A reader asks: “Can you take your electric assisted bicycle with you on a train or a plane in the United States?”

If you can remove the batteries, then an e-bike is just like any other bike, and is subject to the same rules. A battery-less, totally inert e-bike can be shipped by almost any means.

Li-ion batteries, if damaged or defective, can cause a very serious, very energetic chemical fire. That’s why shipping Li-ion batteries require special handling and special declarations to the cargo carriers so that they’ll know there’s a potentially dangerous thing inside the package. Depending on the configuration, size, weight, and energy density of your batteries, you may well have to wrap, label and ship them separately from the bike; contact the carrier you’ll be using for details and regulations.

For example here are some of FedEx’s rules for shipping Li-ion batteries.

And, although most carriers don’t specify this: it’s safest to ship Li-ion batteries at about a 30%-40% charge state. That’s because Li-ion batteries are inherently stressed by very high and very low charge states. Shipping (or storing) a Li-ion battery at 30-40% charge gives it enough power to keep the idle batteries alive for a long time, but not so much as to needlessly increase the risks of a short-circuit or chemical fire.

Whatever you do: Be careful!

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