Back European Mobility Week

18 September 2017

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The number of imports and exports of electric bicycles ('e-bicycles') to and from the EU has risen sharply over the last five years. In 2012, while 209 000 e-bicycles were exported from the EU, in 2016 the export figures stood at 830 000. The number of imports of e-bicycles shows a similar sharp increase over the five-year period. In 2012, the number of e-bicycle imports into the EU stood at 550 000, while in 2016 this figure reached almost 2 million.

 

1 in 3 e-bicycles exported from Germany

Germany exported 240 000 e-bicycles in 2016, representing 29% of total EU exports of e-bicycles. This made it the largest e-bicycle exporter of all EU Member States, ahead of Belgium (170 000, 20%), the Netherlands (100 000, 12%), Romania (82 000, 10%) and the Czech Republic (57 000, 7%).

Nine out of ten e-bicycles were exported to another EU Member State. Switzerland was the main destination for the e-bicycle exports to non-EU countries (31 500 e-bicycles were exported there in 2016, or 44% of total extra-EU exports of e-bicycles), followed by Japan (15 000, 21%), Australia and the United States (both 2 300, 3%), China (1 200, 2%), Canada (1 100, 2%) and New Zealand (1 070, 1%).

On the other hand, over half of the total EU imports of e-bicycles were destined to two EU Member States, Germany (560 000, or 28% of total EU imports of e-bicycles in 2016) and the Netherlands (520 000, 26%). They were ahead of Belgium (250 000, 13%), France (175 000, 9%), the United Kingdom (130 000, 7%) and Italy (110 000, 5%).

 

EU Member States´trade in e-bicycles, 2016

 

4 in 5 imports from outside the EU came from China

1.2 million e-bicycles were imported into the EU from non-EU countries, representing 60% of the total number of imports of e-bicycles to the EU. China was by far the main country of origin of those imports (932 000, or 79% of all extra-EU imports of e-bicycles in 2016), followed by Vietnam (91 500, 8%), Taiwan (79 000, 7%), Hong Kong (37 000, 3%), Switzerland (30 000, 2.5%) and the United Arab Emirates (9 000, 1%).

 

The source dataset can be found here.

This news item marks European Mobility Week held under the theme of clean, shared and intelligent mobility.

Other facts and figures as well as an infographic on urban mobility in the EU are available in our 'Theme in the spotlight' section.