Mail Company Recalls 2,000 E-bikes

BRUSSELS, Belgium - The Belgium postal services Bpost recalled their e-bike fleet due to overheating batteries. According to the Belgium newspaper ‘De Morgen’ two recent incidents caused a lot of turmoil among the mailmen. Last week a Bpost employee noticed smoke coming from his e-bike. After taking off the battery of the e-bike it exploded. Next to this incident, last October a serious fire took place in the Bpost office in Aarschot – the result of a battery melt-down.

Bpost spokesman Fred Lens confirmed both incidents. “The batteries are reason for concern and these have been recalled, not the e-bikes themselves. Bpost runs a fleet of 1,500 e-bikes and all batteries have been taken of the bikes and will be returned to the supplier for a check up. Another 500 e-bikes which would be handed over to us in the coming period will also be checked.”

When asked, Fred Lens did not want to mention who supplied the e-bikes to Bpost. “We have an outstanding business relation with this supplier and we do not want to cause any problem for him by mentioning his name at this moment. We have asked for a two month’s term to solve the problem and he committed to our request.”

For the timing being the mailmen of Bpost will have to cycle on their e-bikes without electric support. “They can also use their former motorbikes and mopeds again which were replaced by the e-bikes as we have put them in storage,” said Lens.

Bpost launched the e-bike in April last year as an alternative to gas mopeds, a part of their strategy to work in a more environmentally-friendly manner.