Electric bikes sell briskly as gas prices climb

Improved technology also has made electric bikes more popular, Cebular said.

“When I started, there was only one bike that had a nickel-metal hydride battery — everything else was lead-acid and was 80 or 90 pounds,” he said. “That’s a huge improvement.”

Jay Townley, a partner at Gluskin-Townley, said the latest electric bikes are sleeker, better looking and hide their often-clunky batteries better than ever. That goes a long way to attract baby boomers and other mainstream customers.

“The new designs that we’ve seen in the marketplace are going to inure to the benefit of the electric bike companies,” he said.

Ultra Motor, an England-based electric bike and scooter company, is betting big that it can capitalize on what it seems as a growing market for attractive-looking two-wheelers designed specifically for U.S. commuters. The company on Tuesday unveiled its “A2B” model, a slick, low-riding electric bike.

Ultra Motor took a conventional bicycle and redesigned it with fatter wheels, a lower center of gravity and a thick shaft designed to hide the lithium-ion battery inside, U.S. Chief Executive Chris Deyo said. The result is a cross between a motorcycle and a mountain bike.

The company already has signed up 75 dealers nationwide to sell the $2,500 bike starting next month.

“A year ago, when you mentioned the word electric bike, people looked at you and they really weren’t sure what it was,” Deyo said. “Today, what we’re finding is we’re actually having dealers call us seeking an electric bike to meet the demand.”

Jamerson, the former GM executive who has become a staunch advocate for electric transportation, believes this is only the beginning for electric bikes. He retired from GM in 1993 after helping develop the company’s EV1 electric car, and he’s been an avid follower of alternative transportation ever since.

The EV1 project, though widely seen as a spectacular failure, helped convince Jamerson of the value of electric transportation. Given soaring fuel prices and thinning patience with foreign dependence on oil, Americans are ready to embrace electric vehicles, he said.

“Did you know there are 70 million electric bikes on the road today in China, and they are selling at the rate of 26 million electric bikes a year?” he said. “The public at large needs to understand that it is the right thing to do to move to electric transportation, and electric bikes and electric scooters will allow you to do that, to get that familiarity.”

As for Wolfe, she could not be happier with her bike, a 48-pound mountain bike with a lithium-ion-powered assist made by California-based IZIP. A self-described “tree-hugger for decades,” she drives her Honda Insight hybrid car or rides the bus when she’s not using her bike to get to work.

It’s part of her own personal campaign to reduce her carbon footprint. She also powers her home with help from a set of rooftop solar panels, and a geothermal furnace heats and cools it.

The furnace, she adds, even heats her water. Just one more way to reduce emissions, she said.

“Even my 92-year-old mother has a Prius,” she said. “So I come by my green credentials genetically.”

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