Why PopWheels Is Under Fire After 433 Batteries Burned in Brooklyn
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A Brooklyn company partnering with City Hall on a publicly funded e-bike charging and battery swapping program is under fire for violating FDNY safety rules after hundreds of batteries it was storing in a shipping container were incinerated, The Post has learned.
PopWheels suffered roughly $500,000 in damages after a “thermal event” inside its Fort Greene storage unit at Flushing and Carlton avenues on Aug. 15 “wiped out 433 of our batteries,” the company said in a recent message to investors.
No one was injured in what the FDNY described as an “all-hands” fire, but the agency said an investigation found PopWheels violated a safety agreement with the city by charging and storing battery packs in unapproved cabinets.
“This was not a minor incident, and the FDNY’s response was appropriate given the severity of the fire and the hazards posed by damaged lithium-ion batteries,” the FDNY said in a statement, adding it couldn’t determine whether the violation caused the fire.
PopWheels is one of three companies the Fire Department and Department of Transportation authorized in 2024 to run certified outdoor battery-swapping kiosks as part of NYC’s efforts to curb deadly lithium-ion battery blazes.
Despite these efforts, lithium-ion battery fires are up a whopping 68% this year — and two such fires earlier this month in the South Bronx and Sunset Park killed 10 people.
The tragedies prompted the City Council to schedule an emergency hearing for Nov. 20 to demand answers from city agencies, fire safety experts and other stakeholders.
PopWheels is only authorized to service Arrow E-Bike brand battery packs, but video obtained by The Post shows Whizz battery packs also being charged at outdoor charging kiosks citywide, which critics say endangers New Yorkers.
“Companies pushing lithium-ion batteries and these devices are making millions while innocent New Yorkers are losing their lives in fires, yet somehow their profits continue to come before public safety,” said Councilman Phil Wong (D-Queens), who is leading opposition against NineDot Energy’s plan to open a lithium-ion battery storage site near a Middle Village school.
PopWheels contends Whizz batteries are compatible with its charging cabinets, but the company was slapped with numerous summonses by the FDNY last month at its outdoor charging kiosk sites.
PopWheels co-founders David Hammer and Baruch Herzfeld insisted in a statement to The Post their safety record is “impeccable” — boasting more than half a million UL-certified battery swaps without an in-service incident — and stressed there was “no charging or discharging” inside the shipping container when the fire broke out.
They dismissed the recent FDNY citations as “ticky tack” violations for issues like littering, rodent droppings and outdated fire extinguisher tags, adding, “We are correcting those that apply to us and contesting those that do not.”
In the company’s memo to investors, it oddly referred to the August incident under the codename “Zanzibar” and noted, “Nobody was hurt. There was no press [and] our relationship with the FDNY is good.”
The company also said the blaze left it with a $150,000 hazardous-materials cleanup “insurance won’t cover” and that “losing 400+ batteries effectively froze growth.”
Former Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens), a longtime critic of the city’s green-energy initiatives, blasted the company over the alleged safety lapses.
“PopWheels, another far-left woke company that preaches ‘do as I say not as I do’ — like so many of their ilk,” he said.
“This self-professed ‘diverse group of entrepreneurs, hustlers, nerds, and bike people’ allegedly endangered New Yorkers with lies about their batteries, and the suckers in city government fell for it hook, line and sinker.”