China's experiment with electric bicycles is worth looking at because it represents the first-ever widespread adoption of an electric vehicle for commercial use. Their explosive development has posed all sorts of challenges, both in terms of regulation and pollution.
It's a big technological jump to cars from the smaller electric bikes, scooters and tricycles on China's streets today. But some of China's e-bike makers are already looking at how to take part in that transition, including Luyuan Group by leveraging their experience in battery technology and electric motors.
The e-bike phenomenon is so big the Asian Development Bank prepared a study looking at their impact on China's environment and transportation. Released last year, the study found that electric bikes are energy-efficient and perform much better environmentally when it comes to some forms of pollution, like the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, compared to alternatives like buses or motorcycles.
'This analysis shows that e-bike emissions, including material production and vehicle use phases, perform comparably to buses and significantly better than motorcycles and cars on most environmental metrics,' the report said. But they aren't perfect.
The biggest problem it found was with lead from batteries. Even though there's nearly a 100% recycling rate, because the batteries are replaced every few years, and China's lead industry is poorly regulated, lead emissions are two orders of magnitude higher than those from buses, their main competition.
Luyuan's outspoken chairman Ni Jie contests these claims. He says that China's coal-fired power-plants and coking plants emit far more lead than the battery industry. And he says advances in technology will make the batteries cleaner, especially as alternatives to lead like lithium become cheap enough to be universally adopted.
Chinese regulators have been especially worried about traffic safety problems, an area that the ADB didn't address in its report.
Ni claims that the rising fatality figures for e-bikes mask the truth. He says that e-bikes are safer versus bicycles or motorcycles when compared on a mile-by-mile basis. He also says that e-bike fatalities need to be grouped with motorcycles and bicycles figures. Overall, death rates have fallen for that group, he claims, because riders are switching from motorcycles and bicycles to e-bikes. E-bikes are slower than motorcycles, but more visible than bicycles, so are safer, he claims.
In the meantime, electric bikes are growing in popularity elsewhere, especially Northern European countries that already had a strong bicycle culture, such as the Netherlands, according to e-bike consultant Edward Benjamin.
And they're already making an appearance on the streets of New York--especially noticeable among food delivery.
It's a big technological jump to cars from the smaller electric bikes, scooters and tricycles on China's streets today. But some of China's e-bike makers are already looking at how to take part in that transition, including Luyuan Group by leveraging their experience in battery technology and electric motors.
The e-bike phenomenon is so big the Asian Development Bank prepared a study looking at their impact on China's environment and transportation. Released last year, the study found that electric bikes are energy-efficient and perform much better environmentally when it comes to some forms of pollution, like the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, compared to alternatives like buses or motorcycles.
'This analysis shows that e-bike emissions, including material production and vehicle use phases, perform comparably to buses and significantly better than motorcycles and cars on most environmental metrics,' the report said. But they aren't perfect.
The biggest problem it found was with lead from batteries. Even though there's nearly a 100% recycling rate, because the batteries are replaced every few years, and China's lead industry is poorly regulated, lead emissions are two orders of magnitude higher than those from buses, their main competition.
Luyuan's outspoken chairman Ni Jie contests these claims. He says that China's coal-fired power-plants and coking plants emit far more lead than the battery industry. And he says advances in technology will make the batteries cleaner, especially as alternatives to lead like lithium become cheap enough to be universally adopted.
Chinese regulators have been especially worried about traffic safety problems, an area that the ADB didn't address in its report.
Ni claims that the rising fatality figures for e-bikes mask the truth. He says that e-bikes are safer versus bicycles or motorcycles when compared on a mile-by-mile basis. He also says that e-bike fatalities need to be grouped with motorcycles and bicycles figures. Overall, death rates have fallen for that group, he claims, because riders are switching from motorcycles and bicycles to e-bikes. E-bikes are slower than motorcycles, but more visible than bicycles, so are safer, he claims.
In the meantime, electric bikes are growing in popularity elsewhere, especially Northern European countries that already had a strong bicycle culture, such as the Netherlands, according to e-bike consultant Edward Benjamin.
And they're already making an appearance on the streets of New York--especially noticeable among food delivery.
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