Yadea is coming to the Western market
newatlas.com
newatlas.com
Many of those delivery workers are much poorer than even Chinese delivery workers, so are less able to afford ebikes. Because they come from countries with significantly lower GDP per capita than China.
Many countries with gig economies where the individual can't afford to own the actual method of transport, a rental market pops up to enable people to be able fulfill orders.
This usually does mean they're the first ones to get squeezed. But lesser known who gets squeezed is the rental operator/provider as well. Because many times they don't own their own fleet. They can't charge higher prices like normal car rentals and own the fleet because the individual gig driver is very price sensitive.
It doesn't take too many vehicle losses to really upset the delicate math.
It's just rentals all the way down.
It’s very intimidating to see a group riding these things on the pavement and pulling wheelies, all wearing balaclavas.
Not sure what level of intrusive surveillance would be needed to deal with this.
There are several players but they still seem boutique and and way over what the price should be.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-ceo-driving-xiaomi-su7-...
It's really stupid because Xiaomi isn't making anything truly revolutionary. It's just a lot of consumer thoughtful ideas, not ones that try to shove ads and subscriptions in your dang car. And this is our "existential threat" to a century of manufacturing. Wonder how Henry would feel.
(and the tarriffs stuff isn't just 2025. That's been there through all of Biden's admin. Good idea... If they used those 5 years to actually ramp up production).
But I was talking about motorcycles. There are some new brands like Zero and some old ones like Harley (the "live wire" disaster). They need a fire lit to make real bikes at real prices.
The revisionist power wants to become status quo. They need to beat the status quo power and they won't do it following the status quo's rulebook. They look for anything that might differentiate them, make them appealing to even narrow groups - they are trying to get a foothold and grow from there. They are cool, innovative, and disruptive, people think.
As soon as the revisionist becomes status quo, they adopt the status quo behaviors. Look at formerly revisionist SV.
The second archetype, electric vehicle-only manufacturers, includes startups as well as more established players like Tesla, which do not operate under organized labor contracts. Their average labor costs range from $1,502 to $13,291, and they face high per vehicle production costs due to low manufacturing volumes. EV-only manufacturers also have been heavily reliant on government subsidies, which are now being cut back by the new administration.
The third archetype, mainstream model manufacturers, has an average labor cost of $880 per vehicle and includes traditional high-volume automakers from various countries. Japanese manufacturers enjoy lower labor costs per vehicle, with an average of $769, compared with manufacturers in the United States, where the average is $1,341 — a labor cost per vehicle that reflects recent historic union gains.
The fourth archetype, Chinese car manufacturers, has an average labor cost of $585 per vehicle, characterized by low wages and high efficiency. The group maintains the lowest overall conversion costs in the industry by leveraging its newer factories, efficient supply chains, and high production volumes” - https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2025/apr/...
Motorcycles are also interesting because they're at most 1.5-2x as efficient as cars, especially on the highway (poor aerodynamics). They're small so people assume they're gas-sippers, but at 80mph a sportsbike is not giving you much more than 45mpg. A typical bike carries 3-ish gallons for an effective range of 150 miles. To give an ev motorcycle a comparable range, you're looking at close to 20kwh of battery. In China a kwh of NMC battery is said to be $120-ish, so you're looking at $2k in just battery, excluding drive unit, inverter/charger, thermal management. Conversely a motorcycle engine and transmission is typically a single unit, all bathed in the same oil and amortized over huge production runs, for a simple 80hp drivetrain, I wouldn't be surprised if the marginal cost of production is $2k for the whole thing.
For a pedelec (actual e-bike meant to be pedaled), wall charging with a brick/wall-wart works fine. That's how they all work, at least any that I've seen. Some have removable batteries to make that easier, but the high-end models tend to have the battery wedged into the down tube and not removable (with complete disassembly of the bike).
For an e-scooter or light e-moto, wall charging should work fine, but it won't be fast. YOu're looking at 3+ hours to charge. Fine for most commuters and running errands, but not suitable for a delivery vehicle - they'd have to hot-swap batteries (or complete bikes).
