While the eBike industry has been fairly prominent in the European and Asian continents for a while, North America has been hanging back and only within the last few years has it really started to kick off. It’s something that passionate industry insiders might actually thank Covid for in a weird way, because people got bored and were looking for new things to do. Since 2020, the North American eBike industry has been growing by roughly 15-20% a year according to statistics, and that translates to billions of dollars. So why are so many companies going under if the industry is booming?
For starters, the industry growth on the commercial side of things has been very one sided. Everybody and their dog wanted to start their own eBike company and brand. Nobody was interested in the servicing side of things, and in terms of brick-and-mortar, there are very few specialty electric stores that aren’t brand specific. Most physical locations are bicycle shops first and foremost, with their eBike selection being lost in a sea of analog and including mostly the big brands like Kona, Giant, Trek, and so on. They make good eBikes, there’s no denying that, but their sales are still bigger in the analog world, so that is their focus.
Now you may be asking yourself what the problem is with regular bike shops taking on the eBike industry, and I can tell you several. One, their primary focus is still analog bikes. The majority of their stock is regular bikes, and most of their customers come in looking for regular bikes. Their salespeople can talk your ear off about the differences between Deore and Altus, but they’re not sure what the differences between a hub and mid-drive motor are. Their technicians are not trained or certified to work on the electrical components, so they can index your gears and bleed your brakes, but if you are having motor problems, good luck. If it’s not something they can simply unplug and then plug in a new piece, they just don’t know what to do. And that’s not laying blame or casting insults of inadequacy. They are trained as bicycle mechanics and up until recently, there was nothing electrical for them to work on. It’s the same as a combustion engine mechanic versus an electric car mechanic. They are just different, period. On top of this, a lot of bike shops will only work on brands they carry, so if you buy an eBike online, good luck finding someone to service it.
But back to the inundation of brands. Herein lies the financial problems. If you have ever begun to shop for your first eBike and you type that word into your preferred search engine, you are going to be bombarded with options. It’s almost overwhelming for the average consumer. Hundreds of independent brands. Lots of major ones too. Then there is the Costco, Walmart, and Best Buy brands. Pulling the trigger on one can be scary, especially when we are talking about four-digit price tags. But I’m going to be the one to say it out loud. About 80% of brands out there are, well, garbage. Most of them popped up during Covid, wanting to get in while the goings good, pumping out mass volumes of cheap bikes.
If you do enough hunting, you might start to notice some trends. These two brands have very similar looking frames. These ones use the same motor and batteries. And these other ones are identical in every way except price and the name slapped on the side of the downtube. These are red flags, and these bikes are probably what we call drop shipment brands.
I tell all my customers this, but it’s not very hard to start your own eBike brand. You don’t need engineers and welders and the like. What you need is a catalog from a mass output factory, you pick out your frames, components, motors and battery, and they send you a shipping container of preassembled bikes. You then get some decals printed off, slap them on the bikes and boom, you’ve got yourself a brand. The thing is you are competing with everyone else who decided to pursue their “passion project”. You are selling the same bike they are, you just have to hope your branding is more attractive and that you are better at marketing. To make things worse, most of these brands exist solely online (remember the lack of brick and mortar I was talking about?), so you are expected to spend thousands on something based on a digital image and a promise from a stranger.
Why do I give a sh*t you may ask? Because if you fall victim to one of these companies’ advertisements, there is a very high chance that they will soon realise they do not have a competitive product and go belly up. You will be left with a drop shipment bike with the most generic parts you can find with no warranty, no customer service, and no access to those cheap generic replacement electrical parts when they inevitably fail.
Am I being jerk to these poor people trying to start a business? I don’t really think so. I’ve had several occasions when I have two of the exact same make and model of bike in my shop, and they both have completely different electrical components once you take a look at the guts. Different motors, controllers, throttles, PAS systems, brakes, lights; everything. So, it’s near impossible to even Frankenstein two broken bikes into one working one, because under the skin, they are not the same bike at all. This goes to show that these brands don’t care about product longevity or quality. They use whatever parts are the cheapest that month, and they’d rather you just buy another bike from them as opposed to fixing the one you’ve got, because there’s not really any money in that for them.
So you’ve got no warranty, the company doesn’t exist more, and you don’t even know where to find parts that will work. But you like your eBike and you spent your hard-earned money on it, so you find someone who will service it for you. But what happens with these cheap bikes is often the eBike technician is going to hand you a bill damn near the same as the original price of the bike. This is because often enough, you are basically getting a whole new bike electrically, it’s just the frame that stays the same. So, a lot of people just opt to buy a new bike again because our society has made us believe new is always better. But don’t be surprised when you are back next year with the same problems. I say to people you can buy a $1000 eBike three times over, or you can spend $3,000 on a good one that will last you forever with proper care.
‘So, how can I avoid this?’ you may be asking. And unfortunately, since there is a severe lack of technical professionals in specialty eBike stores who you can go chat with, jump on a bike and actually get a feel for the quality, the hard work is yours to do (unless you live in Alberta and want to come pay us a visit). Research, research, research, and stay away from cheap big box brands as a rule. Look at all the components, not just the motor size and top speed.
Brakes and gear systems should be a good name like Shimano, Tektro, SRAM, etc. Generic crap with no branding is impossible to replace. And these parts should be eBike rated so that you can stop when needed and don’t get stranded because of a broken chain. Batteries should be UL certified and tell you what type of cells it uses. Panasonic, LG, Samsung. If it just says it’s a 48V battery with not further information, red flag. Tires should be eBike rated too. And the motor should be a decent brand like Shimano, Bosch, Bafang, etc., because again, have fun getting parts for something generic.
Another link to click on when you’re perusing some random brands website is the “About Us” button. Trustworthy brands have been doing this much longer than Covid. Brands I have in my store have been around for a decade or two. If the founder of ‘Cheap eBikes R’ Us’ found their inspiration for creating the brand in the last couple years, they are probably a bandwagon jumper in search of an easy payday. That’s not saying they are all like that, but there’s enough that are.
I could do a whole post on what to look for and what to avoid when shopping for an eRide, so maybe I will do that in the near future.
The long and short of it is this. Bankruptcies are rampant and companies are going belly up all the time due to a saturation of options mixed with a lack of customer support. Planned obsolescence and right to repair are two other problems I run into frequently as an eBike tech, but again that is a whole problem in itself, so stay tuned for more info on that. If things seem too good to be true, they probably are. And if their website shows you the bare minimum of information, avoid them like the plague. If they are selling you a 500W motor with a 48V battery on a cruiser frame and don’t want you to know anymore details, there is most likely a reason for that.
I’ll leave you with this tidbit. Do your homework, ask questions, and, as much as it sucks, spend a little extra to get a quality product from a company that knows what they are doing. While I do make my living from fixing and servicing eBikes and eScooters, I enjoy doing tune ups and talking with happy customers. Replacing all the electrical is time consuming and can be a pain in the butt, and grumpy people are often less chatty. At the end of the day, I’d rather pass you cruising along the river pathway with a smile on your face than see your face drop when I have to hand you a big bill. There’s a reason I have no desire to start STT’s line of eBikes. I’m in this industry because I think it’s the future of personal transportation, and I plan to stick around for longer than a year or two, and I want your eRide to stick around too.

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