Peloton and U.S. regulators have announced a voluntary recall of the company’s two treadmill products after one child was killed and dozens more were injured in separate incidents over the last few years.
Peloton announced the recall on Wednesday following weeks of criticism from the public and pressure from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), which issued its own warning about the treadmills in April.
Peloton CEO John Foley described the recalls as “the right thing to do” in a statement on Wednesday. He also acknowledged making a “mistake” in the company’s initial response to the CPSC, which pushed for a recall after learning of the child’s death and several other injuries.
“We should have engaged more productively with them from the outset. For that, I apologize,” he said.
Owners of the Peloton Tread and Tread+ treadmills should stop using them immediately and contact the company for a full refund “or other qualified remedy,” the CPSC said in a news release on Wednesday. Peloton has also stopped selling its Tread+ product while it works on modifying the design.
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The Tread+ recall affects about 125,000 units, the CPSC says.
“A 6-year-old child recently died after being pulled under the rear of the treadmill,” the CPSC said.
Peloton has also received 72 reports of adult users, children, pets and other objects being pulled under the rear of the treadmill, which weighs 206 kilograms (455 pounds). Twenty-nine of those reports involved children who sustained broken bones, lacerations or second- or third-degree abrasions.
The Tread recall affects about 1,050 units in the U.S. and another 5,400 in Canada, the CPSC says. Peloton says it has received 18 reports of the touchscreen loosening and six reports of the screen falling off altogether, causing minor cuts and abrasions. The injuries were reported in Canada and the United Kingdom.
The CPSC previously released disturbing video of a child being pulled under the Tread+ treadmill to illustrate the hazard. The child in the video is not the one who died.
Peloton’s stock price fell by more than 11 per cent in the first hours of trading on Wednesday morning, continuing a months-long decline dating back to February.
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