300 million e-bikes are expected to be used in
the world in 2023.
That's about one e-bike for every 26 people
globally.
The level of ridership is almost doubled or more
every year since 2015.
And we see no, no, no slowing of that in the
years forward as we look at fuel prices increasing
and other challenges to transportation only
getting worse.
But despite the recent surge in popularity,
they've actually been around since the late
1800s. The first E-bike patent in the US was for
a product very similar to what you'd see today a
standard bicycle with a motor and a battery in
the triangular frame.
While it has been a fairly popular mode of
transportation in Europe, the pandemic
popularized it in the US. Being able to get
around easily in cities without strangers
breathing down your neck on public transportation
suddenly became an attractive proposition.
But one study found that more than 9 million
people have sought out medical attention from an
e-bike injury since 2000. Those injuries were
also more likely to be more severe than a
traditional bicycle and more likely to require
hospitalization. There were 53 deaths from
e-bikes in the U.S. between 2017 and 2021,
including pedestrians getting hit by e-bikes as
well as rider accidents.
Some think that that's because e-bikes are
regulated as bikes instead of motorcycles.
Under our jurisdiction, we regulate electric
bikes that can achieve an unassisted speed of no
more than 20 miles per hour with a motor that
has no more than one horsepower.
The keyword there is unassisted.
Some of these e-bikes can get up to 28 miles
per hour if the cyclist is pedaling with a
throttle.
On e-bikes were significantly related
with more serious injuries compared to
traditional pedal operated bicycles and
even compared to e-scooters.
While they are an efficient form of
micromobility, are they safe to use in a country
like the U.S. where infrastructure is largely
in favor of cars?
There are at least 200 ebike brands around the
world, and a variety of models have entered the
market over the last decade. Some are built
with specific work in mind, like food delivery.
Others were made for chauffeuring around your
little kids or designed to fold up if you have
limited space at home.
While some e-bikes are pedal assisted, others
can get going purely from the throttle.
The plethora of options have helped them grow in
popularity, and in the US they're actually being
bought more than electric and hybrid cars
combined.
You can build 400 rad power bikes with the same
amount of battery cells that goes into one large
electric SUV.
So in terms of a scalable solution, that's
also incredibly energy efficient.
E-bikes are the way to go.
That's my grandpa. He's the founder and chairman
of Rad Power Bikes, the largest e-bike company in
the US. You can also go about 40 miles per charge
on the average e-bike, which is enough for a few
days of commuting and getting around town in
the average city.
And a lot of our customers are also living
rurally and in suburban areas.
So Rad is about one third rural, one third
urban and one third suburban. And that might
surprise some people that think electric bikes
are just for people in the city.
And that's not the case.
And there's an abundance of environmental
benefits. A study found that an e-bike emits only
five grams of carbon for every mile traveled,
compared to about 100 grams per bus rider and
240 grams per person traveling by car.
I was literally researching cars.
I had a spreadsheet set up of all the ones I was
going to go test drive, but we were holding off
because after the move we didn't have enough
money to buy a car and we were looking at these
these electric cargo bikes and decided to buy
one.
Jason Slater is known for starting the YouTube
channel, not just bikes.
He's garnered over 850,000 subscribers for
talking about urban planning and chronicling
his life in Amsterdam, where he and his family
moved because they didn't want to live in a
car centric community.
I mean, they're expensive, but they're
still a heck of a lot cheaper than than buying
a car. And what we found with having two kids that
we basically did almost every trip we needed to
do.
And there's actually a lot of people like Jason
replacing their cars with e-bikes.
In more than 70% of RAD customers, their primary
reason for adopting an electric bike into their
life is to replace car Miles.
E-bikes are inherently going to be more
dangerous than regular bikes. Put simply, the
faster you're going, the more crashing will hurt.
E-bikes are three times more likely to result in
a hospitalization if an injury occurs compared to
traditional bikes.
In addition to the severity of personal
injuries, they're also about three times more
likely to be involved in a collision with a
pedestrian than a traditional bike.
Banning their use on sidewalks, age
restrictions and required helmets have
been suggested to combat these issues.
We do not, as the CPSC, regulate use, we regulate
the product, and individual jurisdictions
may in fact choose to impose requirements of
that nature. But for the CPSC, we're looking at
just the actual bike itself.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is,
however, able to regulate speed, which is
why Class one and Class two e-bikes are only
allowed to go 20 miles per hour unassisted in
the US. Beyond that, other national
regulations are almost nonexistent for e-bikes,
leaving it up to the localized jurisdictions.
Some states, like Alaska and Massachusetts, have
strict restrictions on e-bikes, essentially
classifying them as motor vehicles and
requiring an operator's license.
