The e-bike market is still pretty young, and the last years has been anything but normal for the merket. In that very hectic context, what should we expect for the industry in 2022?
Tesla was created in 2003 and the first roadster was launched in production in 2010.
Surprisingly enough, it took almost 5 more years for the first e-bikes to be hit the market on a similar scale (let’s say – at least – a few hundreds models built and sold a year).
The last 5 years have seen the market become bigger in terms of demand, and much more fragmented in terms of offer. The historical bike brands have not been able to make the turn fast enough to guarantee the same share of sales they used to make on mechanical brands.
Which is good, because instead of boring mechanical bikes on steroids, we ended up with a huge amount of very different e-bikes, and a fair amount of which really try to change the take on biking or commuting as a whole.
Think a hundred of small Tesla trying to do their thing.
2022, year of maturity ?
As you’re aware, 2020 and 2021 have been a pivotal time for biking. Socially, of course, but also in terms of infrastructures and technologies.
Even Paris, a city that has been under the spell of a self-called “car lover” president for 50 years, has made huge changes in short time, adding biking lanes to most of its main axis, and offering up to 500€ for your first e-bike acquisition.
So, what can we expect from 2022 ? Is it finally the time of maturity for e-bike company?
Of course not. But we’re getting there, and it’s now time for :
- More investments (but also smaller, more fragmented, fundings)
- Keeping it “local”, still : The Atlantic is still too big to cross (big brands will remain US or Europe specific)
- Spending more effort in differentiation (to get out of the clusters, or gain ground on their direct competitors)
- Challenging the regulations in Europe (is 25km/h the right number? Is the legal framework enough for riders to feel safe?)
- Selling more High-end bikes (as people are now used to spend a few thousand euros in a bike)
- Re-localize production (“assembled in Europe” should not be satisfying enough for a lot of customers)
As usual, feel free to comment or contact us if you want to discuss any of the point above.
Hey there,
would you mind expanding a little on the “local” aspect of the industry? It seems to me that a lot of brands are already global, aren’t they?
Also, any specific regulations you have in mind for the riders safety?
Thomas
Hello Thomas,
You’re correct, a few brands are global, mainly the big groups (like Pon or Giant), but they also are not pure players in the E-Bike market, and they had years to grow. The companies getting most of the funding are definitely way more early in their international development (RadPowers in the US, VanMoof in Europe) and are still very “local” (understand either focused on Europe or the US).
Giant makes almost a billion dollars a year only with the E-bikes sales, an investment of 130M (euros or dollars) is not gonna challenge the big guys on an international level in just 12 months.
I do believe those players are leading the market and influencing each others across the ocean, but their market will take a bit longer to expand drastically.
We’re preparing a little market mapping to illustrate all that, stay tuned.
Regarding the regulations, there are 2 kinds in my opinion :
For example subsidies to accelerate E-bikes adoption. Tesla was the #1 sold car in the Dutch market in 2019 mainly for that reason. European-wide subsidies make sense to allow the EU to reach its global goal in terms of carbon neutrality. Another example is the speed limit for E-bikes. VanMoof as already announced its first speedbike, and made it clear that the speed limit would be “to be defined” according to the state of then law when it will launch. For the company, and for most of the “pure players”, this is key : most of those bikes are connected and they could be switched to a higher speed limit overnight, when I will need to go to my reseller to change the limit on my Shimano Step based Bullit cargo bike.
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Pierre
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