The most popular vehicle in the world today is the bicycle. There are over 1.4 billion bicycles in service today, and only about 340 million cars. Far more humans ride a bicycle every day than drive a car. So it should be no surprise that newest business venture is to build and market electric bikes and scooters
.They can be quickly recharged almost anywhere, or batteries can be exchanged instantly, like cellular phones. They can be serviced by any bicycle repair facility, from the high-end bike shops of Europe to the street-corner repairmen
of India and China. They look great, and the price, performance, quality and comfort of existing electric bikes makes them very attractive to consumers.
It is entirely reasonable to predict that electric scooters and bikes will be 3-4 million units per year within 3-5 years. That is only 10 times this years production, and the business has yet to get its feet under itself. If electric
scooters grow like mountain bikes did, then we will look back and laugh at the conservative projections of 1998. If only 5% of the current bicycles in the world convert to electric scooters, we are looking at a $50 billion
industry!
Everyone will benefit from having improved access to efficient and clean transportation. Massive social, economic and environmental benefits that will be gained by reducing petroleum dependency, air pollution, and greenhouse gas
emissions. Many specific interest groups also stand to gain from the growth of this industry.
Electric motor makers will sell millions of motors. Technology that was developed at enormous cost for electric cars ($500+ million was spent on
research in 1996 alone) is making low cost, lightweight, high efficiency motors available that deliver far more power.
Battery makers will sell millions of units, not only at OEM for production, but to replace aging battery packs, and to upgrade earlier versions as battery technology continues its rapid evolution. Hundreds of millions have also been spent developing batteries for cars, batteries that will see their first widespread use on bicycles, scooters and ultra light electric vehicles.
The normally staid transportation industry is about to see an explosion of vehicle choices for consumers, with electric bikes paving the way for a diverse array of small and lightweight vehicles, including electric scooters, and electric power boards. Early investors could find themselves participating in providing the world with one of the most universal and fastest growing products
in human history.
Transportation Planners and urban designers will have a popular transportation tool that will decrease air pollution, increase the capacity of
roadways by reducing auto trips, and will help produce improvements in service levels, emissions, congestion, and parking demands. California and other states have mandated certain percentages of vehicles sold there to be electric. These
percentages could be met with electric scooters. Federal and State agencies should shift some of their support to include electric scooters.
Distributors and entrepreneurs who begin to specialize in marketing, renting and selling electric scooters will benefit as well as being know as "the first" in their region. Perhaps early electric scooters franchisees will in the future be as enviable as the early franchisees of horseless carriages, or those now-universal golden arches.
Power companies, under a new era of utility deregulation, are getting involved in the marketing of electric bikes to sell more power, attract more customers and even bring in new profits. Already Cental and South West Corp.
of Dallas is marketing electric bikes and scooters in its service territory.
Transportation choices for consumers are about to become as diverse and rapidly changing as the consumer electronics industry is today. The electric scooters of today and the next few years are going to pave the way technologically, and psychologically, for other electric vehicles and electric autos.
Electric vehicles are going to replace most applications of gasoline and diesel personal vehicles. Traffic noise, pollution, and the dominance of the automobile is about to start a rapid decline. Many cities that have reached
gridlock such as San Paulo, Brazil and Tokyo, Japan are seeing the bicycle and E-bike become the preferred mode of travel over the slow moving gas car. Many of us will try to explain gasoline-powered transportation to our
grandchildren, who will be astounded that anyone ever wasted petroleum in such a way, or was willing to breathe such noxious and poisonous emissions.
About The Author
For additional information, further articles on how to select an electric scooter along with some of the leading electric scooter suppliers on the
internet visit the following site http://www.electricscooteradvice.com