TheCityFix.com: E-Bike Boom in China

Originally posted on TheCityFix.com.

From TIME.com:

On the Streets of China, Electric Bikes Are Swarming
June 14, 2009
By Austin Ramzy

In China, electric bicycles are leaving cars in the dust. Last year, Chinese bought 21 million e-bikes, compared with 9.4 million autos. While China now has about 25 million cars on the road, it has four times as many e-bikes. [Compare these staggering figures to more modest numbers from the United States, where more bicycles (2.6 million) were sold than cars and trucks (2.5 million) during the first quarter of 2009.] Thanks to government encouragement and a population well versed in riding two wheels to work, the country has become the world’s leading market for the cheap, green vehicles, helping to offset some of the harmful effects of the country’s automobile boom. Indeed, as engineers around the world scramble to create eco-friendly, plug-in electric cars, China is already ahead of the game.

But is the popularity of the e-bike in the world’s most populous country necessarily a good thing?

Read about the pros (i.e. increased mobility) and cons (i.e. lead pollution) here.

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