E-bike sales

[flecc]

I know 8 e-bikers in the UK (not including forum members), but in my 11 months of e-biking I have never seen another e-bike on the road.

Living in the same area as Fecn, I've also never seen another e-bike being ridden on the road, and that's in 6 years of e-biking plus all the years of unpowered cycling since e-bikes were created. The only one I ever saw outside a dealers or a show event was a Lafree parked outside Sainsburys in Selsdon, but never seen again.
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[rog_london]

Living in the same area as Fecn, I've also never seen another e-bike being ridden on the road, and that's in 6 years of e-biking plus all the years of unpowered cycling since e-bikes were created. The only one I ever saw outside a dealers or a show event was a Lafree parked outside Sainsburys in Selsdon, but never seen again.
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You'll probably see me on Saturday morning about 11:15am in Selsdon Hill - now wouldn't that be a treat? No? Oh well.......

I suppose I've seen half a dozen since I started riding one in January. One was only about a mile from here - don't remember what it was.

Rog.

 

[Fecn]

You'll probably see me on Saturday morning about 11:15am in Selsdon Hill - now wouldn't that be a treat? No? Oh well.......

Enough of a treat for me ... I'd be half tempted to go an wait on Selsdon Hill just so that I can see an e-bike go past, but the next few Satudays I'm booked up with social engagements.

If anyone's on NCN route 21 on Sunday, you might see a couple of e-bikes though... My friend and I are planning to ride from Crawley to Eastbourne as long as the weather's nice. As always, other e-bikers are welcome if you fancy joining me.

 

[flecc]

You'll probably see me on Saturday morning about 11:15am in Selsdon Hill -

Rog.

Of course one reason why I would have less of a chance to see them is that I mainly ride during the week, much less at weekends in the 19 years since retiring, and that covers the whole history of e-bikes on our roads.

Why less at weekends? The driving standards are very much worse then.
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[Phil the drill]

Why less at weekends? The driving standards are very much worse then.
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Oh, I'm not sure about that one. You obviously don't 'mix it' with the 'school run' traffic. That can be scary as hell. Anything can happen around that infamous melee

Phil.

 

[rog_london]

Enough of a treat for me ... I'd be half tempted to go an wait on Selsdon Hill just so that I can see an e-bike go past, but the next few Satudays I'm booked up with social engagements.

If anyone's on NCN route 21 on Sunday, you might see a couple of e-bikes though... My friend and I are planning to ride from Crawley to Eastbourne as long as the weather's nice. As always, other e-bikers are welcome if you fancy joining me.

You might catch me sooner or later by accident as I'd be on my way to Warlingham.

Rog.

 

[flecc]

Oh, I'm not sure about that one. You obviously don't 'mix it' with the 'school run' traffic. That can be scary as hell. Anything can happen around that infamous melee

Phil.

Of course I do, there are schools everywhere and I have to pass one of them every trip out and back, and yes, the driving around them can be bad, but it's confined to certain times and locations.

Overall the weekend standards are by far the worst though, since they are everywhere and at any time of day and night. There's very many reasons for that of course, so I won't bother to list them all.
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[pvb123]

This is pretty interesting from the dealers in Holland. E-Bikes are really taking off there.

Click on WEBLOG in menu at top and have a read what the shops think is the best E-Bike.

Dutch bicycle trade website

 

[flecc]

Thanks for the link, an interesting read. Of course their view on the best e-bike reflects to some extent the flat country they have, but they seem to like the medium powered hub motor Gazelle Innergy a lot, in part through Gazelle's good after sales service there. No mention of any higher powered hub motor bikes at all.
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[themutiny]

Living in the same area as Fecn, I've also never seen another e-bike being ridden on the road, and that's in 6 years of e-biking plus all the years of unpowered cycling since e-bikes were created. The only one I ever saw outside a dealers or a show event was a Lafree parked outside Sainsburys in Selsdon, but never seen again.
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Around my area, since I've been e-biking I have encountered several other e-bikes, and that's not counting the ones that resemble scooters. I see three on a regular basis when they cycle past my house,and I was prompted to post because this morning I saw a rider in his early twenties on a Cyclamatic.