Others, like New York, require e-bike riders to
be at least 16 years old and 16 and 17 year old
riders are required to wear helmets.
Our products are for adults only, and we
recommend as also a national standard 16 plus
years of age for all of our models.
And we make that very clear in all of our
retail stores.
It's actually simple physics.
If if a car is traveling 45 or 40 miles an hour
and hit somebody, it's almost a certain
fatality. Whereas if that same car is
traveling just ten miles an hour or less, you've
got less than half that probability of a
fatality.
A lack of helmets and reckless driving could be
factors in the increase in injuries, but
excessive speed is frequently blamed for the
problem.
But in New York City, certainly the delivery
sector is driving some of this injury.
Literally, their incentive is to complete
as many deliveries as quickly as they can, and
that sometimes will sort of motivate them to
perhaps drive in an unsafe manner.
On top of the obvious dangers, there's also
been a significant amount of e-bike
batteries exploding.
In New York City alone.
The fire department has investigated over 170
e-bike related fires, which includes six
fatalities.
So we work with fire departments across the
country to investigate those issues.
And it's something that we have put a lot of
resources into.
Now, a lot of times it's hard to figure out after
the fact what exactly happened.
We also know that fires can result from
aftermarket changes in the battery or if
consumers use batteries or chargers that are not
recommended for that specific bike.
Because the new battery is often over $500, third
party options are frequently utilized,
which can more easily result in a fire or
explosion.
I find here in the Netherlands e-bikes are a
lot more heavily regulated so that there's
they're required to meet certain safety standards.
So we don't have problems here with, you
know, exploding batteries and stuff like
that.
Cyclists and e-bike riders alike argue that
the real issue with safety doesn't have to do
with e-bikes at all.
The cars are the greatest threat to other road
users, whether that's pedestrians, regular
cyclists or electric bikes.
And that's shown in all the safety numbers from
the National Highway Traffic Safety.
This is a known problem for many years.
It's being deliberately covered up by the
automotive industry, which has polluted our
earth and created all this road, frankly, risk
and fear. And our streets should go back to
the people.
In countries like China and the Netherlands,
infrastructure is often created to favor
cyclists. When bikers aren't competing with
cars, it immediately becomes much safer.
They didn't have to build any complicated,
expensive infrastructure or anything like that.
All they did was remove a lot or all of the car
traffic doesn't even need to be all of it,
just most of it.
And people will come out And I mean, that's
exactly what we saw in the Netherlands in the
1970s and 1980s.
In 2021, the Netherlands saw 80 e-bike fatalities
for its nearly 5 million e-bikes and 175 deaths
for people in its 8.7 million cars.
That's about 20% fewer fatal accidents per
e-bike compared to cars.
The Netherlands and European Union also have
other regulations in place to ensure safety.
E-bikes are capped at 25 kilometers per hour or
about 15 miles per hour, which is roughly the same
speed as regular bikes.
So they aren't competing.
And then in terms of regulation on e-bikes.
I think it is incredibly important We look at the
dangers of automobiles that can go 100 miles per
hour within a few seconds.
That barely registers with us.
But when somebody's riding around on an
e-bike going 30 miles an hour, suddenly everyone
freaks out. So I honestly think that a lot
of that danger is overblown. E-bikes, going
at a maximum of 25 kilometers an hour
actually works out pretty well and they're
compatible with one another.
As a society in the US, as a culture preference
cars over other means of transportation.
We've come up with this like this almost
paradoxical situation where it's safer to go in
a one tonne vehicle at 85 miles an hour in some
parts of the country than it is to walk.
It's also no secret that the US has very limited
biking infrastructure like bike lanes in place.
New York City is a relatively bikeable city
in the US, but per square mile it has about
50% of the amount of protected lanes as
Amsterdam, meaning cyclists frequently have
to contend with cars for space on the road.
Because biking is so safe in the Netherlands
and is prioritized as a means of transportation,
e-bikes have become extremely popular.
The big difference that you see here in the
Netherlands compared to most other places with
with very few exceptions, is that
everybody cycles here.
Everybody from from six year olds to 90 year
olds.
Using an e-bike in the US isn't entirely unsafe,
but it does come with a fair share of risk
factors to mitigate these factors so that
writing an e-bike here looks more like it does
in the Netherlands. A concerted effort between
bike manufacturers, local jurisdictions and
the CPSC is needed.
Bicycle infrastructure is not expensive, but we
need to start thinking about this seriously in
North America as a as a network, how do we build
at least a minimum viable network to get
people from point A to point B quickly and
efficiently on bicycles and with with a focus on
safety?