Not sure about large electric motorcycles - there aren't that many out there right now. I'd guess similar to e-scooters, just with an even longer 10-80 or 0-100 charge period.
Sure, more competition is good, but given their safety profile (terrible!) I suspect motorcycles are a secondary mode of transportation rather than a primary. Mopeds for intra city usage seems more high demand than highway speed vehicles that have to drive alongside SUVs.
I feel like there's kind of a cycle of unsafety with motorcycles on the social level in the U.S.
There's a societal understanding in the U.S. that motorcycles are unsafe, which results in an increased number of people purchasing motorcycles with the intention of showing off how unsafe (dangerous) they can be. And the cycle perpetuates.
Obviously, motorcycles are inherently less safe in certain ways, like your body is going to fly if you get into a high-speed collision, and that's pretty much unavoidable. But when I visit European countries, it seems motorcycle culture is _so_ much healthier. They are mostly seen as simple transportation tools, a far cry from what I regularly see in the U.S.
As for electric, I would guess it's zero? (maybe harley?)
It's interesting that japanese motorcycles have always been on the cutting edge... but not on the cutting edge as far as electric.
Yes, exactly [0].
But I sadly know enough to know that doing hardware in the USA is nightmare level expensive and difficult. I could pull every string and empty every account into making an eBike with twice the cost and half the performance of it's Chinese counterpart. I'd much rather just make an app that takes a cut for connecting people with eBikes that fit their needs/desires.
Again, broadly speaking, over 30mph is a motorcycle, under 30mph is a moped (unless it's an ebike with pedal assist, but only in some states). It's complicated.
You used to see a lot of scooters (step-through motorcycles or mopeds) in California college towns but ebikes have decimated that market.
If you look at the "motorcycling countries" (SEA, India/Pakistan, Africa, Latin America, etc.), most terrible accidents happen because trucks share the road with an army of scooters. I've been to a few of them on a motorcycle and it's a nightmare. For the same reason, big cities in China introduced dedicated scooter lanes separated by concrete barriers.
But colloquially, if it’s a step-through, it’s called a scooter. Most of which have a CVT transmission, where most motorcycles have a 6-speed manual (toe shift) transmission.
More competition is always good for consumers.
Even for small stuff, a minibike with a 212cc 4-stroke can have comparable performance to something like a Cake or Surron and is a fraction of the cost.
Personally I think the electric motorcycle market should try and max performance versus weight. Perhaps something pedal assisted that could hit 60 mph without too much fuss but light enough that it could be shouldered up a few flights of stairs. Range can be low, as in 10-15 miles per charge max but balanced by swappable battery packs.
Second, even if they did work they way they think they do it would still be wrong. :-)
Venn diagrams show all possible inclusion/exclusion relations between the sets they are showing. A Venn diagram of two sets is always two circles that partly overlap.
Even if the way they worked is that you could omit regions that are empty and redraw the remaining regions to be circular, it doesn't help because ending up with a single circle with both sets in it would mean you are asserting the the two sets are equal.
That is clearly false because pretty much everyone can name someone who likes to annoy people by being loud and obnoxious but does not ride a motorcycle.
Torque is fun
All the more reason to aggressively ban gas motorcycles.
FWIW: Harley designed a "loud" drivetrain for electric motorcycles so they can have a distinctive sound when they switch over.
> ...a motorcycle...it's more about a hobby, fun.
I don't think you have successfully articulated why EV motorcycles are a struggle. If anything you've created further confusion.
It's also about fun, but for me, it's definitely about efficiency. My 600cc gets 50mpg versus 31 for my Honda Fit.
98% of my 30k+ miles on my bike are commuting miles. Bonus efficiencies: better parking, HOV lanes.
They don’t come that way, jackasses modify them. My large displacement BMW is louder than our ICE car, sure, but you probably won’t notice it sitting next to you at a stoplight. And yet it still has enough power to smoke just about any car that doesn’t cost deep in six figures.