There's an interesting business report from N-TV today....that has to do with E-Bikes.
Around five years ago....E-Bikes took off on sales. In discount stores and bike shops....the E-Bike trend is maxing out.
The curious thing is that if you go and price them....there's two deals. There's the more expensive European-made bike (typically over 4,000 to 6,000 Euro range for the nicer bikes), and there's the Chinese-made bike which often runs in the 1,500 Euro range.
N-TV hyped up this complaint made to the EU....by EBMA (the Association of European Bicycle Manufacturers).
What EBMA is saying is that the Chinese are exporting hundreds of thousands of E-Bikes into the EU at prices BELOW the product rate. In their mind, it's very unfair. Adding to this....they think illegal state funding by the Chinese is also being played out.
N-TV says that 20 million bikes get bought each year in the EU, and they estimate that 10-percent are E-Bikes. Me? I think it's closer now to a 50-percent sales rate in Germany itself. If you walk into most German shops.....the E-Bikes now take up almost half of the sales floor. But this cost factor is what makes people shake their heads.
The negative side of this is that the theft rate of bikes in general (even before E-Bikes came along) is hefty. If you went out and laid down 3,000 Euro for a E-Bike....you have to go and buy insurance to go along with it. In urbanized areas like Wiesbaden? You can ask a hundred bike-enthusiasts and probably a quarter of them have had bikes stolen in the past three years.
As for the Chinese problem? I think most of the Chinese companies have multiplied to the level where there's just too many bikes being manufactured, and they've reached a stage where minimum profit is possible. If the EU were to step in and cause an investigation....it'd bring down the whole industry (at least for a year or two).
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