 

[flecc]

Around my area, since I've been e-biking I have encountered several other e-bikes, and that's not counting the ones that resemble scooters. I see three on a regular basis when they cycle past my house,and I was prompted to post because this morning I saw a rider in his early twenties on a Cyclamatic.

I think it's a hills thing in the area where Fecn and I live, the North Downs with some very steep hills that are beyond many e-bike models. Two local dealers have been selling them in small numbers for several years, but we never see them on the road.
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[Sime]

I live in Nijmegen in the Netherlands and I'll give my opinion of the ebike situation here which you on the other side of the North sea seem so interested in.

Frank's estimate of 5% ebike sounds about right. It depends on when and where you ride. On the weekend there are a lot of retired people, often couples with matching bikes(!) touring around for recreation. They don't seem to spare any expense either, often going for the high-end brands and models. These are people who have probably had a bike all their life.

I'm seeing more younger people on ebikes too. Typically parents who use their bike for taking the little one to the day care, doing the shopping and going to work. When your routine is based around the bike you can cover quite a few km's in a day. Some extra help and speed can help a lot, especially if you bike is loaded with shopping, kids etc. Hills are not a primary concern, although wind might be.

Giant, Gazelle and Batavus are very well established brands here. I don't think most people got to great lengths to research a bike purchase on the internet. Most would just go to their trusted bicycle specialist (not a chain store) and see what they had and recommended (i.e. the main brands). Many of the brands which you guys in the UK talk about are nowhere to be seen in regular shop windows. I've only once seem something that was a Kalkhoff-style battery-behind-the-seat style bike, and a handful of chain driven designs with most being front or rear hub motors. Hub motor in the front is standard now.

Any questions? My Giant Express needs to go in for scheduled maintenance soon. I'll ask my dealer how his sales are going when I do. When the Giant Express came in he sold about 3 of them in 2 weeks.

 

[flecc]

Giant, Gazelle and Batavus are very well established brands here. I don't think most people got to great lengths to research a bike purchase on the internet. Most would just go to their trusted bicycle specialist (not a chain store) and see what they had and recommended (i.e. the main brands). Many of the brands which you guys in the UK talk about are nowhere to be seen in regular shop windows. I've only once seem something that was a Kalkhoff-style battery-behind-the-seat style bike, and a handful of chain driven designs with most being front or rear hub motors. Hub motor in the front is standard now.

Thanks Sime. Buying e-bikes from bike dealers is exactly what Bike Europe said about your market preference there. There's no doubt that in flatter areas average power hub motors make the most sense, simple, quiet and adequate performance when there's no steep or very long hills to climb. Not so good in our UK hilly areas though, where the drive through the gears systems like the Panasonic and Yamaha are more suitable, or the most powerful hub motor types that you don't see there, eZee and Wisper for example.

Our interest in your market arises from fascination with two aspects, how well they are selling there, and slight puzzlement since we often tend to think of e-power as being primarily for help on hills which you have so few of.
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[Bigbee]

Im confused by this thread!Can some one please tell me approx how many ebikes were sold in the UK in 2008 and what the likely figures will be this year?

thanks

 

[flecc]

About 13,000 of the better known makes according to an A to B survey, and probably 20,000 overall including the cheap Chinese shopper and ebay sales.

That's up from a guestimate of about 15,000 overall in the previous year.

Nobody can give an accurate guess for this year. On the one hand the popularity and interest are growing sharply, but on the other hand, the recession has bitten and greatly reduced the buying power in the retail market. The best guess on balance is that sales will be up.

