"Con Edison quietly pulled the plug on a ready-to-go e-bike charging pilot program at four city Housing Authority sites - adding to the city's overall failure to deliver on its multiple promises of public battery charging infrastructure, even as the amount of lithium-ion battery fires stays stagnant and e-bikes continue to grow in popularity. In an email to stakeholders sent in April but exclusively obtained by Streetsblog, Con Ed said it was cancelling the program after more than a year of work. Company section managerAmaury De La Cruz said that Con Ed no longer saw "a path forward" and that it is "unable to implement this project.""
"The NYCHA and Con Ed partnership was part of the Adams administration's March 2023 Charge Safe, Ride Safe Action Plan, which outlined how the city would combat the growing lithium-ion battery fire crisis. But almost three years later, no permanent public infrastructure has been built. The abandonment of the partnership came with no public announcement from Con Ed or the Adams administration, even though the program was advertised as a part of the city's response to the battery-fire crisis. "It's the anti-'Abundance' agenda," said Melinda Hanson, director of The E-Mobility Project and Brightside, a sustainable transportation consultancy, of the city's botched rollout of public charging, referring to a current trope pushed by writers Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson that argues for loosening regulation to build more."
Con Edison canceled a ready-to-go e-bike charging pilot at four NYCHA sites after more than a year of work, saying the utility no longer saw "a path forward" and was "unable to implement this project." The pilot was part of the March 2023 Charge Safe, Ride Safe Action Plan aimed at addressing lithium-ion battery fires. Nearly three years later, no permanent public charging infrastructure exists and the cancellation received no public announcement. A six-month Department of Transportation pilot with five public charging sites ended and closed a year ago. Only nine private charging sites have been approved citywide. The Fire Department reduced injuries and deaths, but the number of battery fires has not meaningfully decreased since the pandemic peak.
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