Users of the E-DublinBikes hire scheme who have subscribed to have a personal battery are being asked to return it due a charging fault. Operator JCDecaux says that there have been three incidents of similar batteries overheating in the equivalent scheme it is running in Lyon.

Since March, E-DublinBikes users have been able to sign up to a new service where they are issued with their own portable battery.

The battery – which is described as being small enough to fit in a jacket pocket – slots in and out of the basket of electric DublinBikes allowing the user to charge it themselves between rides.

A JCDecaux spokesperson said that while the chances of a battery overheating were relative small, there was a need to update and certify them before returning them for use.

“Further to an issue arising in three individual electric bike batteries in Lyon a decision has been taken by JCDecaux to recall all electric bike batteries for the three existing schemes in Dublin, Lyon and Brussels.

“The three battery incidents in Lyon involved battery overheating during the charging process. The identified risk is overheating which causes the battery circuit board to short circuit. The estimated incident occurrence rate is 0.003 per thousand.

“As user safety is our top priority, we have stopped distributing batteries to new subscribers and are asking E-DublinBikes users to stop using or recharging their batteries and we are recalling the 396 batteries currently rented in Dublin.

“As soon as the battery manufacturer has inspected and made the necessary technical and firmware updates so that they can be independently certified to EU standards, the batteries will be returned to users.”

E-DublinBikes subscribers will be contacted by call centre staff to explain the returns procedure as well as the ramifications of the recall.

In the meantime, E-DublinBikes will continue to work without power assistance.