“Advancing the Green Rider Revolution:” Electric bikes and scooters, common in Europe and Asia, start catching on in U.S.

Ray Carrier owns Green Rider, a store in Baltimore, Maryland, that sells and rents a wide variety of state-of-the-art Light Electric Vehicles, i.e., electric bicycles and scooters. He recently wrote an article, “Advancing the Green Rider Revolution,” that was published in two electric vehicle (EV) publications, EV World and Electric Vehicle News, and touts the economic, health and environmental benefits of light electric vehicles. The Solar and Wind Expo considers this an inexpensive and very ecologically friendly form of transportation that doesn’t get a lot of attention. Here are a few excerpts from the article, along with a link to the whole piece if you want to read more:

“Most of the attention about this topic in the news recently has been focused on electric cars, but for the next few years prices for many of these new products will remain fairly high and unaffordable for most consumers as the technology remains in the development stage. However here in the USA, unlike in many other areas of the world such as Europe and Asia where gasoline is more expensive and people are not so strongly attached to their cars, large portions of the population have already taken a different approach to realize significant savings, improve their health and help the environment by using Light Electric Vehicles (LEVs) - specifically electric bicycles and scooters - for much of their short distance travel.

Although there were less than 100,000 LEVs sold in Europe only 5 years ago, in 2009 it is projected that annual sales will reach as many as 750,000, a 300% increase in sales over just 2 years since 2007, with 1 in 4 bike buyers in Holland buying LEVs. Germany is now starting to approach the numbers in Holland, and 1 in 10 people doing the same in mountainous Switzerland. It is estimated that more than 100 million people own LEVs in China alone today, and trends demonstrate that this is rapidly escalating. Elsewhere around the world, 170 nations bought e-bikes from China in 2008, and demand just keeps on rising. More than 23 million electric bicycles were sold in 2008, and Electric Bikes Worldwide Reports forecasts that globally E-bike sales will more than double by 2012.

Electric bicycles, commonly referred to as E-bikes, are still fairly new in the USA, with less than 200,000 sold to date, but they are rapidly emerging as a viable alternative form of transportation for those millions of people who enjoy and would rather ride a bicycle to get around and get some exercise from riding them to help stay in good physical shape.”

To read the complete article, go to http://evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1811

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