$170,000 worth of e-bikes stolen in shipping container heist

Apparently, e-bike fires and alleged faulty components aren’t the only thing plaguing the e-bike industry at the moment: unknown thieves have allegedly stolen a shipping container full of Tern bikes this week.

Approximately $170,000 worth of Tern e-bikes and folding bikes - which amounts to 43 total bikes -  were stolen from a large shipping container as the product traveled by rail from Los Angeles, California to the company’s warehouse in Illinois.

Tern representatives say that they confirmed the e-bikes and folding bikes were delivered by cargo ship to the Port of Los Angeles and that the container supposedly containing the bikes was loaded onto the freight train heading to Illinois, where Tern’s warehouse is.

“[The shipping container] showed up at the rail terminal without a seal on the container,” a Tern representative told Bicycle Retailer. “When [the container] was delivered to the warehouse, the container was missing [43] bikes.”

Tern is currently working with law enforcement to try to determine how this happened and where the bikes are. Their only publicly shared lead so far is that one of the stolen bikes was briefly listed on eBay in Southern California, which could imply that the bikes were stolen in California. 

The stolen models include:

• 33 HSD P5i in blue/green - a limited colorway for the North American market
• 5 Verge x11 non-electric folding bikes in chrome/red
• 5 Verge x11 non-electric folding bikes in black/magenta

Tern says that none of the bikes included in this shipment had batteries included, so if consumers find a Tern bike from an online reseller like eBay or Craigslist that comes without a battery, it could be one of the 43 stolen bikes.

Given that a Tern HSD P5i model weighs 61.5 pounds and a Verge x11 non-electric folding bike weighs 22.5 pounds, stealing a combined 43 total bikes of these models is quite literally a hefty operation. 

Tern is unfortunately not the only retailer who has faced product theft at the Port of LA; the Journal of Commerce reports that container thefts have been on the rise since the COVID-19 pandemic that hit the U.S. in 2020, and that increasingly sophisticated criminal networks may be to blame.

Anyone with information about the stolen Tern bikes can contact Tern at 888-570-8376 x11.