New e-bikes or electric bicycle sharing services provide immense convenience to users. There are extra charges for travel of every 30 minutes, along with the small registration fee that a commuters have to pay. Moreover, bicycles are available 24 hours a day, making round-the-clock commute possible and this sharing services are dockless where a rider can park the bike at any station. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are avoiding public transportation to curb the spread of coronavirus. Hence, there is rise in adoption of e-bikes for their transportation, as it is cheapest and convenient option for the consumers. In addition, there has been a growing demand for e-bikes for recreational purposes. Increasing number of users are seeking to own their personal e-bikes built as per their preferred specifications.
Pedal-assisted and throttle are two propulsion types used in e-bikes, among them pedal-assisted e-bikes dominated the market. Pedal-assisted e-bikes are widely preferred by the customers due to higher consumer preference towards pedaling. In addition, hub drive and mid drive motors are the motors types used in e-bikes. Whereas, mid drive motors are widely used by the riders due to its lighter weight, lesser noise, and seamless integration with bike frames. As compare to hub drive motors, mid drive motors offer weight distribution due to its load balancing feature and it is also used for heavy-duty applications. There are different types of e-bikes available for the commuters, such as city Bikes, mountain bikes, trekking bikes, cargo bikes and kids’ bikes. Among all, city bikes dominated the market, as it is widely used in the fleet of e-bikes sharing system. Moreover, city bikes do not require huge investments and it is considered as an affordable alternative to other transportation services. Apart from city bikes, mountain bikes are also preferred by the rider as it provides optimum load control and help to overcome performance differences while commuting.
Key players of the e-bikes market are A2B Bicycles (Hero Eco Group), Benno Bikes LLC, Beistegui Hermanos S.A., Gocycle (Karbon Kinetics Ltd.), eROCKIT Systems GmbH, Accell Group N.V., EVELO, Inc., Giant Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Merida Industry Co., Ltd. and Yamaha Motor Corporation.
Trends and Future Outlook:
- Growing popularity of technological advancements in the e-bikes, such as connected e-bike, which send and receive data over the cloud
- Several players that are operating in e-bikes market are focusing to develop and improve the battery pack in order to increase their support and running time of the vehicle
- Smartron has entered into B2B electric bike segment and collaborated with travel tech platform BLive for providing experiential trips on electric bikes
- Europe permits a centralized EU E-bike Access Fund of US$ 6.79 Bn for allowing European Green Deal with the support of electric cycling
