Closing the two wheeler market gap in Shanghai
The 28th International Bicycle Exhibition was held in Shanghai International Exhibition Center from 5/6 to 5/9. The exhibition attracted serval leading companies in the bicycle industry to attend. You could find the latest bicycle related exhibits here. It』s a great platform for people come to communicate and learn more about bicycle industry.
Don』t be fooled by name of this exhibition; although it may sound like this show would be packed with a ton of pretty-looking bicycles, it was far from it. The traditional market of two-wheeled vehicles, a decade or two back, had very limited options to choose from. Only a couple varieties of bicycles and a few variations of gasoline powered motorcycles were available.
The New Era for Bicycle
This is no longer the case, especially in the Peoples』 Republic of China. With the advent of better battery technology and the shift towards cleaner modes of transportation, innovation in this space has exponentially increased over the past few years, especially in this part of the world. This spur of innovation is also fueled by the woes of the Chinese towards air pollution and heavy support from the local government towards companies and startups developing these cleaner modes of transport.
Whereas in other parts of the world, the market is largely dominated by traditional formats like gasoline powered motorcycles or conventional bicycles, China seems to be different. Chinese innovators are closing the vacant gaps between these established traditional formats by introducing hybrids of varieties rarely seen elsewhere.
Creative Exhibits
Let』s start with a bicycle and an electric motorcycle. When one takes a walk down this exhibition, they can literally see products from the entire gamut of possible variations between these two vehicles. Let』s look at this in detail.
There are non-motorized bicycles of multiple formats (city, hybrid, terrain, foldable etc.,), then there are electrified bicycles with low power electric motors which can assist the cyclist when they need a surge, like on an upward slope, or taking off from a traffic light. After ogling these innovations, they turn right to find tens of companies exhibiting their batteries and power packs (containers for batteries) in various shapes, sizes and colors.
They walk still further down and find performance bicycles which are equipped with more powerful motors and bigger batteries. At this point, one could lose sight of when and at what point a bicycle has become a motorcycle. They walk still further down and find a number of stalls where people are making bigger, better and more diverse collections of batteries and power packs.
Excited, but slightly overwhelmed by all this, they continue further only to find more variations and options – the show just gets better and better.
By the end of the tour, they ask themselves a profound question – what is a bicycle?
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