New Federal E-Bike Incentive Could Reduce Battery Fire Accidents

Image Source:  Daily Pilot A bill to give a $1500 discount on the purchase of a new e-bike was introduced today that could reduce the number of battery fire-related accidents. With a surge in e-bike popularity, there has also been a steady rise in the number of fires caused due to defective lithium-ion batteries. These faulty batteries are chiefly related to consumers purchasing cheap e-bikes from non-reputable, overseas companies. The re-introduced bill was actually proposed by Brian Schatz in 2021 as the Electric Bicycle Incentive Kickstart for the Environment (E-BIKE) but was dropped after the bill was amended as the Inflation Reduction Act. Although the new E-BIKE Act is quite similar to the former one, there are considerable differences. If the bill passes, the incentives would provide a refundable tax credit of 30 percent when you purchase a new e-bike, up to $1500. The 2021 version of the E-BIKE Act would have rounded off the credit at $800. The primary aim of this re-introduced bill is to make e-bikes more accessible to lower-income Americans as the credit is also fully refundable. [caption id="attachment_126085" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Image Source: Electrek[/caption] However, only e-bikes that cost less than $8,000 are eligible for the tax credit– a veritable increase over the preceding bill that capped the price at $4,000. The new bill also includes adjusted income levels: to get the full credit, income must be less than $150,000 for a single filer or less than $300,000 for joint filers and $225,000 for heads of households. The previous version set income caps at $75,000 and $150,000, respectively. “Many people are looking to get out of their cars and get on to e-bikes not just for recreation, but also for transportation purposes,” Congressman Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), a co-sponsor of the bill, said in a statement. “Although we’re seeing more people on them in our communities, more needs to be done to ensure that everybody across our country has access to an e-bike.” Furthermore, the legislation also emphasizes the e-bike battery hazards by regarding tax credit-eligible e-bikes as: “Having a drive system that has been certified by an accredited laboratory to Underwriters Laboratory (UL) standard UL 2849, or a battery that has been certified to any of the battery safety standards listed in UL 2849 or such other drive system or battery safety standard that is or may be recognized by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission.”