E-bikes tipped to overtake car sales

The number of new e-bikes and e-scooters imported into New Zealand hit a record high of 65,000 in 2019, according to figures from StatsNZ.

It is a huge jump year-on-year from 47,000 in 2018 and 23,000 the year before, and suggests e-bikes and e-scooters could overtake new passenger car sales within the next few years.

There were 104,000 new passenger cars registered in New Zealand last year, plus 140,000 used imports.

E-bikes have become so ubiquitous that New Zealand may need to start rebuilding its transport priorities around them, micromobility expert Oliver Bruce said.

‘‘They are used in a very different way to regular bikes, we should be thinking of them more like new vehicles,’’ Bruce said.

‘‘The people that are buying them are predominantly boomers, rather than people my age, and they’re buying them to commute and using them a lot more frequently than a standard bike,’’ he said.

E-scooters had become increasingly popular for short-distance journeys, and tended to replace walking, driving, and public transport in roughly even amounts. By comparison, e-bikes were used over much longer distances on average and overwhelmingly replaced the use of cars.

Cycling was up more than 40 per cent in Wellington in recent years, largely due to e-bikes, but that had not been reflected in the council’s roading plans, he said.

The current Wellington City Council plan for bike lanes was developed in 2014, when e-bikes were relatively rare.

Bruce saw a major opportunity for e-bikes.

‘‘Wellington is the perfect city for micro-mobility.

‘‘It’s got hills, which effectively get removed by an electric motor. It’s dense, the congestion is bad, and the parking is inconvenient,’’ he said.

In December, associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter announced a subsidy of up to 50 per cent on e-bikes for public servants at a number of government agencies.

A similar scheme by the Paris transport authority gave citizens a €500 subsidy to purchase an e-bike.

Bruce said he did not necessarily want to call for a government subsidy, but suggested that e-bikes could be encouraged in other ways. For example, fringe benefit tax could let businesses provide e-bikes as employee vehicles. growth