recently featured a AA rundown, and for now, it looks like NiMH is still the best bang for your buck, which means this project will remain relevant for a few years yet. Of course, we didn’t expect the IEEE to steer us wrong.
Thanks to [George Graves] for the tip.
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