NY Swobbee station.jpg, by YouTube Trial participants say public battery charging makes them not just safer but more productive too
In June last year, New York responded to a growing number of e-bike fires by investing $25m in public charging infrastructure . A trial began in March, comprising both outdoor charging points and battery swap stations. This has now been deemed sufficiently successful that it has been extended into next year.
The project is focused on delivery riders. Reliant on e-bikes or e-scooters for their work, but among the lowest paid workers in the city, cheap chargers, batteries and retrofit kits are understandably common.
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The trial not only reduces the need to charge potentially substandard batteries in the riders’ homes, it also involves replacing those batteries with safer ones certified by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) – which is now a legal requirement in New York. Over the first five months of the trial, over 8,000 battery swaps were made at swap stations, and nearly 1,000 charging sessions were completed. Frequent users swapped batteries an average of eight to 14 times per week and made use of the direct-vehicle charging stations for an average of five to eight sessions per week.
About half of the trial participants who attended subsequent focus groups said that they had entirely stopped charging their batteries at home, while the remainder said they were charging at home significantly less.
As well as saying they felt safer, […]
Continue reading the original article at: ebiketips.road.cc