News: Electric bike searches leap 175 per cent as fuel cost rises worsen

[RichardB]

From BikeBiz:

idealo.co.uk told BikeBiz that search requests for bikes and electric bicycles have jumped by 58 and 175 per cent month-on-month jumps, respectively.

Further hikes in petrol prices have sparked a large surge in web searches for bicycles and electric bikes, according to a price comparison website.

 

[lectureral]

The last sentence must be speculation. I'd like to know what comparison is actually being made here. If it is just this month over last month then I would imagine that the approach of good weather might be having an impact. Still, good news all the same.

 

[Scottyf]

Indeed needs to be Like for Like or based against LY to really give a true comparision.

Anyone can spin figures to look good.

Still more and more people interested can only be a good thing.

Its the reason I got rid of my car.

 

[flecc]

.

Its the reason I got rid of my car.

Not me, I've ordered a new one, coming from Japan. I'm not sure at present whether it will be coming by ship or floating across by itself.
.

 

[Wisper Bikes]

I thought the Leaf was made in the North East Tony?

Best regards

David

 

[WALKERMAN]

From BikeBiz:

idealo.co.uk told BikeBiz that search requests for bikes and electric bicycles have jumped by 58 and 175 per cent month-on-month jumps, respectively.

Further hikes in petrol prices have sparked a large surge in web searches for bicycles and electric bikes, according to a price comparison website.

I think I will have to advertise my Giant Lafree Comfort ST again if this is true

 

[EdBike]

This might be of interest RE: the OP: Google Trends: electric bikes

 

[Wisper Bikes]

Interesting Ed, I wonder what caused the huge peak in 2008? Was that when petrol went through the £1.00/l barrier?

In general only a small increase over the years, rather disappointing.....

Regards

David

 

[EdBike]

In general only a small increase over the years, rather disappointing.....

Its not the full picture. First, its only one search phrase out of thousands of permutations, it doesn't correlate to revenues and the growth of the industry and doesn't show how well the industry is responding to the search demand

Given the news reports and other means of discovering electric bikes, more than likely there would be some link to a website or other resource, so perhaps that's why search volume over a given year doesn't necessarily appear to grow.

That, and the advice given to me - always take Google's data with a heavy pinch of salt. Google Trends shows an approximate trend (look at the seasonality for example) Take a look at this for messed up Google data: Google Trends: bicycle commuting

 

[Wisper Bikes]

It seems we have another Guru!

Thanks Ed as always for explaining.

All the best

D

 

[flecc]

I wonder what caused the huge peak in 2008?

Regards

David

Wasn't that when you introduced the 14 Ah battery David.
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[Wisper Bikes]

Ahh that'll be it Tony, I can't wait to see what happens if we get the Li S batteries going!

All the best

David

 

[Jeanette Morgan]

I think also that it was around 2008 that the Bike Scheme whereby you could buy a bike through your work and get a tax break, or something like that, was introduced/becoming more popular.

 

[rsscott]

We saw a big spike for the 6 months after oil hit $150/barrel. Then it eased back a bit over winter, picking up steadily again during 2009/10. Winter months always sees less visitors but numbers have jumped dramatically the last month or so.

It would be nice to see 175% increase in visitors, but even so it's probably closer to about 100% in the last month.

Registrations are still tiny though compared to the the unique visitors. Last year was over 350,000 uniques from 184 countries/territories. So there are a lot of lurkers out there!

 

[Wisper Bikes]

That's huge Matt, well done sir!

Regards

David

 

[rog_london]

It would be nice to see 175% increase in visitors, but even so it's probably closer to about 100% in the last month.

Registrations are still tiny though compared to the the unique visitors. Last year was over 350,000 uniques from 184 countries/territories. So there are a lot of lurkers out there!

What I especially notice is the number on-line when I look in. Last year on a good day you might get into the mid 30s, whereas I've seen over 60 in the last few days, and more than 40 is commonplace.

Rog.

 

[flecc]

Registrations are still tiny though compared to the the unique visitors. Last year was over 350,000 uniques from 184 countries/territories. So there are a lot of lurkers out there!

I think with e-bikes it's a critical mass thing. There's no doubting the interest there's been in recent years, and it's growth, but widespread ownership is likely to come when people routinely start to see others riding them. In all too many areas like mine this doesn't happen yet, indeed I've still yet to see another e-bike ridden despite living here for 43 years from before e-bikes existed on our roads.

(I have at least seen one parked and one being walked by an old chap clearly scared of the traffic at the junction involved.)
.

 

[EdBike]

I think with e-bikes it's a critical mass thing. There's no doubting the interest there's been in recent years, and it's growth, but widespread ownership is likely to come when people routinely start to see others riding them. In all too many areas like mine this doesn't happen yet, indeed I've still yet to see another e-bike ridden despite living here for 43 years from before e-bikes existed on our roads.

(I have at least seen one parked and one being walked by an old chap clearly scared of the traffic at the junction involved.)
.

Your right. And the easiest way to do that is to shrink the size of the market. Say a dealer in Oxford or some smaller city just takes ownership of the problem, works the press, works events and just gets people on them.

Do it city by city - and it'll work on the larger scale.