To demonstrate product safety there are a variety of different standards and certifications that judge just how safe an e-bike is. Most Americans are familiar with the logo of Underwriters Laboratories. UL, as they are known, is arguably the largest and best-known safety and certification organization globally.
What are certification standards?
Safety standards are meant to ensure a product will meet certain expectations for safe operation in a variety of circumstances. UL was the first body to establish safety standards, and they began with the tin-clad fire door, effectively the first fire door, way back in 1903. Today, their standards are used in 125 countries world-wide.
Certification standards are generally meant to address what happens in sub-optimal conditions. Most products work fine under normal circumstances. But what happens if you leave the product in the car on a summer day and the temperature reaches 140 degrees inside? Addressing all of the less-than-ideal conditions a product may be subjected to is the point of a safety standard.
UL, however, is not the only organization that writes safety standards. E-bikes sold in multiple markets, such as the US and Europe, must meet a variety of similar—though not identical—standards published by multiple agencies.
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How are they judged?
Certification is judged by accredited laboratories that bodies like UL have verified can perform the tests in question. Even if a manufacturer has all of the test equipment necessary to make sure their e-bike passes the tests necessary to be certified, the manufacturer must send the e-bike out to an accredited lab for testing.
What to look for
With e-bikes, the certifications that govern their manufacturing standards come from just a handful of bodies. There’s the aforementioned UL, but also IP, ISO, EN and EFBE. Here are the standards to watch for when reviewing an e-bike maker’s website:
IP Ratings
The most basic standards we see with e-bikes are the IP ratings. IP stands for “ingress protection,” which means its level of protection from the entry of dust and water into the electronics. The IP ratings were established by The International Electrotechnical Commission, and they are composed of two numerals.
The first numeral regards solid matter, generally dust and dirt. This scale runs from 0 (no protection) to 6 (dust-tight). With e-bikes, we generally see a rating of 4 (protected from solid matter 1mm large or larger), 5 (dust-protected) or 6.
The second numeral regards water (or any other fluid). This scale runs from 0 (no protection) up to 9 (protection against high-pressure and high-temperature water jets). With e-bikes we generally see a rating of 4 (protected against splashing water), 5 (protected against water jets) or 6 (protected against powerful water jets).
By offering a rating system that grades the level of protection, consumers are armed with helpful information. A rider who lives near the beach may be concerned with dust protection from blowing sand may choose an e-bike with an IP solid-matter rating of 5, while a daily commuter who never rides in the rain but washes their e-bike with sprayer may want an IP water rating of 6. Such an e-bike would carry a rating of IP 56.
UL 2271
UL publishes two different standards that apply to e-bikes. UL 2271 sets standards for battery quality. It’s not important to know all that goes into the testing. Rather, it’s enough for us to see the UL logo and the statement that the battery has been certified to UL 2271. A consumer can have a high degree of confidence that an undamaged lithium-ion battery bearing the UL mark will give them no trouble.
UL 2849
Manufacturers that produce an entire e-bike system, including motor, battery, controller, charger, wiring, sensor and display, such as Bosch, Brose and Shimano, can send that system to a UL-accredited laboratory for certification to UL 2849. This standard verifies that all of these components play well together. It’s a much more stringent standard than 2271 and is meant to give consumers an even higher level of confidence that their e-bike is safe. This is an expensive investment for manufacturers; should they change even one component in the system (such as the display or battery size), that constitutes a different system and must be submitted separately for testing.
ISO 4210
One of the largest worldwide bodies for manufacturing standards is ISO—the International Standards Organization. They establish manufacturing standards across every industry. ISO’s 4210 standard covers bicycle manufacturing, so it applies to e-bikes as well as regular bikes. It stipulates standards for materials strength, as well as performance parameters for components such as brakes. With the rise of e-bikes, they have added additional standards that address manufacturing requirements and test methods for e-bike motors, batteries, electrical systems and chargers.
EN 15194
Because the European Union took to e-bikes before they began to catch on in the U.S., the EU’s counterpart to UL, EN 15194 encompasses all of the testing that goes into ISO 4210, but includes additional testing of e-bike performance parameters. This includes dimensions such as performance assistance levels, range estimation and speed limitation. The EN 15194 standard is voluntary standard, meaning that e-bikes don’t have to carry this certification, except in the U.K. and France, where certification is required.
