How many electric bicycles were sold in Germany last year?

Bicycle sales have seen a notable surge since the start of the pandemic as people on lockdown look for socially distanced activities to get them out of the house. A large portion of those sales, however, were not for traditional human-powered bikes, but for electric bikes.

A recent study by a German bike industry association, Zweirad-Industrie-Verband (ZIV), found that bicycle sales in that country in 2020 increased by 17 percent over 2019. The number of non-electric bike sales, however, remained relatively the same in 2020 as compared to 2019 at only about 100,000. It was electric bikes that accounted for most of that overall growth, with 2020 sales increasing by 43 percent over 2019.  

That translates to about 2 million e-bikes sold in 2020, as compared to only 1.4 million the year before. There are other stats, however, that suggest that the coronavirus pandemic and ensuing lockdowns were not the only driver of this trend. According to ZIV, bike sellers in Germany have been seeing an increase in the share of e-bikes sold as compared to non-electric bikes over the last few years. It seems the pandemic just accelerated what was already a growing trend.