The E-bike with a cost of 350,000 yuan is sought after by foreigners. There are still opportunities in this highly competitive track. | Hardcore Insights at CES.

Author | Zhang Ziyi

Editor | Yuan Silai

The annual tech industry's Spring Festival Gala, CES 2025, is coming to an end. Different from the E-bike, which attracted much attention and had many new products at the exhibition last year, this year, the AI-related hardware products and robot army are booming.

This does not mean that the overseas market enthusiasm for E-bike has subsided.

In the 100-billion-dollar market of E-bike, old European and American bicycle manufacturers have joined the battlefield, and Chinese enterprises are also competing fiercely.

The E-bike concept car - Titanium Zero, displayed by the startup Urtopia at CES 2025, was rated as one of the best CES award-winning products by the American mainstream technology media Engadget. The self-developed micro mid-mounted drive motor Quark DM 1.2 of Urtopia, with its small size and extremely light weight, has become an important reason for the award.

At the CES 2025 exhibition, Aima Technology displayed six new E-bikes at one go, with a price of no more than 2,000 US dollars. In addition, they also released a co-branded concept car VENICE with the well-known Italian motorcycle brand Rizoma.

The competition of E-bike has not yet reached the stage of a dual arms race in technology and market.

Compared with the past when it quietly put E-bike products into the North American market, Aima's momentum this time is quite strong, and its determination to bet on the overseas market with E-bike should not be underestimated.

In the entire eBike track, startups such as Urtopia and unicorns with strong technical strength such as DJI have entered. Now, the traditional enterprise Aima has also joined the hunting ground. As a new energy two-wheeler entrepreneur told 36Kr, "At this stage, E-bike is the red sea in the red sea and the king of the kings in the overseas market."

However, the competition of E-bike has not yet reached the stage of a dual arms race in technology and market. There are still highlights in the E-bike at CES 2025, showing more possibilities.

01 Self-Research is the King

If we simply understand E-bike, it is a combination of a traditional bicycle and a three-electric system (motor, electronic control, and battery). Benefiting from the influence of the new energy vehicle wave, the supply chain behind the three-electric system is very mature and almost does not require self-research; as for the production end, traditional bicycle manufacturing factories can also undertake it.

This is also the reason why new energy two-wheeler entrepreneurs believe that E-bike is difficult to compete, with low production barriers but many competitors.

In the direction of the core component "mid-mounted motor" of E-bike, foreign manufacturers such as Bosch, Shimano, and Yamaha have a market share of up to 90%; in the direction of the transmission, Shimano and sram occupy a market share of 95%.

In these years when E-bike has become popular overseas, Chinese manufacturers have realized that pieced-together products no longer have any competitive advantages. Only by mastering the research and development and production of core technologies and core components can they hope to gain a foothold in the overseas market.

Urtopia, which has received much attention at CES 2025, was established in 2021 and completed a tens of millions of US dollars Series A financing in July last year. It is a new E-bike player going overseas without a doubt.

Urtopia launched an E-bike product that can be connected to Chatgpt and can have a conversation with the vehicle at CES 2024, and the product is so creative that the editorial department of Engadget was amazed.

This year, Urtopia's Titanium Zero debuted in the form of a 3D printed concept car, and its self-developed mid-mounted drive motor has become the biggest highlight of the product.

The overall weight of Titanium Zero is about 10kg. The Quark DM1.2 (mid-mounted drive motor) it is equipped with has a weight of only 1.18kg and is small enough to be placed in the bottom bracket. This product provides a torque of up to 65 Nm, enabling the E-bike to reach the maximum electric assist speed of 25 kilometers per hour (15.5 miles per hour) in Europe and 32 kilometers per hour (20 miles per hour) in the United States.

Urtopia said that because the cost of Titanium Zero is as high as 50,000 US dollars, the product may not be put into actual production. But the Quark DM1.2 motor may not only be used in Urtopia's own products in the future, but also in other manufacturers' E-bikes.

Titanium Zero (Image source / Enterprise)

In terms of performance, the Quark DM1.2 motor is quite moderate. It is not as powerful as the traditional mid-mounted drive motor, but its power output is greater than the best hub motor. The small enough motor also means that it is easy to move and reduces the burden of the rider pushing the bike.

For E-bike manufacturers, self-developing the drive system and the electric assist system not only make the products have more possibilities, but also make them more competitive.

Earlier, the first step for the startup Tezos after obtaining financing was also to start self-developing the mid-mounted motor; DJI's DJI Avinox, launched in July last year, is an electric assist system for global high-end E-bike vehicle brands.

The mid-mounted motor is generally used in high-end E-bike products, and the bet of E-bike manufacturers on the mid-mounted motor also once again shows that E-bike products continue to develop in the direction of lightweight, intelligent, and high-end.

02 Entry of Traditional Manufacturers

As for mature manufacturers of electric two-wheelers such as Aima Technology, the pace towards the E-bike track is destined not going to be too easy.

At CES 2025, Aima Technology released seven E-bikes, including urban commuting and off-road riding scenarios, with a price of no more than 2,000 US dollars, and the motor is in cooperation with Bafang Shares.

According to PR Newswire, Aima Technology plans to launch products in more than 600 independent bicycle dealer (IBD) networks in the United States this year and launch 6 new E-bike products.

As for the concept car VENICE co-branded with Rizoma. In terms of configuration, VENICE is equipped with TEKTRO 180mm hydraulic disc brakes, and the intelligent torque sensor can automatically adjust the motor output according to the pedaling frequency. In addition, the car is also equipped with an LG 21700 battery and a Bafang 350W motor.

E-bike launched by Aima (Image source / Aima Technology Official Account)

Although it is a co-branded product with an Italian motorcycle brand, its performance configuration is slightly mediocre.

Among the upstream manufacturers of E-bike, Bosch and Bafang dominate the supply market of drives. Bafang's hub motor occupies a significant position in the market, and it is also because the unit cost of this type of component from Bosch is 300 to 400 US dollars higher than that of Bafang.

36Kr previously learned that the same is true for the mid-mounted motor. If Bafang's manufacturers purchase Bafang's mid-mounted motor, it only costs 300 US dollars, while the price of Bosch will be 500 US dollars.

Under the trend of the overall high-end and intelligent development of Chinese E-bike manufacturers, Aima Technology's E-bike is likely to take the cost-effective route.

Embarrassingly, the North American E-bike market has experienced low-price competition in 2023 and went through a stage of clearing out low-price products in 2024.

Before Aima Technology released many new products this time, the company had previously deployed E-bike electric assist bicycle fat-tire bike brand Big Sur and urban commuter bike brand Santa Monica in the North American market, and the response was generally mediocre.

Aima Technology's semi-annual report for 2024 shows that its international business revenue reached 120 million yuan, an increase of 40.69% year-on-year, while the company's overall revenue was 10.59 billion yuan, and the revenue brought by the international business was only 1%.

Considering that Aima Technology also develops electric two-wheelers in the overseas business, then the revenue that E-bike brings to it may be far less than 100 million yuan.

In fact, for the development of E-bike, Aima is not as proficient as it is in doing the electric two-wheelers business, and it lacks strategic planning and implementation methods in product research and development, sales strategies, and channel development. The products launched this time have also not kept up with the trend changes in the industry.

Of course, the advantage that Aima Technology has is its sufficient ammunition and stable and mature production line, which is an advantage that startups cannot compare with.

E-bike is always a product that requires offline services and after-sales. If Aima can really achieve the development of hundreds of offline dealer networks in the United States, it may also be able to make a difference in the E-bike industry.