Dutch e-bike market slacking off

[flecc]

Sales of e-bikes to the Dutch are down slightly on last year, sales are still predominantly to the late middle age and elderly (80%), that's the less cheerful news.

The good news is that 10% of all their households now have an e-bike! Imagine if we had that here in Britain, 3 million e-bikes on the road, about 30 for every one we have now.

Details here

 

[amigafan2003]

I'd imagine that the market is approaching saturation point - those that want a bike already have one.

So we can expect engineered obsolesence similar to the car and computer market to take a bound forward soon . Shimano already have it down to a fine art.

 

[flecc]

Indeed, as remarked in the article, spreading the popularity to the young is the key to more sales, a problem we also face here. Somehow e-bikes just don't seem to capture their imagination. In the UK that's as much as anything because cycling is no longer seen as cool, but that is hardly true of the Dutch young.

 

[amigafan2003]

In the UK that's as much as anything because cycling is no longer seen as cool, but that is hardly true of the Dutch young.

Some cycling is seen as cool - but it's not commuting or leisure cycling - it's breaking legs on BMX's, downhill mtb'ing or busting a gut on a Sunday in lycra and a mini peleton ;-)

 

[flecc]

True, but only a minority, and they aren't e-bike prospect potential. Most teenagers in my area wouldn't be seen dead on a bike, even to do any of those things.