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May 07, 2024
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People for Bikes opposes e-bikes being included in the bill due to concerns that it would allow people to rebuild and repair lithium-ion batteries.
A Right to Repair bill making its way through the Colorado assembly has been expanded to include new categories of products. The new bill extends its reach to include consumer electronics. The law would require manufacturers to give consumers access to tools, software, parts and diagnostics in order to repair many products.
The bill includes a vast collection of product categories. It covers household appliances, smart and cell phones, plus IT equipment. A number of exemptions have been carved out: vessels, aviation and medical devices, not including powered wheelchairs.
Whether the bill would cover e-bikes is uncertain as of yet. According to Matt Moore, policy counsel for People for Bikes, said the bill may not cover e-bikes.
“While electric bicycles are generally not regarded as motor vehicles for purpose of their operation on public streets,” Moore wrote in an email to BRAIN, “the broad definition of ‘motor vehicle’ in the Colorado bill defines a motor vehicle as ‘a vehicle that is designed to transport individuals or property on a street or highway’ if it is ‘certified by a motor vehicle manufacturer under all applicable safety and emission standards’ and ‘all requirements for the distribution and sale of motor vehicles in the United States.’
“It is our position that low-speed electric bicycles and bicycles with electronic components that are required to be certified for compliance with all applicable federal standards in 16 CFR 1512 meet this definition. Certain other e-mobility devices that have no applicable regulatory standards would likely be subject to the bill’s requirements.”
However, Nathan Proctor, senior director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups Campaign for the Right to Repair, disagreed with Moore and said it would cover e-bikes.
The issue with regard to e-bikes is that if bill does include e-bikes, that may open the door to rebuilding and/or repairing e-bike batteries. As we’ve seen with the steps that New York has taken to crack down on lithium-ion battery repair as it works to reduce the number of fires caused by lithium-ion batteries, repaired or rebuilt batteries have been the source of several fires.
When New York passed a Right to Repair law—the Digital Fair Act—in December, whether the new law covered e-bikes or not was unclear. People for Bikes, which is the largest cycling advocacy organization in the U.S., took the step to lobby legislators in Albany to amend the law so that it explicitly excluded both e-bikes as a whole and lithium-ion batteries specifically.
Right to Repair laws are meant to have a two-fold effect. First, they are meant to save consumers money by allowing them to fix devices on their own without going to an expensive service provider. Second, they are meant to cut down on the amount of trash generated each year by extending the lives of products.
According to the Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG), the Colorado bill has the potential to save Colorado residents $882 million per year as a result of e-waste reduction, which is the fastest-growing category of waste, worldwide.
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