Many of the e-bikes and scooters are sold out of small shops in NYC's various Chinatown areas. Typically the shops are run by local small business owners who ha

Many of the e-bikes and scooters are sold out of small shops in NYC's various Chinatown areas. Typically the shops are run by local small business owners who have direct connections to factory owners overseas who are willing to sell to the NYC shop owner at a factory price. As a result these bikes tend to be rather dubious in origin as they were manufactured, imported, and sold without necessarily going through the same certifications that a large business would have required. On the one hand its a profitable venture for small local businesses, and the vast majority of these e-bikes function fine without big government regulation stepping in and trying to control things. But on the other hand there are a worrying number of scattered incidents of dangerous fires in our very dense city. I think this is why the article makes such a big deal about trying to track down brands and origins of the burned e-bikes. Is it random events distributed across all the e-bikes, or are there just a few bad sources that are selling particularly dangerous e-bikes? I don't think anyone knows yet.