One of the city's largest sellers of electric bikes lied to consumers that its bikes were certified in a bid to trick buyers into believing the bikes were safe, according to a bombshell new lawsuit from the nation's pre-eminent electronics certification laboratory.
In the latest legal troubles for Fly E-Bike, UL Solutions sued the Flushing-based bike company earlier this month in federal court alleging that Fly has been "advertising its products as 'UL Certified' without actually having UL certification."
Fly's goal in using "counterfeit" UL symbols, the suit argues, was to "falsely suggest that their goods are certified by UL" — whose famous circular logo denotes the gold standard for testing, inspection and certification.
But this is no mere counterfeiting case; under city law passed in 2023, batteries and electrical systems for e-bikes must meet standards set by UL, formerly Underwriters' Laboratory, and display certification of same, not a counterfeit. The law passed after uncertified batteries had sparked scores of fires, some of them fatal.
But Fly ignored the law, according to the lawsuit. "Defendants are aware that UL
has never authorized defendants to make any use of the UL marks," the suit alleges. "Defendant nevertheless used the UL marks in association with the advertising and offering for sale of their e-bikes, e-scooters, and e-motorcycles."
The false advertising has been happening since at least 2023, according to court papers. When a UL investigator reached out to Fly E-Bike CEO Ou Zhou to protest its misuse of the UL symbol, Fly executive Monica Xu wrote back, "Sorry for the misuse of UL sign [sic]."
But that misuse continued, with UL inspectors finding counterfeit certification symbols at Fly stores as late as December 2023, according to court papers.
And despite being warned again, Fly continued. "In fact, Defendants increased their usage of the counterfeit marks," the lawsuit alleges. "For instance, as of January 2025, Defendants were using at least 29 counterfeit marks with at least 18 separate products on its website."
(Fly's catch-me-if-you-can approach continues in its relations with city law, too. The Department of Consumer and Workplace Protection told Streetsblog that it recently caught Fly listing for sale an uncertified battery on its website and for "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.)
The UL lawsuit also includes evidence — previously reported by Streetsblog — that Fly E-Bike deceived investors by claiming its bikes are certified.
Fly "intentionally adopted the use of the counterfeit marks so as to create consumer confusion and traffic off of UL’s reputation and goodwill under the UL certification marks and UL service mark," alleges the lawsuit by UL, which is seeking a jury trial.
A Streetsblog review of Fly's website shows that the company has slowly responded to the UL lawsuit (the company declined to comment for this story). In January, a come-on for the Fly 11-Pro model claimed that it met the crucial UL standards 2849 and 2271, which are both required under city law:
A month later, those UL standards disappeared from the website, though the UL symbol remained. The website was altered to claim only that the Fly 11-Pro "meets the highest safety standard."
Finally, by March, Fly removed the UL certification stamp:
The changing websites and marketing materials mean that thousands of delivery workers and other e-bike users may have purchases motorized bikes that were not certified safe, as required under city law.
"The allegations revealed in this lawsuit are very troubling," said Ligia Guallpa, executive director of Worker's Justice Project and co-founder of Los Deliveristas Unidos. "If true, they reveal a disturbing and dangerous effort to mislead and take advantage of customers and workers. Trusting that an e-bike is legitimately UL certified is paramount to ensuring the safety of the public and the tens of thousands of app delivery workers who rely on e-bikes to make a living.
"That dependency should not be preyed upon," she added.
The lack of certification for the Fly 11-Pro from Fly's own website is also concerning, given that the city Department of Transportation is acquiring more than 400 Fly 11-Pro bikes, albeit from a third-party vendor. The DOT told Streetsblog that the Fly 11-Pro bikes that the city is buying are certified.
"The lawsuit does not pertain to the model of bikes and batteries to be distributed as part of our pilot," said agency spokesperson Vin Barone. "DOT has independently verified its [the Fly 11-Pro's] UL certification is authentic.” Barone provided a link to a UL-affiliated website indicating that Fly 11-Pro bikes made by the Chinese company Xiamen Finely Technology Co. are indeed certified.
Nonetheless, the lawsuit raises more doubts about Fly E-Bike, which has become one of the city's leading vendors of electric bikes and mopeds even as it has repeatedly flouted the law. As Streetsblog reported earlier this year, between 2023 and 2024, the company amassed 64 summonses for allegedly selling uncertified batteries or micro-mobility devices and another 22 summonses for allegedly selling illegal mopeds since the city's regulations went into place in 2023, according to the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.
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. (One of those cases settled in October.)
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.
Streetsblog also alerted the state Department of Motor Vehicles that Fly had sold us an electric moped that did not meet federal safety standards. The agency said it is "actively reviewing" the alleged violation.
Fly's problems are also financial. The company raised $9 million in a small initial public offering on the NASDAQ exchange in mid-2024, with its stock opening at $4 per share. By July, it had dropped to $1 a share and is now trading at just 45 cents per share.
