Electric bikes (e-bikes) provide cheap, convenient, and relatively energy-efficient transportation to an estimated 40 million to 50 million people in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as of 2007. They are quickly becoming one of the dominant travel modes in the PRC.

As e-bike use grows, however, concerns are rising about lead pollution from their batteries and emissions from their use of grid electricity, primarily generated by coal power plants. This report examines the environmental performance of e-bikes relative to other competing modes, their market potential, and the viability of alternative battery technologies.

The analysis is divided into five sections. Section 1 describes the environmental impact of e-bikes in the PRC. Section 2 analyzes the environmental impact of alternative modes and compares e-bike emissions with those of alternative modes.

Section 3 discusses market potential and identifies factors that influence e-bike adoption. Section 4 presents prospects for battery technology improvements in the near and long term.

Finally, section 5 frames the role of e-bikes in the PRC’s transportation system and recommends policies for the central government and the cities of the PRC. A brief summary of each section follows.

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Asian Development Bank
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INTRODUCTION
Electric bikes (e-bikes) have developed faster than any other mode in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). After a modest beginning in the mid-1990s, 16 million to 19 million were produced in 2006 and over 21 million in 2007. E-bikes have been criticized on a number of grounds, including environmental performance, contribution to congestion, and safety (Fairley 2005; Ribet 2005).

This report focuses on environmental performance. The environmental impacts of e-bikes are unclear. It is clear that they emit zero tailpipe emissions at their point of use and that their overall energy efficiency is higher and emissions per kilometer are lower than that of gasoline scooters and cars, but, at least in the PRC, most e-bike users might not otherwise use cars or gasoline scooters.

The environmental costs of this mode are largely related to the alternative mode, should the e-bike be prohibited or restricted. Taipei,China promoted and subsidized e-bikes in the 1990s (Chiu and Tzeng 1999) to induce a shift away from dirtier gasoline scooters. This report presents an analysis of the environmental costs of e-bikes and alternative modes in the PRC and can help inform policy that will affect millions of users. It investigates emissions during an e-bike’s life cycle.

This report also investigates e-bike market potential and potential technology improvements that could mitigate pollution from batteries. This report does not investigate the influence of e-bikes on safety, congestion, noise, or mobility and access. Interested readers can refer to dissertations written by the authors (Cherry 2007; Weinert 2007).

CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
Currently, e-bikes compete directly with buses and bicycles in most cities. Compared with a bus, they showed high levels of mobility with comparable emission rates.

This report does not suggest that e-bikes are better than buses on all metrics, however. There are many important areas not examined in this report—such as safety, road capacity and utilization, congestion, and mobility—where the e-bikes perform relatively better or worse than buses. All of these factors should be considered when developing policy on the role of e-bikes in the transport system.

Rather than compete with buses, they could complement bus service by providing high-quality, low-emission personal transport for short trips and public transport feeder service. These types of trips are difficult to serve with traditional fixed-route bus service. Longer-distance travel can still be served by high-capacity public transport services if adequate infrastructure is supplied to safely access the transit station and securely park a bicycle or e-bike.

The biggest environmental problem is lead pollution from batteries. To mitigate this problem, there must be more advanced lead mining, battery production, and recycling practices adopted on a large scale. This includes increasing the recycling rate and, most importantly, assuring that batteries are recovered and recycled in formal, well-monitored, large-scale recycling facilities with advanced pollution-control technology. Another avenue is the adoption of advanced battery technologies, such as Li-ion or NiMH.

Currently, price is the largest hurdle to adopting advanced battery technology. If policy makers could develop incentives or regulations to close this price gap, then e-bikes would be among the most environmentally sustainable motorized mode in the PRC.

Given restrictions on motorcycle use in cities and supportive e-bike policy, e-bikes could thrive and the market could continue to grow. More research is needed to address the other important issues that inform the policy decision, including the safe integration of e-bikes into mixed traffic streams, managing speed, impacts on congestion, and mobility. Ultimately, there are trade-offs, but based on environmental performance and market potential, policy makers should encourage e-bikes to the extent that their lead pollution effects can be mitigated and they can be safely integrated into the transportation system utilizing existing bicycle lane capacity, which is often underused.

ABOUT THE ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK
ADB’s vision is an Asia and Pacific region free of poverty. Its mission is to help its developing member countries substantially reduce poverty and improve the quality of life of their people.

Despite the region’s many successes, it remains home to two thirds of the world’s poor: 1.8 billion people who live on less than $2 a day, with 903 million struggling on less than $1.25 a day. ADB is committed to reducing poverty through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration.

Based in Manila, ADB is owned by 67 members, including 48 from the region. Its main instruments for helping its developing member countries are policy dialogue, loans, equity investments, guarantees, grants, and technical assistance.

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