Last week, four of the distinct black-and-pink Lyft electric bikes caught fire in the Bay Area, forcing Lyft to pull them all from service while it tries to figure out what happened.
As Mashable reports, the e-bikes used to be part of the Ford GoBike bike-sharing service before becoming part of Lyft's operation. They consist of an electric-assisted bike with a rechargeable battery mounted on the frame in front of the seat.
In total, four of these bikes have been spotted with batteries either smoldering or on fire, but in all cases no injuries were caused. Two cases occurred in San Francisco, one in Berkeley, and another in San Jose. The malfunction in San Jose is thought to be due to vandalism, but there's no word yet on possible causes for the other three bikes.
BREAKING: @LYFT e-bike battery catches fire in #SanFrancisco
Reported first by @SFExaminer. https://t.co/Zk5T0mCD9q pic.twitter.com/3SBj19qk2X — Joe Fitz Rodriguez (@FitzTheReporter) July 31, 2019
Lyft decided to deactivate the electric bikes, therefore rendering them unusable, in San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland where these so-called Bay Wheels e-bikes are offered. A Lyft spokesperson explained, "Out of an abundance of caution, we are temporarily making the e-bike fleet unavailable to riders while we investigate and update our battery technology."
SiliconValley.com reports that Lyft has been in contact with its city partners regarding what's happening. Colin Heyne, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation in San Jose, said, "They have no intention of re-introducing the bikes until they know what the problem is and have fixed it. We'll work with them to get a full picture of what they are doing to investigate these batteries and what they will go through for safety testing before they relaunch the bikes."