Episode 1: Electric Bikes with Amber Wason (Riide)

Learn more about green transportation alternatives here!

****This episode was first released in April 2016. An updated version was published in March 2020. The intro notes from the update as well as the original episode are below.

Updated Episode Intro Notes

We published our first episode on April 28, 2016. It featured Amber Wason, Co-Founder of Riide. We are excited to replay this first episode for you.

For one, it’s fun to listen back to our first episode. Actually, a fair bit of it is the same, given the format and bad jokes haven’t changed, but we like to think we’ve gotten better over time so don’t judge our first outing too harshly.

This is also a perfect time to replay this episode for two reasons:

1. One is just in the past week, Riide came out with Riide 2. For context, Riide is a DC-based company that builds lightweight electric bikes focused on commuters. More on the Riide 2 bike in just a minute.

2. Second is that next month we have an all new episode on e-mobility. E-bikes are part of e-mobility so this is a perfect set-up for next month’s episode where we’ll dive deeper into the world of electric powered transportation options.

Ok. Let’s first talk Riide 2, Riide’s second generation e-bike that took years of R&D to develop. We’re not talking about an electrike bike used in bike share programs. This is a premium e-bike for personal use.

Our friends at Riide have made a lot of improvements for Riide 2.

• It has 43% more power, going up to 28 mph.

• It has three times the range, now going up to 80 miles on a single charge.

• They’ve kept the monthly subscription model of $89 a month until you pay it off. Amber mentions in our original episode how this was critical to their growth because people balked at the high up-front cost.

• It’s also nice that it comes with 4G and WiFi built-in so you can track your rides. It also comes with unlimited maintenance.

If you’re interested in learning more or purchasing a bike, check out riide.com. 

Before we replay our very first show, we want to provide some of the latest info on e-bikes and what the future looks like.

Let’s talk about e-bikes as of 2019.

• As of 2019, there were 200 million e-bikes in circulation. China is the largest market for e-bikes, but it is growing in the United States. In 2019, there were 400,000 e-bikes sold at U.S. speciality shops, a 73% increase from 2018.

• With all of this growth, comes new players, including car companies. GM, Volkswagen, and even Maserati have e-bike models.

  • GM’s version is actually a folding e-bike.

The future looks bright for e-bikes.

• The e-bike market has surged with improvements in lithium-ion batteries, technology, pricing, and power. This is certainly something Riide has capitalized on.

• Between 2020 and 2023, more than 130 million e-bikes are expected to be sold worldwide, generating about $20 billion in revenue.

  • To put these numbers into context, only 12 million electric vehicles—that is, automobiles and trucks—are expected to sell in 2025; further context, at the end of 2018, just 5.1 million electric vehicles were in circulation.

  • Also, consider how far these sale numbers have come from. In 2013, only 1.8 million e-bikes were sold in all of Europe, while customers in the US bought a measly 185,000.

• Talking total numbers, it’s estimated that by 2023 the total number of e-bikes in circulation around the world should reach about 300 million, a 50 percent increase over 2019’s 200 million.

One question we have is if these e-bikes will displace car trips or simply be a faster, electric way to travel by bike.

• We found one survey where 28 percent of e-bike buyers bought the e-bike as a substitute for a car, not as an upgrade to a bike. It’ll be interesting to see how that number changes as these new and improved models hit the market.

Note also that the above numbers include all types of e-bikes including those owned by companies.

• One type of company that is buying more e-bikes is shipping companies as they look for more ways to deliver packages in dense areas and with a lower environmental footprint.

• One study found that e-cargo bikes could be used for 20 percent of deliveries. This means that e-cargo bikes could make potentially tens of billions of yearly deliveries.

• UPS is testing electric tricycles that can hold up to 400 pounds (181 kilograms) with a capacity of 95 cubic feet (2.7 cubic meters).

  • Check out the pic of this tricycle in the article we link to in the show notes. It’s like a beefed-up trolley you see escorting people to and from ballgames. Pretty cool!

• It also includes e-bikes in bike sharing programs.

  • Of the 192 cities in the United States with bikesharing systems, more than 40 already have e-bikes in their fleet.

  • Madison, Wisconsin, for example, converted all of the bikes in its bikeshare program to electric in June 2019. In trials, the Madison e-bikes had generated up to five times as many trips as standard bikes.

