Word: china
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...China, electric bicycles are leaving cars in the dust. Last year, Chinese bought 21 million e-bikes, compared with 9.4 million autos. While China now has about 25 million cars on the road, it has four times as many e-bikes. Thanks to government encouragement and a population well versed in riding two wheels to work, the country has become the world's leading market for the cheap, green vehicles, helping to offset some of the harmful effects of the country's automobile boom. Indeed, as engineers around the world scramble to create eco-friendly, plug-in electric cars, China...
...things that have changed in China over the past 30 years, transportation has undergone one of the most obvious of transformations. Where city streets once swarmed with bicycles, they are now full of automobiles. Cars clog intersection and expressways. Their exhaust clouds the sky and the air is full of the sound of horns. But zipping through the congestion is the vanguard of another transportation revolution: vehicles that use no gas, emit no exhaust and are so quiet they can surprise the unwary pedestrian...
...relative simplicity of the machines and their components has encouraged a huge number of e-bike companies to open in China. In 2006 there were 2,700 licensed manufacturers, and countless additional smaller shops. Rising to the top of the heap is not easy. Leading manufacturer Xinri (the name means "new day") was founded in 1999 by Zhang Chongshun, an auto parts factory executive who recognized the potential of the field. In its first year Xinri built less than 1,000 bikes; last year it churned out 1.6 million. (See pictures of bicycles...
...about 300,000 for several years, and in the cycle-crazy Netherlands e-bikes are beginning to take off. In the U.S., where bikes are still overwhelmingly used for recreation rather than transportation, e-bike sales are expected to break 200,000 this year, or about 1% of China's sales. (See 10 things to do in Shanghai...
...riding. But batteries remain the weak point. Most e-bikes rely on lead-acid batteries, cheap century-old technology unsuitable for the growing demands of daily commuting. "The battery is the key limiting factor," says Jonathan Weinert, a transportation expert who wrote his doctoral dissertation on electric bikes in China...