How Our Team Ensures Your eBike is Safe

How Our Team Ensures Your eBike is Safe

Matt Young |

At Radio Flyer, our team operates with an uncompromising commitment to safety. We have been designing safe products that families trust for over 100 years. We want you to have peace of mind when riding, especially with your most precious cargo on-board, which is why our electric bikes are intentionally designed and rigorously tested to meet the highest safety and quality standards.

Recent news reports have called the lithium-ion batteries used in electric bikes (eBikes) into question after a few very unfortunate incidents involving other brands. We want to assure Flyer™ riders that our lineup of eBikes pass a robust set of safety qualifications, including those newly required (and proposed) by some major cities.

When buying an electric bike, it is important to choose one that is tested to and meets UL 2849, a critical safety standard for eBike electrical systems, to ensure rider safety. The standard is a voluntary and demands strict testing requirements for manufacturers.

All Flyer™ eBikes meet UL 2849 test standards. Read on to learn more about the UL 2849 standard and other ways our team ensures our eBikes are safe.

 

What is UL 2849?

UL 2849, the safety standard for eBike electrical systems, outlines a set of guidelines and test requirements to ensure the eBike’s electrical system is safe and reliable. Underwriters Laboratories (UL) is a global safety certification organization that developed UL 2849 and tests both components and products to ensure compliance with those standards.

The UL 2849 standard is comprehensive and covers multiple aspects of the eBike electrical system, including construction evaluation, environmental conditioning, performance testing, and thermal cycling. UL 2849 safety testing evaluates the eBike’s electrical system, which includes the battery, charger, motor controller, wiring, and motor.

These test requirements ensure our Flyer™ eBikes have redundant protection levels, robust and reliable construction, and do not pose a risk of electric shock or fire. Thermal safety testing verifies that the eBike's battery and motor do not overheat and have sufficient levels of protection to reduce risk.

 

All Flyer™ Electric Bikes Test To and Meet UL 2849, and We Go Above and Beyond the Standard.

Radio Flyer performs compliance testing with the help of several globally-recognized third-party testing labs, such as Underwriters Laboratories (UL) and SGS.

We perform UL 2849 Electrical System testing, 16 CFR 1512 Requirements for Bicycles, and other ISO 4210 and DIN 79010 fatigue testing at SGS labs. We perform all UL 2271 lithium-ion battery testing at Underwriters Laboratories and our battery certificates can be found here. Both Underwriters Laboratories and SGS are globally recognized testing labs and certified to test to UL, ISO, and DIN standards.

Not only do Flyer™ bikes meet the UL 2849 standard, but all electrical and mechanical systems undergo extensive fatigue, abuse, performance, and environmental testing. These internal Radio Flyer requirements ensure our frame, forks, motors, controllers, and batteries meet and exceed our extended warranty.

 

We Test To and Meet Other Best-in-Class Safety Standards.

We test our entire product assortment against the highest safety standards to ensure our electric bikes are best-in-class for both safety and quality.

 Our FlightSpeed® lithium-ion batteries are tested to and meet UL 2271, the standard for lithium-ion batteries for light electric vehicles. Our product development team partnered with battery safety experts to develop our lithium-ion battery packs. This ensures battery management systems are robust and that battery protections have redundancies in place with multiple levels of protection. Learn more about the importance of having a UL 2271 tested battery.

Just as important as the safety of batteries themselves is ensuring safe charging. Our chargers are tested to and meet UL 1310, the safety standard for lithium-ion battery chargers.

In addition to electrical testing, we focus on mechanical fatigue testing on all frames, forks, and handlebars. All Flyer™ bike frames and forks are designed to and meet ISO 4210, an international bicycling safety standard that covers both high impact and long-term fatigue testing. We also test our cargo bike frames to DIN 79010 frame fatigue requirements. DIN 79010 is a German based standard that focuses on test requirements for cargo bikes.

 

We Ensure The Highest Level of Quality Throughout Manufacturing.

All components of Flyer™ eBikes undergo robust quality control inspections, and a multi-point inspection process throughout the bike assembly process to ensure the highest standard of quality. In fact, every Flyer™ electric bike passes 50 quality checks on the assembly line. 100% of bikes are ride tested after assembly to ensure safe and proper function.

 

We take your safety seriously. From design to production, our team ensures that safety is at the forefront of every decision so you can enjoy your riding experience without worry.

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