Europe's latest craze: electric bikes

The Associated Press
Published: August 19, 2008

PARIS: My electric bike is no batmobile, but it makes me feel like a superhero.
The motor is so quiet it's easy to forget it's there when I'm pedaling through the streets of Paris — only I move much faster than a regular bike rider and I don't sweat. When I ride uphill, it feels like someone is giving me a push.
The silver Chinese import that I bought for €300 ($US470) might not look as flashy as Christian Bale's wheels in "The Dark Knight," but it is much cheaper to run and kinder to the environment, too.
All of which helps explains why electric bikes are one of the hottest buys in Paris this summer — and are filling the streets of Amsterdam, Beijing and beyond.
"It's become a new means of transport," said Olivier Birault, owner of the Paris store Velectris.

"In France we lost the culture of the bike after the war when it was seen as old-fashioned or for poor people," he said. "Now it's coming back — and with the latest increase in gasoline prices we are seeing enormous interest."
Demand, says Sophie Nenner, who opened the Paris bike store Velo Electro in 2005, is particularly high when the sun is shining. When it rains, I don't feel much like Batman on my bike.
Riding a power-assisted bicycle is just like a regular bike. On some models the motor kicks in automatically when you start pedaling, in others you control the power with a throttle or electronic control.
More than 10,000 electric bikes were sold in France last year, up from 6,000 in 2006, according to the Conseil National des Professions du Cycle, an association of bike professionals.
And the trend is hitting all of Europe. Sales of power-assisted bikes in Germany this year are expected to double the 60,000 sold in 2007, according to Hannes Neupert, manager of ExtraEnergy, a nonprofit organization promoting light electric vehicles headquartered in Tanna, Germany.
In the Netherlands, sales of electric-powered bikes increased from 45,000 in 2006 to 89,000 last year, according BOVAG, a motorized vehicles industry association, which expects a total of 121,000 to be sold this year.
The figures in the Netherlands compare to 10,000 units sold in vastly larger United States in 2007, up from 6,000 in 2006, according to estimates compiled for the National Bicycle Dealers Association by market research group Gluskin-Townley Group. However, other sources say sales figures are had to come by and the total U.S. sales could be well over 100,000.
Researcher Jay Townley said few Americans would consider commuting to work on a bicycle due to a lack of cycle routes, but in bike-friendly cities such as Washington, D.C., two-wheeled transport is increasing, particularly with increasing gasoline prices.
In Europe, squeezed by giddily high gas prices and boxed in by traffic jams, city motorists are looking for an alternative to their cars for short journeys that doesn't involve navigating overcrowded transport systems, Nenner said.
And technology — which has developed lighter batteries capable of running for 40 to 80 kilometers (25-50 miles) compared with only 20 or 30 kilometers (12.4-18.6 miles) a few years ago — means electric bikes are increasingly competing with scooters and motorbikes.
Electric bikes cost almost nothing to run or maintain and for the daredevil rider offer additional benefits: no helmet, no registration, and no license.
Jean-Paul Massot, a 30-year-old teacher who commutes eight kilometers (five miles) to work each day in Paris, says he's willing to pay up to €1500 ($US2,300) for an electric bike — an amount which could get him a gasoline-powered scooter.
"But I don't want to pay for gasoline," he said. "And scooters are polluting and noisy."
The electricity needed to run an average power-assisted bike costs just €1 ($US1.56) per 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), according to Antoine Lecuirot, founder of French electric bike specialist To Diffusion.
When the store first opened in 2003 few people here had heard of electric bikes and turnover was mainly electric scooters. But in 2004, Lecuirot says the tide changed and now 80 percent of his revenue is from bikes, whose sales increased 70 percent in the year to March.
"When we first opened it was mainly elderly folks, or people with reduced mobility who came through the door," he said.
"Now, our customers keep getting younger: parents are even buying them for their children to get to school."
The booming market is attracting entrepreneurs such as Aldo de Boni, a manager for a multinational company in Italy who wants to set up a sideline in electric bikes.
His initial plan was to invest in a fleet of 25 Italian-made electric bikes to rent to holiday-makers in Morocco. But the bikes, he says, have ignited a "passion" and he now intends to open a store in Nancy, northern France, as well.
"We have to move quickly because we are not the only ones to have this idea," he said. "It's a market which is completely exploding."
The popularity is partly due to imports from China, where manufacturers are making very affordable models.
Alberto Antonelli, whose family have been running the Molari bike shop in the seaside Italian resort of Cattolica since 1902, says he stopped selling European brands because his customers balked at the price tag.
Most of Molari's clientele are elderly people looking for a way of getting to the beach. "The Chinese bikes are less than half the price of Italian ones, and clearly that makes a difference to a lot of people," he said.
China has more than 1,400 electric bicycle manufacturers, producing around 5.5 million units a year, according to the China Bicycle Association.
Less than half of those are intended for domestic use. According to Economic Reference, a newspaper published by the official Xinhua News Agency, China exported 3 million electric bicycles in 2006 worth a total of 40 billion yuan (US$5.8 billion).
Imported electric bikes don't come much cheaper than mine, which my partner assembled and then upgraded by fitting three-speed gears and a new basket. Its performance is starting to fade after nine months of daily use, particularly the battery, which is made from lead and has a limited life span.
If I run out of juice, the heavy battery weighs down the bike and makes it difficult to ride uphill, particularly now that I am used to pedal assistance.
But it still incites curiosity wherever I take it. At least twice a week I get stopped by passers-by — everyone from grandpas to motorists. "How does it work?" "Do you need to pedal?" "Are they very expensive?"
At the top end of the market, where electric bikes can cost upward of €3,000 ($US4,600), some models look like something Batman would ride — if he were into bikes.
Up-market models also offer a much greater degree of autonomy — the latest versions will go for 100 kilometers (62 miles) without recharging. They are lighter — as little as 20 kilograms (44 pounds) — and offer funky features such as controls that can change the level of assistance and regenerative braking systems, in which applying the brakes helps recharge.
Store owner Birault says bikes are only the start of an electric revolution.
"People are waiting now for the electric car," he said.