Original Episode Intro Notes

What We'll Cover

• History of (electric) bikes

• Classes of electric bikes

• The electric bike market

• Environmental impacts associated with electric bikes

History of (Electric) Bikes

The Dandy Horse - the original bicycle prototype - was created by the German Baron Karl von Drais and introduced to the public in the summer of 1817 (1). Its rider sat astride a wooden frame supported by two in-line wheels and pushed the vehicle along with his or her feet while steering the front wheel (2).  Basically, imagine a ski attached to two big wheels that you sit on while you use your legs to propel you. The modern bike as we know it was likely introduced in the 1890s, considered to the Golden Age of Bicycles, with freely rotating wheels and coaster brakes (3).

It didn’t take long for bikes to (try to) become electric. In the 1890s, electric bicycles were documented within various U.S. patents. For example, on 31 December 1895, Ogden Bolton Jr. was granted US Patent 552,271 for a battery-powered bicycle with “6-pole brush-and-commutator direct current (DC) hub motor mounted in the rear wheel.” There were no gears and the motor could draw up to 100 amperes (A) from a 10-volt battery (4). By 2007 e-bikes were thought to make up 10 to 20 percent of all two-wheeled vehicles on the streets of many major Chinese cities (5).

Classes of Electric Bikes

• Pedal Assist: the electric motor is regulated by pedaling. The pedal-assist augments the efforts of the rider when they are pedaling. They have a sensor to detect the pedaling speed, the pedaling force, or both. Brake activation is sensed to disable the motor as well (6)

• Power-on-Demand: the motor is activated by a throttle, usually handlebar-mounted just like on most motorcycles or scooters (6).

A single bike can have elements of both pedal assist and power-on-demand (6).

Legal speed limits of electric bikes (6):

• Australia: 15.5 mph

• Israel: 15.5 mph

• UK: 17.3 mph

• US: 20 mph

Even though federal law was amended in 2002 to distinguish between e-bikes that can travel 20 mph or less and motorcycles, mopeds and motor vehicles, about 30 U.S. states still have confusing regulations around them. Either the bikes are technically classified as mopeds or motor vehicles, or they have equipment, licensing or registration requirements that cause problems for riders. 

The Electric Bike Market

E-bike usage worldwide has experienced rapid growth. It is estimated that there are around 200 million eBikes in China, and sales are expanding rapidly in India, the United States of America, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland (7). Today, China is the world's leading producer of e-bikes. In 2014, the EU bought 1.3 million Ebikes and 80% of those were imported from China (8,9). In 2014, the market for eBikes in the United States was estimated at 193,000 (10). Electric bicycles are expected to generate $10.8 billion a year in worldwide revenue by 2020, up from $8.4 billion in 2013 (11).

Environmental Impacts of electric bikes
 

While electric bikes are technically zero-emission vehicles because they emit no combustion byproducts, the environmental effects of electricity generation and power distribution should be taken into account. Also, the manufacturing and disposing of limited-life batteries is of concern. The small size of the battery pack on an e-bike, relative to the larger pack used in an electric car, makes them very good candidates for charging via solar power or other renewable energy resources (12).

Generally, electric bikes are about (13):

• 18 times more energy efficient than an SUV

• 13 times more energy efficient than a sedan

• 6 times more energy efficient than rail transit

Sources Cited

1. "Baron von Drais’ Bicycle". Canada Science and Technology Museum. Retrieved 10 February 2014.

2. Ibid

3. Sheldon Brown. "One-Speed Bicycle Coaster Brakes".Archived from the original on 29 November 2010. Retrieved 2010-12-01. Coaster brakes were invented in the 1890s.

4. "Patent US552271 - Electrical bicycle"

5. "Cheap and green, electric bikes are the rage in China", by Tim Johnson. Originally published 23 May 2007 by McClatchy Newspapers.

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bicycle

7. J. David Goodman (2010-01-31). "An Electric Boost for Bicyclists". New York Times. Retrieved 2010-05-31.

8. "Europe’s E-Bike Imports Indicate Market Size". Bike Europe. 2013-08-05. Retrieved 2013-10-25.

9. "China's Cyclists Take Charge", By Peter Fairley. IEEE Spectrum, June 2005

10. https://electricbikereport.com/report-on-electric-bicycle-imports-to-usa-by-brand-in-2014-2015/

11. http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/27/autos/la-fi-hy-ebike-electric-bicycle-sales-20130723

12. Fishman, Elliot; Cherry, Christopher (30 Jul 2015). "E-bikes in the Mainstream: Reviewing a Decade of Research". Transport Reviews. Taylor & Francis Online. 36 (1): 72–91.

13. Shreya, Dave (February 2010). "Life Cycle Assessment of Transportation Options for Commuters" (PDF). Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-15.