As if Lyft Inc.’s year couldn’t get any worse, the company this week had to pull its electric bicycles off the streets of San Francisco after some of them exploded in flames while being used.

The bikes, known simply as Lyft bikes, have only been in use in the city for a couple of months. The company just won a case against the city of San Francisco to get exclusive rights regarding running a dockless e-bike business in the city.

After finally seeing its bikes on the streets, Lyft said it was “thrilled,” although one would think this recent setback won’t go down well with officials or the public.

Don’t think I’ll be going on a @lyft @baywheels any time soon. Yikes. pic.twitter.com/MOU9wIjgII

— Zach Rutta (@zrutta44) July 27, 2019

Right now it’s not clear just how may of those bikes have exploded, although the San Francisco Examiner reported at least one more case of a malfunctioning battery that left another pink and black bike smoldering. In that article one resident of the neighborhood where a bike caught fire said, “The last thing you need is a flaming bike” when the streets are dangerous enough already.

After the fires, Lyft said Wednesday that the bicycles were “unavailable to riders.” In a statement, the company said, “Out of an abundance of caution, we are temporarily making the e-bike fleet unavailable to riders while we investigate and update our battery technology.”

While this doesn’t look good for Lyft in the slightest, it isn’t the first time e-bikes have caught fire in the U.S. In fact, there have been many cases of exploding vehicles belonging to various e-bike companies within the last year.

Nonetheless, the small conflagration follows a string of incidents which could be said to have tarnished the company name. In April, Lyft was sued by investors for misrepresenting its market position when it went public March 28.

Prior to that, the company suffered more ignominy when it had to pull thousands of bikes off the streets in various cities in the U.S. because of brake failure.

Photo: Twitter