VietNamNet Bridge - Sales of electric bicycles are surging like the price of petrol as they are far cheaper to run and their riders don’t need a license or helmet. Many of them are quite fast too, and there’s a real fear that they might cause traffic accidents.

Electric bikes have been on the local market for a few years but failed to take off until 12 months ago. Now that high school kids are no longer allowed to ride motorbikes and the price of petrol has soared, the electric bike shops are seeing hordes of customers.
 
In Ho Chi Minh City, the bike shops along Vo Thi Sau and Cach Mang Thang Tam streets have switched to selling electric bikes.
 
In the city’s Go Vap District, the H-M shop on Nguyen Oanh Street has almost done away with pedal-only power and is now filled with electric bikes like Asama, Davinci, Emperor, Song Tain, Flying and Delta.
 
“Most of our customers are after electric bikes, though once in a while someone asks for a straight bicycle. Since before the Lunar New Year, we have sold 15-20 electric bikes per week, sometimes double that number,” an employee of H-M said.
 
On both sides of a short stretch of Vo Thi Sau Street there are nearly 50 electrical bike shops and they are often full of people checking out the latest models.
 
These shops claim they sell five to seven electric bikes a day, the most popular makes being E-Bike, Viha, E-GO, Bluewing, Robo, Plasma, Emoto and Hitasa.
 
An electric bike made in Vietnam retails for VND3.7-4.6 million (US$231-287) while a new import from Taiwan-China or a used model from Japan goes for VND5-8 million (US$312-500). Vietnam and China make motorbikes that sell for close to these prices.
 
Someone worked out that a motorbike uses one litre of petrol costing VND14,000 to travel 60 kilometers whereas the cost of recharging an electric bike after the same trip is just VND1,500.
 
Two boys who ride their Redfag bike over 50 kilometers per hour said electric bike riders don’t have to wear helmets or need a driving license. They can go as fast as a motorbike on the city’s congested streets, yet don’t have to be worried about the traffic cops.
 
Image is still a problem for the manufacturers of electric bikes. In order to attract buyers, they have to turn out cool-looking models that don’t look sissy and can do well over 50kph.
 
The need for speed, or rather the desire to go fast, is bound to produce more accidents as electric bikes take over the roads. And it will be hard for the police to nab the offending riders as they can flee the scene so easily, without leaving their ‘motor’ behind.
 
Even if a rider at fault does have to abandon their electric bike at the scene of a crash, there’s no such thing as bicycle registration and therefore no way the police can discover the bike’s owner.

(Source: SGGP)