Electric bikes have grown in popularity every year, and so too have their news stories. (If you don’t believe me, just ask yourself why your favorite car or motorcycle media sites are all suddenly covering e-bikes too.)
This year was no exception to the expanding e-bike takeover, with millions of you surfing on over to check out the most popular electric bike stories on Electrek. As 2023 winds its way down, let’s take a look back at the most popular e-bike stories of the year.
Honda shows off its first electric bike
Honda hasn’t exactly been hot to trot when it comes to electric vehicles. Both their motorcycle and automotive teams have dragged their tires when it comes to replacing fuel tanks with charging ports.
But that didn’t stop the company from apparently imagining what a Honda electric bicycle could look like.
Known as the Honda e-MTB Concept, it was shown off at this year’s Japan Mobility Show in Tokyo, where it joined several other futuristic and/or brand-widening debuts from other leading Japanese motorcycle companies and automakers.
Interestingly, the Honda e-bike featured a fairly primitive suspension setup and a motor that looks suspiciously like a German-made Brose mid-drive system. Considering Honda is perhaps best known as an engine company that also builds vehicles, it was a shame to not see a Honda e-bike motor debuting in the concept electric bike.
There’s no word on whether Honda would actually produce this electric bike, though the design seems fairly manufacturable, unlike some of the wilder concept e-bikes out there. So perhaps there is hope that Honda coul leapfrog its way into a leading e-bike maker among automotive companies. It probably won’t, but maybe.
These two guys built the world’s smallest (and cutest) camper on a bicycle
This one was a seriously fun project to follow along with. Two brothers, Chris and Jeff from the popular YouTube channel Dangie Bros, built a tiny camper on the back of tricycle to take on a 100-mile (160 km) road trip.
Technically this one wasn’t even an e-bike, though just about every commentor helped point out that a small e-bike motor could have made the grueling journey much easier.
The brothers took their trike-based camper on quite an adventure, though they found that the trials and tribulations of the road were more intense than they had anticipated. Ultimately, the trip was cut short after just a few dozen miles due to exhaustion and slow progress. That might not come as a surprise when you see just how boxy and non-aerodynamic their build ended up becoming.
Even so, it was a fun journey to follow along with, especially if you weren’t the one pedaling!
Cops on horseback in California are cracking down on illegal e-bikes
This summer we saw one of the first instances of police departments using mounted officers to catch illegal e-bike riders. The horseback cops are an interesting solution to the issue of overpowered and non-street legal electric bikes mixing it up with cyclists and pedestrians on bike paths and sidewalks.
This case came to us from the Newport Beach Police Department whose mounted police officers stopped and cited a rider of a Sur Ron electric motorbike that was riding on a bicycle-only path. The Sur Ron is a fun machine, but it’s an electric trail bike that is essentially lightweight electric dirt bike. A beach front bike path is not the place for a 45 mph motorbike (though a massive horse blocking both lanes of the bike path isn’t a great look, either).
Why more college campuses are starting to ban electric bikes
In an unfortunate turn of events, we saw a number of universities and college campuses announce that while students were welcome back at the start of the school year, their e-bikes were not.
Several campuses began banning electric bikes and scooters, either outright or from being stored inside campus buildings and dorm room housing.
The issue lies with a growing number of lithium-ion battery fires that have originated in electric bikes and e-scooters. The number of batteries that have caught on fire has been a very small fraction of total e-bikes, but the news stories are widely reported and have helped to create a much larger scare around the issue.
In response, many e-bike companies are switching to UL-compliant batteries that should be safer and better contstructed.
Why e-bike companies are fighting to stop riders from repairing their electric bikes
It’s rare that my articles are this divisive, but that was the case when I reported on a move by some e-bike drive system manufacturers to limit the ability of riders to make repairs on their own e-bikes.
The issue largely centered around the batteries, which can be dangerous to work on without proper training.
On the flipside, many e-bike riders worry that the issue is being used to further exclude e-bikes from “right to repair” laws, ensuring that manfuacturers can either force riders to use expensive company-owned repair services or push them towards simply buying a new e-bike instead of repairing the one they own.
Those were the top five e-bike stories of the year for 2023.
Who knows what next year has in store for us? The only way to find out for sure is to keep coming back here for the latest in e-bike news. We’ll see you in 2024!