NSW law updates for lithium-ion battery safety standards

[AUbicycles]

Coming into law in NSW - as a result of increasing number of fires / explosions from e-mobility devices, the standards have been updates with more stringent compliance requirements.

I put together some information here. A good move:
https://www.bicycles.net.au/2025/01/nsw ... ty-safety/

It does impact importers and maybe retailers who need to do some adjustments for compliance, but hopefully will rot out some of the bad players who are importing and selling the poor quality bikes and scooters and devices to unsuspecting customers.

[find_bruce]

Thanks for posting. I was wondering whether the changes to meet the standard will affect the chargers or batteries, but it's probably both - a properly functioning BMS should disconnect a faulty charger long before the battery gets into thermal runaway

[elantra]

Coming into law in NSW - as a result of increasing number of fires / explosions from e-mobility devices, the standards have been updates with more stringent compliance requirements.

I put together some information here. A good move:
https://www.bicycles.net.au/2025/01/nsw ... ty-safety/

It does impact importers and maybe retailers who need to do some adjustments for compliance, but hopefully will rot out some of the bad players who are importing and selling the poor quality bikes and scooters and devices to unsuspecting customers.

Surely it should be a National standard.
Your article infers that NSW is seeking to have these retailer responsiblities be extended Australia-wide.

But you’d think the other jurisdictions and the Federal Government wouldn’t need to be prompted to do this !
Some of our State and Federal bureaucracies must be asleep at wheel (to use an appropriate metaphor)

Another obvious issue is that more than 2 million Queenslanders live within 100 km of the (northern) NSW border - in that amount of population there would be many e-device Retailers who will be more than happy to sell their less-regulated items to the population of NSW

[AUbicycles]

Surely it should be a National standard.
Your article infers that NSW is seeking to have these retailer responsiblities be extended Australia-wide.

Yes… that‘s the problem in Australia that many laws that should be national are state based.

I feel this is a waste energy as many laws then are eventually aligned nationally and it just creates different systems, more admin and silly situations when crossing borders. This has been an issue with updates to helmet safety standards and compliance (A helmet legal in Victoria was not legal in NSW). The e-bike laws on 250watt limits an compliance to EU standards and the 1.5 meters safe passing distance laws too years for the states and territories to align,

So the NSW government is advocating others to adopt while I think it is possible that distributors may shift stock that is non-compliant or requires additional certification to other states for retail if this is easier and cheaper.

In practice I hope this impacts the dodgy e-bike brands that somehow keep putting their crap into the Australian market.

[skyblot]

Ultimately I think the insurance industry will drive the nation wide standards for batteries and chargers.

At the moment NSW is an outlier with their 500w power limit mixed up with the EN15194 standard where the rest of the country (I think) is following the national Motor Vehicle Standards definition of an EPAC (that has deleted reference to EN15194).

It will have little impact on production bikes from the likes of Giant etc, as their bikes are approved to EN15194. Other markets like specialist bikes, limited production run items, recumbents etc will be hit hard as it seems to me that there are no aftermarket motors or batteries available in AU that meet any of the certification standards listed.