In many ways, the humble two-wheeler is the most successful electric vehicle China has ever rolled out on a scale that is truly mind-blowing.
More than 45 million are sold every year in China, Joseph Constanty, senior director of global strategy and growth at NIU, a Nasdaq-listed Chinese electric two-wheeler brand, told me. Nationwide, some 400 million electric two-wheelers &#; mostly mopeds &#; were zipping on the road at the end of , according to state-run newswire Xinhua, compared to 20.4 million electric cars. In my hometown, Shanghai, the number of electric mopeds reached 10 million last year, meaning one in every 2.5 people owned one. The vast majority of these look like Vespas and are designed to travel no faster than 25 kilometers, or about 15 miles, an hour. Technically, they are classified as electric bicycles in China and, when fully charged, can cover 40-60 kilometers.
From daily commutes to school runs and everything in between, these mopeds &#; endearingly dubbed &#;little electric donkeys&#; &#; carry their owners everywhere. You can&#;t miss them: outside wet markets, metro stations, and shopping malls, filling the pavement to the brim while carrying personalized stickers to help their owners spot them.
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During a recent visit home, I saw rows of them hooked up to communal charging pods inside residential estates and outside shops. Facilities like these &#; designed for safer charging &#; are cheap to use and easy to find.
China&#;s two-wheeler sector shares some characteristics with its four-wheelers, which are better understood &#; and more feared &#; in the West. Electric mopeds have benefitted from subsidies for consumers as well as China&#;s massive manufacturing capacity, and the companies that make them have been shaped by rapid expansion and brutal price wars, fostering a handful of well-known brands: Yadea, based in the eastern city of Wuxi and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, sold 16.5 million electric two-wheelers last year, with revenues just shy of $5 billion.
And, much as the domestic Chinese market has become saturated with electric cars, prompting automakers to look abroad, two-wheeler manufacturers are following suit.
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Yadea&#;s VP Zhou told 21st Century Business Herald that he expected Southeast Asia to be the largest export market for Chinese two-wheelers, followed by South America and Africa. In May, his company started building a $150 million factory in Indonesia, which is set to produce 3 million two-wheelers every year. It has also expanded into Vietnam. Some companies have ventured farther: NIU has targeted the European and US markets in addition to Southeast Asia, with Constanty telling me he did &#;not see major competition from non-Chinese manufacturers&#; in the West. Deloitte projects annual demand for electric two-wheelers outside China will jump from 21.1 million in to 46.3 million in .
The US was the largest overseas market for Chinese two-wheeler makers last year, in part because e-bikes and their components were exempted from a list of Chinese products subject to a 25% tariff instituted by recently reelected US President Donald Trump, according to Shanghai-based consultancy iResearch. But the tariff exclusion ended in June, and the Biden administration has announced a 25% tariff on e-bike batteries starting in .
Yet there are also unique factors that spurred the two-wheeler market. For one, motorcycles have been banned or heavily restricted in many parts of China since the turn of the century, largely due to road safety concerns. Around that time, major cities also started outlawing tens of millions of gasoline-fueled mopeds in an effort to tackle air pollution
Sales of electric mopeds boomed soon afterwards, with more than 32 million sold every year throughout the s, according to Deloitte. Growth accelerated from after the central government revised safety requirements and handed out subsidies.
They are extremely affordable, too. At one store in north Shanghai, a candy-colored model produced by Aima, another popular brand, was being promoted at 2,399 yuan ($336), around 20% of what an average resident earns monthly in the city. &#;Most of the models we have are under 4,000 yuan ($560),&#; the store&#;s owner told me.
"If it's not the best in the world, it's not the best in Japan". As per the words of the founder, Soichiro Honda, Honda has actively expanded its business globally. Honda Stories aims to feature initiatives in overseas sites, reflecting Honda's commitment to global outreach. This time, the featured area is China, where the electrification of mobility is rapidly advancing. As an unrivaled global leader in electric vehicles, electrification is advancing not only for automobiles. In China, where two-wheelers have been valued as &#;daily essentials&#;, electric two-wheelers have evolved in tandem with lifestyle changes. How to address China, the world-leading electric two-wheeler market. Delving into the bold sales strategy for electric two-wheelers, currently implemented in China, targeted at Generation Z, which includes initiatives such as cross-industry collaborations.
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