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A withdrawal notice of an e-bike battery brand linked to fires across England has been issued by the Government.
The e-bike battery, manufactured by a company called UPP, has been found to present a “serious risk of fire due to poor manufacturing”.
Withdrawal notices have been issued by the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) to the Chinese-based manufacturer, as well as four online marketplaces and 20 sellers.
Consumers are being told to stop using the battery immediately and dispose of it safely.
Graham Russell, chief executive of OPSS said: “We consider these UPP batteries to be dangerous, and that is why we are taking this action to stop them being supplied.
“Consumers need to be aware of the risk of these batteries failing, and the potential fatal consequences that can occur. If anyone owns one, they should not use it and contact the seller for redress.
The OPSS has published a product safety report on the battery calling it “dangerous”.
The report describes the battery as being “poorly built and lacking a heat sensor to prevent overheating”.
UPP’s battery management system has also been deemed not sufficient to prevent the battery from entering thermal runaway, a process that sees a battery fall into an irreversible process resulting in a fire.
The brand name, UPP, is a triangular shaped battery pack with model numbers U004 and U004-1 listed in the Government’s safety report.
Luke Osborne, deputy technical director of Electrical Safety First, said: “We cannot fight e-bike battery fires solely through taking corrective action once dangerous batteries have been identified.
“Whilst we welcome the action by the Government, we need to prevent dangerous e-bike and e-scooter batteries entering homes in the first place, which is why we’re calling on the Government to introduce third party approval for all e-bikes, e-scooters and their batteries.
“Poorly made batteries can kill and we are seeing the very real and tragic consequences of the current system of self-declaration allowing these products to enter people’s homes, causing devastation when they catch fire.”
