Tackling the vexing problems of charging e-bikes at home

Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE

Wu Meifang, a 69-year-old resident at the Fuyou Jiayuan residential complex in Jiading District, used to recharge her e-bike by lowering an electrical extension cord from her fourth-floor apartment to where her bike was parked below outside."The battery was too heavy for me to carry to the fourth floor to charge," she explained. "I know it's unsafe to do so, but others were doing the same thing."The community police officer last month told Wu it was illegal to charge her bike from an inside extension. But thanks to community efforts, she and other e-bike owners who have flouted the rules now have a convenient alternative.New e-bike rules that came into effect this month in Shanghai prohibit people from charging their bikes by parking them inside residential buildings and also reinforce the ban on using electrical extensions.To improve enforcement of the rules, new solutions have been found to make bike-charging safe and legal.Like many older residential complexes in Shanghai, the Fuyou Jiayuan complex in Fengbang Town has no underground parking space for e-bikes. Above ground, there are 25 parking spots for e-bikes but no charging facilities.About 682 of the complex's 4,300 residents use e-bikes, and about 400 of the bikes need to be charged daily, according to a recent neighborhood survey.

Ti Gong

The solution: 11 "smart" e-bike charging stations have been installed around the complex, with 252 charging docks. Residents are supposed to remove the bikes once charged and move them to other designated areas, although some don't.To charge the bikes, users scan a QR code with their smartphones. When a battery is full, the charging automatically stops. Charging cards will soon be available for residents who don't use smartphones.The smart charging system tells bike owners when their batteries are too old to be charged and thus pose a fire threat.In case of fire or smoke, detectors installed inside the charging booths trigger dry- powder fire extinguishers hanging from the ceiling.Surveillance cameras keep an eye on the charging and parking areas to prevent theft. They are hooked up to the Fengbang police station."Apart from safety and convenience, we have tried our best to offer smart solutions because they're the best way out," said Zhou Jun, vice director of the police station.The charging facility in the residential complex was constructed by Shanghai Jiebao King Smart Information Technology Co. Liu Huijie, vice general manager of the company, said one of the biggest challenges was electricity supply."Since no e-bike charging facilities were originally planned for the residential complex, its electricity capacity couldn't support the new project, so we had to do a lot of negotiations with the electricity supplier," he said.Liu said one charge costs about 1 yuan (16 US cents).Jin Wenjun, the community police officer who serves the complex, said he will work with the site's property management firm to clear all ordinary bikes and non-charging tricycles from the charging booths."We are also stepping up enforcement to stop those using extension cords to illegally charge their bikes outside or inside residential blocks," he said.Meanwhile, new elevator control systems in many of the city's residential blocks prevent residents from using the lifts to move their e-bikes indoors.The system uses surveillance cameras with pattern-recognition technology. When a camera detects an e-bike on board, the doors of the elevator won't close until the bike is removed. A speaker system advises riders not to bring e-bikes into the elevator for safety reason.In Xianghe Yayuan, a high-rise residential complex in Jiading's Nanxiang Town, all 40 elevators have been equipped with the new monitoring system."It's really necessary here because e-bike fires that break out on upper floors are hard to extinguish," said Qian Yajiang, the community police officer who serves there.Some residents, however, just refuse to comply. Qian recalled an e-biker who covered the elevator camera with tape to escape detection. He was caught doing so by another surveillance camera in the elevator and fined.

Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE

The cameras have brought unexpected benefits."We cut our elevator maintenance costs almost by half after residents were no long able to take their e-bikes into lifts," said Xie Yong, director of the property owners' committee of the residential complex.In blocks where the e-bike monitoring cameras are installed, parking and charging facilities for the bikes are provided out-of-doors.In the Xianghe Yayuan complex, there are over 3,600 residents, and one in three has an e-bike. The charging facilities, both underground and at ground level, allow 780 e-bikes to be being charged at the same time, and only half of the slots are usual taken.The city's new law on non-motorized vehicles prohibits e-bike users from unsafely charging their vehicles anywhere.E-bikes can't be parked or charged in any public space within a building, including hallways or stairwells and emergency exits, and on fire-engine lanes outside.Parking and property management firms and neighborhood committees are required to monitor rule violations and report people who flout the law to authorities.E-bike fires, usually caused by electrical failures, can be extremely serious if an e-bike is parked indoors. The main bike parts are mostly inflammable, but smoke from such fires is poisonous.Between January 2020 and April 2021, 20 people were killed in 546 e-bike fires in Shanghai – a third of all fire fatalities in the city, according to the fire and rescue authorities.A citywide campaign on unsafe e-bike parking and charging was initiated last October, with mostly positive results. Only 29 e-bike fires were reported in the six months to April, and there were no fatalities.This year, the municipal government is funding new e-bike charging facilities at 500 residential complexes.

Jiang Xiaowei / SHINE