e-Bikes + China = Hope

Consider at the same time the two things we have seen:  Powerful factors that limit demand for cars in China, and clear reasons that Chinese e-bike buyers have for valuing e-bikes beyond their low price.

Can we say it with a straight face, without concern that we may be deceiving ourselves?  Yes, we can.  It is no longer unreasonable to think that Chinese would continue to choose clean, efficient e-bikes, even if economics favored gas-powered bikes and cars.

In fact, Chinese e-bike buyers are already making a choice away from gas-powered vehicles.  Many shoppers in e-bike stores can easily afford, from their careful savings, a motor vehicle.  Encouraged by  wise regulations, they  are choosing e-bikes because they are the right vehicles for reasons other than price.

Even without the "environmental altruism" that Bagatelle-Black concludes is absent in the motivations of Chinese e-bike buyers, it is indeed possible that the love affair with e-bikes among Chinese will survive an increase in personal incomes.

Fortunately for our planet, there is more going on here than economic determinism.

Chinese workers with extra money who Westerners think could afford gas vehicles want e-bikes.

This may yet prove to be the most remarkable part of the Chinese e-bike revolution.

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