There is an incident reported last night on social media which shows a Talaria MX5 that allegedly was involved in a battery fire. This is the first major Talaria fire, of any model, reported in the USA which we take this very seriously, and plan to address this concern with the utmost priority. Since the start, Talaria has used Greenway Batteries, a battery factory in China that is responsible for making most of the ebike batteries in the USA. Luna is very familiar with Greenway since they also made all the Surron Lightbee LBX packs (Luna was the exclusive USA Surron distributor for 6 years) and for 8 years Luna has been selling, supporting and also repairing these packs (we are one of the few Greenway service centers in USA). In those 8 years we have not seen a Greenway pack cause a fire and it is a big reason Surron and Talaria products have been so safe. Luna has sold bikes containing Greenway packs to 10s of thousands of customers without incident. We have built tremendous confidence in both Talaria and Greenway over our years of partnership, largely due to their stellar reliability and safety. They sometimes fail non-catastrophically, like almost any battery operated device, and we repair typically without issues. They have always been rock solid when it comes to safety and longevity. In fact the CEO of Greenway visited Luna and visited our tiny battery factory and repair facility and we hit it off… We love Greenway and feel confident selling Talarias containing their proven battery. 

Some of the first Talaria MX5s arriving in the usa were made by a different China battery company called Scud (what a name) due to a clerical error made by the Talaria team, despite Luna requesting ONLY Greenway batteries in their MX5 order. We cannot speak to Scud’s overall reliability, but Scud is supposedly a reputable battery brand in China with even Surron now using them in some of their newer bikes. After investigating the incident and the bike involved in this fire, Luna verified the MX5 that caught fire last night unfortunately had a Scud battery installed in it from Talaria. We are not sure of the cause of this fire and would prefer not to speculate at the possible causes, whether faulty or due to external factors. Regardless of the cause, Luna stands behind every bike and product it sells, and this incident is unacceptable for both Luna, and our customers. 

This is what Luna is doing to fix this, at NO CHARGE to the customer: 

Luna will be replacing all the MX5 “Scud” packs which have already been sold or delivered with the Greenway batteries which we know are proven safe. 

Just tonight we reversed all shipments on all MX5s containing the Scud pack. If you have a bike on order and you see your Fed-Ex tracking suddenly reversing direction, that is the reason why. On Monday we will be reshipping all bikes that had been reversed, and you will have your bike on the way early next week. Due to the inconvenience, we will be throwing in a care package containing some extra upgrade parts to make up for the delay in shipping (including riser bars, float seat etc) which will provide you with a better value… we hope to limit the delay in shipping time, only increasing by a few days in many instances. Again, all bikes we just reversed shipment on will ship out this monday containing the Greenway pack and some free upgrade parts. We are so sorry for the delay! 

If you already ordered a bike and your shipment is on the way and did not reverse today… this means you have a Greenway pack coming with your new bike and you are good to go with nothing to worry about. 

All MX5’s sent out in the future from Luna will be verified to contain the Greenway pack.

I will post pictures how you can identify your pack to make sure it is a greenway pack. All packs are labeled either Greenway or Scud so it’s easy to identify. Recommendation for Scud-verified pack owners: Due to the unknown reliability and safety particularly due to this defect we have now seen, we strongly recommend you DO NOT use this battery until a replacement has been received. We DO NOT advise riding or even charging any Scud-equipped Talaria’s, especially indoors. For the very few customers who already received the MX5s containing the Scud pack, we will be reaching out to you to replace your pack with the Greenway pack. If you identify your pack on your new mx5 as a scud pack and you have not heard from us by Monday afternoon please reach out to us at support@lunacycle.com. 

We will also be reaching out to customers individually who have already received a bike, to make sure we resolve this. 

I have decided to make this statement public and not just reach out privately to our customers. Ebikes are all inherently dangerous when it comes to battery fire risk and it’s always best to be cautious and take the safest possible approach to Ebike batteries both as consumers and business owners. I hope by doing the right thing by issuing this mini recall, Luna will help set the right example. It is always better to be safe than sorry. 

I am really sorry to our early adopter customers this has happened and I am going to do everything it takes to make sure that all bikes we sell are as safe as they can be, and we will always do whatever it takes to make it right. I will work together with Talaria to make sure the MX5 along with the rest of the Talaria line up are the safest bikes in their class. Thank you for your patience and understanding. 

ERIC HICKS  

LUNA CYCLE

PS Below is the way you can identify if your battery is a scud pack. Look at the red box pictured below in the 2nd picture: