Nearly 1,000 e-bikes, e-motorcycles, e-scooters and pocket bikes — enough to fill nine 26-foot U-Haul trucks — were turned in Sunday at Orange County’s first buyback for electric vehicles, according to the OC District Attorney’s Office.
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Similar to a gun buyback program, participants exchanged vehicles for gift cards ranging from $200 to $1,000 from Target, Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods.
All $110,000 worth of gift cards — bought with funds collected from criminal enterprises and earmarked for crime prevention efforts — were handed out just two hours after the event started at Angel Stadium, District Attorney Todd Spitzer said Monday.
“It exceeded our expectations in terms of turnout and demand,” he said. “The amount of money we budgeted was insufficient.”
The vehicles collected Sunday, he added in a press release, “represent 1,000 fewer opportunities for a child to be seriously injured or killed on our streets.”
Spitzer said the last people to receive gift cards told him they’d been waiting since 7.30 a.m., nearly three hours before the buyback kicked off. The first participant showed up at midnight, and a line had started to form by the crack of dawn. Many early risers were waiting in lawn chairs as crowds slowly spilled out of the parking lot.
Since participation in the buyback is anonymous, Spitzer said his office will run each vehicle through online databases to identify and return any that have been reported lost or stolen.
Among the surrendered vehicles were four stolen Bird scooters that have already been returned to the company, he said.
Given the overwhelming demand, Spitzer said he’ll debrief with his team to discuss how future events can be better organized, possibly by limiting participation to OC residents, and ensuring that people have water and shade while waiting.
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Most of the vehicles collected on Sunday were Class 2 and Class 3 bikes that have a maximum motor-assisted speed of 28 mph, and could be cashed in for gift cards of between $400 to $600, according to DA spokesperson Kimberly Edds.
Next, the county will remove the lithium batteries from all the vehicles before transporting them to a recycling plant, Edds said. A handful of bikes will be retained by law enforcement for training purposes.
Spitzer said the turnout underscores the urgency of addressing the public safety epidemic caused by e-bikes, which have triggered a spike in injuries, fatalities and prosecutions across the state and county.
“We do need to beef up our state laws,” he said. “The legislature really does need to react to this crisis.”
The number of e-bike crashes in California surged from 48 in 2020 to 1,366 in 2025, according to California Highway Patrol data. Reported crashes in Orange County rose from 34 to 347 in that time frame, three of which were fatal.
Many teens and young adults were among the buyback participants, including several who said they sustained injuries after crashing their bikes.
The DA’s office has ramped up enforcement on reckless riding, including prosecuting parents whose children were involved in serious or fatal e-bike crashes, and creating a new unit to investigate potential criminal charges.
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