Sustainable transportation advocates are calling for common-sense trade regulations, consumer education, and other reforms to keep prevent fires involving defective lithium-ion batteries — while simultaneously fighting misinformation that threatens to explode into a culture war against electric microbility.

A spate of articles have seemingly warned the American public that their neighbors' pedal-assist bicycles are about to spontaneously combust, engulfing homes and everyone within them in a fiery inferno. A March 4 Fox News article, for instance, warns that about "e-bike batteries are exploding and killing people" and asked readers whether the vehicles should be "banned altogether"; NPR warned that "as the popularity of so-called micromobility devices has soared across the U.S., so too have risen the number of fires associated with the lithium-ion batteries that power them."

This is misguided.