The e-bike in China is a motorised scooter,with power 700-1800 watts and big lead acid batteries,they are very fast,up to 40mph. There are thousands of accidents and many fatalities. There are millions in every chinese city,mostly ridden by young people.They are often badly ridden and ignore traffic flow directions,that is why the government wishes to eliminate them and replace them with EN15194 spec bicycles.
Some musings I have noted on my chinese trips.
They often 'steal' the electricity from their employer-I once walked behind a department store in Houjie(near Guangzhou),there was a single cable from an upstairs window connected to several multi plugs charging a dozen or so bikes,the root cable was hot.
At roundabouts there is an outer lane which allows traffic to go against the traffic flow,cut the corner rather than going the long way round!
If they are building a new town or industrial estate they build a 6 lane highway to it-sometimes the development is not a success,its a strange site a motorway with only one bicycle on it.
One of my suppliers wanted to go to the factory next door,which involved driving down the road,round the junction,up the other side and round the next junction-he drove the wrong way against the traffic,not up the hard shoulder but in the fast lane-nobody seemed bothered,just the norm.
The chinese have no patience when driving,if the adjacent lane appears faster they force their way in,then force their way back and so on,they all do it! In the UK it would cause massive road rage but nobody gets annoyed. Because they are swopping lanes continously,they seem to have good 360 degree vision,the taxi drivers are the worst,but despite this you rarely see accidents. Accidents seem to occur mainly between cars and pedestrians,young girls in particular take terrible risks crossing fast roads.
You can buy a bike in China for £30,the scooter style e-bikes are less than £200 but the e-bicycle with a lithium battery is £400 plus-its easy to see the prefered attraction of a 30mph 700 watt e-scooter over a restricted 15mph 250 watt bicycle,which costs twice as much to a young chinese.
The growth of the car already is causing gridlock in major cities,Shanghai and Guangzhou are much busier than London,they have built expressways high above the buildings making double level roads,but their is just too many cars already-I understand 1 in 7 have a car,if they get to our level of ownership the country will be at permanent gridlock.
The bicycle is considered the peasants transport which is why the e-bikes look like scooters,which are considered cool.
Their cities do not have cycle lanes,they urgently need to have a dutch attitude to bicycles,they need to get everyone who currently rides the scooters and those who can afford cars to see bicycle style e-bikes as an attractive form of transport-some of the e-bikes being presented at the cycle shows are certainly sexier in styling but most of these are currently exported.
Dave
Kudoscycles
