Key facts
- The Fire Department recorded more than 400 lithium-ion battery fires and 83 injuries in New York in 2026, with 12 deaths.
- In 2025 the city recorded 292 such fires, 51 injuries and one death, according to the Fire Department.
- Four family members, including an 11-year-old boy, died in a late October Bronx public housing fire caused by an ebike battery.
- Six people died and nine were injured in a Brooklyn home fire where investigators found lithium-ion batteries but had not determined the cause, Julie Menin said.
- Menin said the city council will hold an emergency oversight meeting on November 20 to check enforcement of existing laws and public education.
- The city has not built the 173 charging and storage stations announced in 2023 with a $25 million federal grant, according to the transportation department.
New York City Council speaker Julie Menin said on November 14, 2026 that the council will hold an emergency meeting on November 20 to conduct oversight of the city's enforcement of existing laws and public education on lithium-ion battery storage. The announcement followed a year in which fires from the batteries that power ebikes and scooters killed 12 people in the city.
The New York fire department recorded more than 400 such fires and 83 injuries in 2026, against 292 fires, 51 injuries and one death in 2025. In late October, four members of a family, including an 11-year-old boy, died in a fire caused by a battery in an ebike that was in the pathway to an exit of an 11th floor apartment in a public housing building in the Bronx. In a later fire at a home in Brooklyn, six people died and nine were injured, including three firefighters and two police officers. Investigators found lithium-ion batteries at the scene but had not determined whether they caused the fire, Menin said in a statement. "The presence of lithium-ion batteries at the scene is a serious concern, and more must be done to encourage and mandate safe storage practices. Enough is enough," Menin stated.
The city has not executed its plan to build outdoor charging stations that would reduce the risk of residents charging batteries in apartments. In 2023 the city announced a $25 million federal grant to build 173 electric-micromobility charging and storage stations at 53 public housing developments. Three years later none have been built, and the federal government has not actually provided the funds, according to the New York department of transportation. The department said in an email that its strategy focuses on getting unsafe devices off the streets and providing safe charging options, and that it is finalizing locations for a public charging program before the design phase, remaining on pace to launch in 2028.
A 2024 city pilot hired companies to offer battery-swapping cabinets where delivery workers could exchange exhausted batteries for charged ones. Riders did more than 12,000 swaps over six months, and participants reduced charging batteries at home by 35%, according to the city. Popwheels, one of the pilot companies, has installed about 45 cabinets around the city, according to CEO Baruch Herzfeld, who said he wants to install hundreds more but faces a permitting process he called "ludicrous" and that often takes six months per cabinet. "This permitting process is why kids are dying," Herzfeld said.
FDNY deputy commissioner public information Amanda Farinacci said in an email that tickets issued at cabinet sites were not for "minor infractions but instead significant concerns" and that the department has been a serious partner to the charging cabinet industry. Laura Kavanagh, former commissioner of the FDNY, said the department is focusing on "too narrow of a concern" and that a battery failing in an outdoor cabinet would almost certainly cause no more than property damage. "This is just appreciably worse, and so I think we need to frame it that way," she said.