Five years ago, if you rode an electric bike or scooter, chances are you were either a hardcore environmentalist with a geek-streak or had lost your driver’s licence.
That’s slowly starting to change, as gas prices continue to climb, climate change forces people to consider their personal carbon footprints and the design of electric bikes becomes lighter and less clunky.
Kevin Auty, co-CEO of Elite Electric Bikes in Surrey, estimates that approximately 20,000 e-bikes were sold in Canada last year – a drop in the bucket compared with the total global sales of 26 million in 2011 estimated by Electric Bike Worldwide Reports.
“It’s very, very slow, especially in Canada,” Auty said, “although we are starting to see more interest.”
According to local bike shops, e-bikes and electric scooters sales in Vancouver generally increased in the last five years, then flat-lined in 2011.
“Three years ago, it was a phenomenal increase,” said Janko Veselinovic, owner of Vancouver’s JV Bike Sales and Rentals Ltd.
General economic conditions are partly to blame for 2011’s flat sales. But Veselinovic and Gordon World of Ecodrive Technology Group Inc. said adoption of the HST, which added 7% to the sticker price of e-bikes, was the biggest setback.
Another was a reduction in a rebate offered under the SCRAP-IT program, which lopped $1,200 off the price of an e-bike for anyone scrapping their old car. The rebate was reduced last year to $500.
Pedal-assisted e-bikes start at roughly $1,000 and average between $1,500 and $2,000. They will travel 30 to 60 kilometres on a single charge (from a 110-volt outlet) for about $0.10.
One advantage e-bikes and electric scooters have over other modes of transportation is that neither require a driver’s licence or motorcycle licence. And if you drive an electric scooter, you can now park it for free in Vancouver.
Despite those incentives, local companies that make e-bikes or batteries for e-bikes don’t expect to see them ever take off in Canada the way they have in places like China, Brazil and Europe.
China banned gas-fired motorcycles from 300 cities, which resulted in skyrocketing e-bike and electric scooter sales.
Zongshen PEM Power Systems Inc. (TSX:ZPP), which is headquartered in Vancouver, makes low-cost motorcycles and electric bikes and scooters in China for the Chinese market.
Zongshen CFO Michael Cheung said e-bikes will probably never have the kind of traction here that they have in places like China and Brazil because Canada’s car infrastructure – good roads and ample parking – and public transit are too good.
“Unlike China, the city infrastructure for cars is pretty favourable,” Cheung said. “We also have a very good public transportation system. In places where we sell our motorcycles – in rural China – these things are not always present.” •
