Update 8/30: Skip says its scooters will return to D.C.’s streets on Saturday, August 31. Users will also see $10 in credit in their accounts, which can be used until September 13.

Original:

Six weeks after having their operating license suspended in the wake of several scooter-related fires, electric scooter company Skip is making its way back to the District “in the coming weeks,” the company announced on Friday.

The company will be returning “with revamped safety procedures, monitoring, and transparency that raises the bar for safety in the industry,” Skip says in a news release.

The company’s scooters have been off the streets in D.C., Arlington, and Alexandria since mid-June, when a bin full of lithium batteries caught fire in Skip’s downtown warehouse. The District Department of Transportation ordered a 30-day suspension after discovering that it wasn’t an isolated incident; there had also been two other fires in Skip’s warehouse last year, one in September and another in October. These fires involved charging scooters in the same basement storage area as the June fire.

In a high-profile incident at the end of May, a parked scooter caught fire on a D.C. sidewalk. At the time, Skip temporarily pulled the vehicles off the street to investigate the cause.

And there was yet another safety incident that the city apparently never knew anything about: in October 2018, a Skip scooter exploded in a D.C. resident’s backyard.

Skip admits that it had safety problems involving faulty lithium batteries in some of its scooters. When it pulled those scooters off the street, the batteries were not disposed of properly, causing the warehouse fires that led to its license getting suspended, the company said in its statement today.

“We want a flawless safety track record, but we’ve made some mistakes in the past. In June, we identified at-risk batteries in a few scooters and proactively quarantined them in our warehouse. In D.C., they weren’t disposed of properly, which helped create the right conditions for a single-alarm fire,” the company explained. “After the incident, DDOT asked us to suspend operations. Frankly, that was the right call. We didn’t just let our cities and riders down, we let ourselves down.”

The company says it has spent the last six weeks revamping its safety procedures and consulting with experts on the lithium batteries used in its scooters. As a result of the safety audit, the company plans to monitor its scooters and scooter batteries in real time, removing at-risk vehicles and properly disposing of their batteries within hours of first detecting a problem, per the release. Warehouse employees will also be required to undergo further safety training and certifications, and the company will report any problems in greater detail to DDOT, the company pledged.

DDOT says it lifted Skip’s suspension on August 2 after the company “submitted documentation demonstrating the clear steps they have taken to ensure that best battery safety practices are followed by all staff and facilities.”

The company did not release an exact date for its return to D.C.

This story has been updated with comment from DDOT.

Previously:
A Skip Scooter Exploded In Someone’s Backyard Last Year
City Suspends Skip’s Scooter License After Warehouse Fire
Skip Suspends Scooter Service After Vehicle Catches On Fire