DOT Finally Bails on Fly E-Bike After Flailing Company Admits Faking Safety Certifications

Streetsblog gets action — a lot of action.

The city has halted a plan to use Fly e-bikes as part of its flagship delivery-worker swap program after the company settled a lawsuit over willfully deceiving customers about the safety certification of its electric bikes — a chain of events that began with a Streetsblog investigation into the company.

On May 22, Fly and UL Solutions, the testing company, agreed to a settlement that stipulated that Fly used “counterfeit UL marks”— that is, the testing company’s famous circular logo. That trademark not only denotes the gold standard for testing and certification, but such certification is required by city law before an e-bike can be sold. The settlement requires Fly to pay $1 million for the deceptive use of the marks.

Streetsblog has repeatedly sounded the alarm about Fly, starting with a year-long investigation, published in January, that revealed that the company was racking up large numbers of violations and lawsuits alleging its vehicles were unsafe, sometimes with deadly results.

After the settlement was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District, the city Department of Transportation revealed that it will no longer use Fly bikes in the e-bike and battery trade-in program. Previously, the agency repeatedly assured Streetsblog that it was not worried about using the company’s goods, despite multiple warnings.

“Our vendor will not be providing Fly bikes as part of the trade-in program,” said DOT spokesperson Vincent Barone.

Instead, Terry Worldwide LLC, the third-party vendor sourcing the equipment, has switched to Whizz Storm 2 bikes, a popular rental model with delivery workers.

The sudden reversal from the DOT comes after Streetsblog’s repeated questioning of the agency’s decision to work with Fly in light of the company’s well-documented safety issues. Initially, the agency disparaged our reporting and told Streetsblog that its exposure of Fly’s previous safety problems would “harm” the city program.

Now, however, the DOT is riding a different bike.

Well-documented noncompliance

Under city law passed in 2023, batteries and electrical systems for e-bikes must meet standards set by UL and display its certification. The law passed after uncertified batteries had sparked scores of fires, some of them fatal.

But Fly sold multiple models of e-bikes and electric mopeds with the fake UL certification, according to the settlement agreement. That court filing states that Fly had “reason to know” that the certification it was displaying was counterfeit and that the company was notified by UL on “multiple occasions” that it did not have the authority to display the logo. 

But, as the Streetsblog investigation revealed, Fly has been fined at the city level as well and has been in noncompliance with the both the state and the city’s regulations around lithium-ion batteries.

The Department of Consumer and Workplace Protection told Streetsblog that it recently caught Fly listing for sale an uncertified battery on its website and “failing to display the logo or name of the accredited testing laboratory on the online product listing page.” The company paid a $1,500 fine, the agency said.

Fly E-Bike has also racked up over 100 fire code violations. In 2023, the FDNY alleged 116 violations of the fire code at Fly locations, according to data obtained through FOIL last year and analyzed by Streetsblog. The FDNY declined to provide numbers for 2024.

And at one point last year, the company was facing eight lawsuits claiming its equipment caused fires that maimed and killed multiple people.

A Fly E-Bike was implicated in a 2021 in the Bronx that killed Christopher Valentin — and his family’s lawsuit against Fly is referenced in the UL suit.

Financial problems

The $1-million settlement with UL Solutions is just the latest in a long list of financial woes for the company, which went public in the middle of 2024.

The hefty levy will be a struggle for the fledgling NASDAQ-listed company which, according to its most recent SEC filing, posted a pre-tax loss of $2.5 million in 2024.

And the company’s stock price continues to be below $1 per share, the minimum for NASDAQ listing.

The company has gotten a 180-day extension to bring the stock price into compliance with the minimum, according to the filing. But if it fails, it could be suspended from trading, or delisted from the stock exchange entirely. 

Fly did not respond to Streetsblog’s requests for comment.