The future of electric bikes in USA ??!!

[Ravi Kempaiah]

Whether people are aware of it or not, most of the components on e-bikes are sourced from China, even the high-end components as well and China is the biggest produces of lithium-ion batteries, frames, tires, bikes in general.

This article gives a perspective on what has happened in China over the past few years: http://www.theguardian.com/local-government-network/2013/nov/20/lessons-electric-bikes-china

 

[Admin]

Thanks for sharing Ravi! I love the Guardian and this article really shed light on some of the challenges and opportunities of electric bikes. It's interesting to consider how China has gone from bikes to cars and may now be settling on a happy medium with ebikes that can achieve the speed and distance required for growing commutes alongside cars.

It's interesting how the article focused on bike sharing towards the end. I'm in touch with a shop here in Colorado that's interested in the space and wants to work with large organizations to get them onto bike share. Google is famous for having bikes on campus and now Linkedin also offers them (along with lots of startup-ish places in Silicon Valley). Last month I was in Salt Lake City Utah and got to see how their program works. It was really a lot of fun (even with regular bikes) and very affordable. Here's some video I shot while there