As Sr. Mananging Director of eCycleElectric, I’ve been answering this fundamental question since the 1990s. And after pouring through another full year of import records yet again, I’m happy to unveil my estimate for 2024.
First, some context.
Americans have learned that e-bikes have a role to play in their lives and are embracing them in ever increasing numbers. Even with high tariffs, sales have grown from 2017 on. E-bikes get ridden more miles as well. So much so, that they are understood now to be viable forms of both exercise and transportation.
The bicycle industry is making money on e-bikes. Nearly every bicycle brand has an e-bike offering, and most bike shops around the country embrace them, having moved them from a shadowy shop corner to a prominent window display. Worldwide, e-bikes are the money-maker for the global bike industry.
Because of these two points, a flood of new players has entered the market. Many rely on Direct-to-Consumer plus Amazon/Walmart+ and sophisticated marketing tactics to compete for their share of the pie. Some are pounding the pavement to America’s 5,000 plus bicycle retail storefronts in a bid for precious floor space.
Both models have merit. While we estimate most units are sold online, most e-bike dollars flow through brick&mortar retail. While old-guard brands like Trek, Specialized and Giant have a sizeable advantage in ground infrastructure, the newer guard “e-bike brands” like Lectric, Aventon, and Heybike appear to have the upper hand in winning eyeballs online. The verdict is not yet out on which business model will win.
eCycleElectric has been observing these e-bike market dynamics first-hand since 1996 and started systematically tracking U.S e-bike imports since 2009. Sticking to our mission “to provide information and make connections that unite, advance and improve the global electric mobility movement, focusing on electric two wheelers and their sub-components”, we offer this estimate each year as a service to the global bike industry. While by no means perfect, our estimates and forecasts have stood well against the test of time and have been cited in reputable media such as Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Bike Europe, and Bicycle Retailer & Industry News.
Based on the analysis that my partner Dr. Jonathan Weinert & I conducted, we estimate that 1.7 million e-bikes were imported into the U.S. in 2024 by roughly 900 unique businesses. To put this in perspective, we estimated 0.99 million units from over 300 unique businesses in 2023. That’s 72% growth YoY, admittedly higher that our initial forecast at the start of 2024 when it seemed like inventory issues at retail may hamper 2024 sales. Interestingly, these 1.7 million e-bikes came from over 800 different factories or trading companies, ~90% of which reside in mainland China, with the others coming from Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, Germany, and a handful of other countries.
Since nearly all e-bikes purchase in the U.S. are produced overseas, we find that imports are the best proxy for sales to U.S. end-consumers, albeit with a few months lag. This year, we sifted through and cleaned over 9,000 records of murky import data to come up with our estimate. It’s by no means perfect. Some e-bike records are disguised (intentionally or not), but we do our best to distinguish complete pedal-equipped e-bikes and e-trikes from e-bike parts, bicycles, dirt-bikes, e-scooters, and other two-wheeled electric devices that are sometimes mis-classified or mixed in with e-bike containers. We do not include any e-bikes that come into the country via “De Minimus” shipment, but we believe this channel to be small enough to be inconsequential.
While we seem to be entering a period of consolidation of e-bike brands and retailers, we think the future is overall very bright for the U.S. market and are sticking to our optimistic forecast of nearly 7 million unit sales by 2030. This optimism is tempered somewhat by some headwinds on the horizon, both political and social in nature. If they play out, we could see slower growth, or ~4 million units by 2030.
If interested in further detail, we offer a deeper dive into the market dynamics and additional data in our 2024 Electric Bike World Report, which is now on sale for a limited time.