Although there is a boom in the electric bicycle market, it still stands against a couple of barriers. I collected a list of research on such barriers from some articles and blogs. At the end of this page you will find links to the articles from which I did my research, you will find in those links a more detailed and broad explanations regarding the difficulties and what can be done to cross them successfully.
Barreies List:
Safety. Lack of sufficient bike lanes. Below is an example of how a typical street looks like in Amsterdam:
Most of the cities around the world don't have such a beautiful system or anything close to it. Bicyclists, therefore have to cycle on roads or together with the pedestrians. This barrier stops many people from taking there bicycles for a spin around the city. Many afraid that they will be getting hit by a car or even hit other persons on the city street. The common perception is that cycling in city streets is unsafe and I must agree. In my city, it can be quite unsafe to ride my electric bicycle.
And if I've already mentioned Amsterdam, let's take a look at a short video to see another great demonstration about how a very good bike system look like: (This is from another city in the Netherlands)
This is an ordinary Wednesday morning in April 2010 at around 8.30 am. The sound is original.
Distribution channels of electric bicycle are not common. Most bicycles stores don't sell e-bikes.
Big shortage of electric bicycle repair and simple maintenance shops.
Immature technology. Although e-bikes came a long way, they are still in the development stage and problems are still common
Bike Culture. In Asian and Europe cities, urban bicycling is common. But in most parts of the world, it isn't the case at all.
