The epidemic has changed the way Europeans live, and the most interesting of these is the snub of e-bikes to new fashion.

A Xiaomi smart electric folding bike, which costs up to 999 euros (nearly 8,000 yuan) in France, is scheduled today and will not arrive until August 10. This “Mijia riding electric power folding bicycle” in China Xiaomi official website price is only 2999 yuan. Thanks to government subsidies and a desire for a healthy lifestyle, European e-bikes have become in short supply after the outbreak.

Alibaba’s cross-border e-commerce platform Express has a very interesting recent number: in May, the Spanish market bicycle sales grew more than 22 times compared with the same month last year, while in Italy and the UK about four times. At the same time, sales of electric scooters have increased significantly, with Italy growing nearly ninefold, the UK nearly eight times and France up 380 per cent.
The epidemic has changed the way Europeans live, and the most interesting of these is the snub of e-bikes to new fashion.

E-bikes have long been an awkward presence in Europe, and five or six years ago the British version of The Apprentice did a commercial project related to e-bikes, a locally made electric bike that sold for 1,200 pounds, and immediately asked: Why is the bike electric? In Western Europe, where the proportion of family-owned cars is more than 80%, bicycles have always been more “fitness tools” than daily commutes, with the biggest benefits of improving cardiovascular health, lowering blood pressure, and muscle building, among other things.

So, why is the bike electric? This “embarrassing” makes e-bikes a niche product in Europe for a few years.
The epidemic has become a god-aid for e-bikes: in France, public transport is not safe and requires masks; big European cities such as Paris, Berlin and Milan, in order to promote green commuting, have since lifted the ban by giving bicycles another piece of the already narrow road, making it easier for bicycles to travel, but making it more convenient for private cars to travel to and from work.
E-bikes are finally springing up in Europe after governments across Europe launched a stimulus package to buy them.
- Fayi Hao to supplement the electric bicycle, the British eye
Starting earlier this month, in an effort to encourage healthier travel, Chamb?ry in eastern France began subsidizing residents who buy electric cars by 500 euros per household – a discount of at least 75 per cent on electric bikes.
“For the average person, buying an electric bike costs a lot, and the average e-bike costs between 1,000 and 3,000 euros. But after government subsidies, at least a 70% discount was paid to e-bikes. Two weeks before the subsidy began, one of our stores sold 70 bikes in two months. “At a bicycle shop called Mondov?lo, the salesman cheerfully said to me.

It is not the first time France has subsidised the purchase of e-bikes by its citizens, but it is definitely the first city to make up for electric bikes after the french ban. Starting in January 2018, the Paris Region (France) will provide freelancers and some companies with an electric self-propelled “truck” rebate of 1,200 euros to combat urban pollution, encouraging companies to “deliver” with electric bicycles. In France, at least a dozen cities offer subsidies ranging from hundreds to thousands of euros to buy electric vans, while in Europe, including France and Italy, the Netherlands and Austria and Belgium, similar subsidies have been launched in about a dozen countries.
In addition, paris has a similar Schoenberg subsidy scheme for the purchase of e-bikes, even in February, when the outbreak was not serious – up to 50 per cent and up to 500 euros.
In Italy, all city dwellers with a population of more than 50,000 can enjoy a 70 per cent discount on electric scooters, with a maximum subsidy of 500 euros. It is part of a “reboot” of Italy’s stimulus, with subsidies continuing from May 4th to December 31st this year. In this cycling-loving country, the government’s subsidy for e-bikes is clear. In May, Italians’ willingness to buy e-bikes increased a full ninefold;

Germany offered an electric bike subsidy earlier than Italy. Munich companies and charities, freelancers, can receive government subsidies to buy e-bikes to promote “electric travel”: “electric self-driving vans” with a maximum subsidy of 1,000 euros; This is naturally good news for e-bike makers. BMW, for example, is active in the cycling sector, with eight models ranging from bicycles to e-bikes: a BMW electric city hybrid bike costs up to 2,590 euros; a fold-down regular bike costs 775 euros.
Britain also saw a wave of growth in bicycles and e-bikes in the second quarter, but the industry was unhappy with the government’s policies and only hoped that the government, like other EU neighbours, would be able to subsidize e-bikes.
Sina Finance, through the British Cycling Federation (BA), learned that in April, the price of bicycles between 400 and 1000 pounds almost doubled from the same period last year, but e-bikes did not perform as well in the same month, although also reached the same 50% increase in sales expectations, but the British Cycling Federation still did not think the increase is not ideal. So British Cycling’s executive director, Steve Garidis, believes April’s sales figures should be a strong case for persuading the UK government to introduce a stimulus to accelerate sales of e-bikes

The British Cycling Federation is well-founded, even estimating that sales of e-bikes in the UK could double in the next 12 months, even if they are subsidised by the government for just 250 pounds. Of course, the government should also come forward to promote the many benefits of e-bikes, electric bicycles as a travel “fashion.” “
- Who will benefit from this e-bike gold mine?
In Germany, where e-bikes account for a third of all bikes sold, the country’s cycling market has boomed in the last two months, and local manufacturers have even faced a restocking dilemma because suppliers are out of stock and many parts that can arrive in three or four days before the outbreak are out of stock. Stevens, a bicycle manufacturer in Hamburg, northern Germany, for example, has been producing even at the height of the outbreak, and by the end of June it had largely sold out all existing 2020 stock in the warehouse. That’s thanks to the company’s Chinese suppliers, which did not stop production in February, so they were given enough parts to be produced in four to six weeks.

In Europe, the bicycle market is not very flexible. For example, bicycles in the German market are usually displayed in the autumn of the previous year, with orders received and production plans for the whole year following the order. So a lot of the bikes on the market today were set in August and September last year. Against this backdrop, European cycling producers are struggling to cope with sudden surges in demand.
At this time, the price-performance ratio has an absolute competitive advantage in The Situation facing Chinese manufacturers in the EU market is also very complex.
Although China is the world’s largest producer of e-bikes, Europe is also fully protective of this emerging growth sector, with the European Union raising tariffs on e-bikes from 6 per cent to 84 per cent in July 2018 to control the large number of Chinese e-bikes entering the European market with countervailing and anti-dumping measures.
For example, Sina Finance learned through Darty, a local French store, that a Xiaomi smart electric folding bike, which costs up to 999 euros (nearly 8,000 yuan), still needs to be booked in advance before it arrives on August 10. This “Mijia ride electric power folding bicycle” on Xiaomi’s official website sells for 2,999 yuan.
Against the backdrop of such protection policies, Europe’s homegrown e-bike factories and start-ups are spending their time on competing in Eastern Europe. After the outbreak, many home appliance manufacturers and innovation companies are more optimistic about this wave, either increase investment or quickly set up factories.
Even so, Germany, France and the United Kingdom still have a large number of local bicycle companies are mostly design templates, vehicle production or components are still to be in China, because some manufacturing technology is still in the hands of Chinese companies.

Scooters and electric scooters