This thread was about the contrast between the high proportion of sales of e-bikes in many parts of mainland Europe and particularly the Netherlands, and the low proportion here, and my opening post shows that. The comparison isn't precise since the EU proportion is by value, our UK sales by percentage. However, the 26% e-bike proportion by value in the low countries obviously represents far more than only the 1% of bikes sales being e-bikes that we get here in the UK. Witnesses of the Netherlands scene confirm the difference, e-bikes seen everywhere in numbers and being very common.
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[Straylight]

Our interest in your market arises from fascination with two aspects, how well they are selling there, and slight puzzlement since we often tend to think of e-power as being primarily for help on hills which you have so few of.
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I think Sime's references to speed and distance goes a long way to explaining this, particularly when you consider that the Dutch have a far more established cycling culture than we do. People there were just riding more generally before the e-bike came along, and maybe using cars for longer journeys, or when they had more to carry. So the e-bike naturally made sense to eliminate some of these car journeys. There's a similar situation here in East Anglia, where bicycles are generally more prevalent.

To the uninitiated here, the idea of using a bicycle for riding up hills sounds too much like hard work. As most people I've tried to convince simply don't quite believe how much help an electric motor can give, so the transition from the car is far more of a mental leap.

Perhaps the e-bike manufacturers should start doing demonstration days in secondary schools, not for the immediate sales, but so that when the kids get to the age of wanting their own transport, they've already experienced the benefits of a power assisted bicycle. It's like I was trying to say a while ago, that they key to the e-bike's success will have to be an alteration in the mindset of the general public, who currently see the car as an essential rather than just one of the options.

 

[Alex728]

I'm also in East Anglia and I wasn't the first person amongst those I know to have an e-bike; I had already seen two or three on the streets some of the staff at my employers from the phillipines obtained a powacycle.

I was sceptical at first, plus the original powacycles (pre X series) whilst good and robust e-bikes, did look more like something more suited to those people a few decades my senior - so when "MTB style" ebikes such as the Powacycle Salisbury appeared they were more aesthetically appealing to a younger person...

I've noticed a lot more younger people here (late 20s upwards) on ebikes which is clearly a good thing, and would agree with what Starlight says except I think they should target 6th form / further education age (sorry I don't know what that is in the new system, year 12 maybe??)

 

[Straylight]

Fair point - get them when they're just thinking about buying their first cars, but maybe balking slightly at the expense - like it!

Though I suppose, as e-bikes are also quite expensive (but only in initial outlay), that there'd have to be some kind of taxpayer backed loan scheme to make the cost easier to swallow. Without a concerted private/public initiative it would be all to easy for the young'uns, or more likely their parents, to say "nice idea, BUT.........".

 

[flecc]

That's absolutely right Straylight, it's in the flatter areas where cycling is more common that the e-bike finds a more ready market. But of course that's not immediately intuitive when e-bikes are mainly thought of as for help on hills, leading to thinking they should be more common in hilly areas. My experience in my hilly area bears out the truth though, since in all my cycling years around here including six years of e-biking, I've yet to see one ridden and ever only saw one parked once. I know of two owners not too distant but well outside my borough boundaries and another who rides through the area occasionally, but know of none in my borough which is I believe the largest borough in Britain with a population of over 360,000.

I've often argued for getting the young interested in e-bikes, but at the moment it's a complete waste of time in the UK, simply because of our stupid age law which other countries aren't blighted by. We don't allow them to ride an e-bike until they are at least 14, and that's then too late for several reasons. One is that from then on they can see the prospect of a moped getting ever closer, another is that by 14 to 16 years they are often starting to get more involved with the opposite sex and a lone form of transport isn't so attractive in that connection. And of course in London they have completely free public transport which suits their gregarious habits anyway.

We need to get rid of that silly lower age limit which doesn't exist in nearly all EU countries so that we can get them legally riding much earlier, since at 12 for example, the chances of them being much more interested are much greater. My own experiences of letting kids in my area have rides on mine bear that out.
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[Straylight]

Absolutely, the younger the better, how about 50W e-trikes for toddlers . I do feel that the major sticking point at the moment, and it's something of a 'catch 22', is cost. Without the demand, the costs stay high, yet the demand will stay low, mainly due to cost

What amazes me is that the average (middle class) parent will spend £1000's (over the course of the childs development) making sure that their progeny have the latest PSwhatever, then paying for driving lessons when they hit 17! To break this cycle (pardon the pun ), there has to be a way of making entry level e-biking far cheaper.