EFBE Tri-Test
This standard comes from Germany and is aimed at cargo bikes, both with and without motors. The Tri-Test administers a battery of stress, maximum load and overload tests. Certification to EFBE’s Tri-Test is a mark that a cargo e-bike really can carry the load advertised by the manufacturer. Shoppers are most likely to find cargo e-bikes certified to the EFBE Tri-Test from manufacturers that produce multiple cargo e-bike models.
Tested vs. compliant vs. certified
When looking at an e-bike maker’s website, there are several different terms that you may see used and while they seem similar enough, they don’t mean the same thing, not in a legal/consumer-safety way. There are three words you may see used in reference to either UL or EN standards and they all mean something different. We will tackle these in ascending order of consumer safety.
Tested
This means that a manufacturer has tested their product in their own test lab at their factory, using the criteria set forth in a standard such as UL 2271 for batteries. Manufacturers will do this before sending their products out for testing—no sense in testing a product that didn’t pass the test in the factory. Using the term “tested to” means that the product was tested, no more. This is not an assertion that it passed the test, just that it was tested. This is the least helpful consumer-safety statement a manufacturer can make. It suggests a safe product when the opposite could be true.
Compliant
This also means that a manufacturer has tested their product in their own test lab at their factory, using the criteria set forth in a standard such as UL 2271 for batteries. The difference here is that they are stating that the product passed each of the tests required to achieve certification. A product that has been tested at an internal test lab and passed can be called “compliant,” which is why seeing the term “tested” is cause for concern. Such testing is meant as a stepping stone to sending a product out for certification, not instead of. Saying a product is “compliant” suggests that the manufacturer simply doesn’t want to shoulder the cost of certification.
Certified
A product that is certified by UL carries the UL logo in its labeling. That mark means that the manufacturer paid either UL or one of its third-party, accredited labs, to test the product and the product passed each of the tests involved. That’s not all, though. For a product to carry certification, the manufacturer must also agree to periodic auditing to maintain that certification.
What should a buyer do when their e-bike doesn’t carry UL certification?
We’re seeing an increasing number of manufacturers securing UL certification for their e-bikes, but the certification takes time. It’s not as quick as ordering something from Amazon. There are plenty of quality e-bikes that don’t yet carry UL certification.
Among those e-bikes that don’t carry UL certification are the many e-bikes built with Shimano motors and electronics. While we expect to see Shimano announce UL certification of their systems in 2024, they aren’t there yet. Shimano, however, has secured EN 15194 for their systems. While EN 15194 isn’t the same as UL 2284, it covers all the same territory and then some. It’s important to remember that both the U.K. and France require that all e-bikes sold to their residents carry this certification.
An e-bike sold in the U.S. that lacks UL certification but bears EN 15194 certification can be trusted. And it will probably introduce UL certification in the coming year because no manufacturer wants to be locked out of the valuable New York market.
The bottom line
When it comes to product safety, we don’t want to have to worry that 6 lbs. of flammable material could catch fire and put our family at risk. We don’t want to have to worry about the conditions under which our e-bike was tested. What we, as consumers, need is to know that a bunch of engineers devised a series of tests that defined how an e-bike needs to operate in order for normal people to have a safe experience. We don’t need to know what the tests were, the thresholds they established or if a manufacturer didn’t pass the first time, but made changes and passed the second time. We need to be assured that the product is safe, that’s all.
With a growing number of communities mandating that e-bikes sold to their residents must carry UL certification, more and more manufacturers are seeing the certification as necessary rather than handy marketing. Even though the fires that have given rise to these new requirements were caused by devices such as e-scooters and hoverboards, rather than actual e-bikes, consumers benefit because the misperception has spurred e-bike makers to act.
When shopping, look for mentions of UL 2271 (batteries), UL 2849 (entire systems) or EN 15194, and note if they say “certified” or some other word. The presence of the UL logo demonstrates all a buyer needs to know.
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