We mainly talk about the development history of 14 inch foldable e-bike, from the development trajectory of this industry and historical opportunities, we look at the current situation and future of this industry, maybe we will put down this apprehensive heart now and immerse ourselves in the progress of this industry!

Starting from the first light electric vehicle developed by Tsinghua University in 1995, to the current variety of Linlin, a decade and five years have passed by the count of fingers. However, these fifteen years have recorded the myth of an industrial growth and the course of a development from nothing to something, and then to the world's largest light electric vehicle industry at present. From the first individual patent manufacturing to the first electric bicycle officially certified and allowed to be produced by the public security department, this new industry belonging to China only has taken steps forward and in just a few dozen years has achieved an industry scale that is admired worldwide.

The history of China's 14 inch foldable e-bike development is generally recognized by the industry as three stages of development: the primary stage of electric bicycle, the initial production scale stage, and the super-speed development stage. The primary stage of the electric bicycle is also known as the early experimental production stage of the electric bicycle, which is from 1995 to 1999 in terms of time. This stage was mainly about researching the key technologies of the four major components of electric bicycles, namely motor, battery, charger and controller. In terms of R&D and production, the main focus was on the spontaneous collection of information, tracking technology, organizing market observation, and placing small batches on trial in the market, which led to the electric bicycle coming into the consumers' view and being gradually recognized and accepted by them. From a technical point of view, early electric bicycles could only travel about 30 km on a single charge, with a short battery life, a motor with a maximum output torque of only 14-18 n.m., poor climbing ability, and easy wear and tear, and all motors were brushless motors. However, it is due to the accumulation of this period that the foundation for the scale of this industrialization in terms of talent, technology and product development is well laid today. According to the current information, Nanjing Continental Pigeon is the birthplace of China's first qualified electric bicycle, and in January 1998, Vice Premier Li Lanqing visited Nanjing Continental Pigeon and gave full recognition to the company. In 1998, the National Science and Technology Commission issued a certificate to the "Continental Pigeon" electric bicycle national torch plan project. Continental Pigeon has won many awards.

However, in the first stage, there are still many touching stories, from which we can see the hardship of the development of this industry and the spiritual power of the fighters in this industry. The heroes of these stories are the initial developers of this industry, including Continental Dove, Qianhe and Luyuan, etc. In 1995, Shanghai Qianhe's hundred trial products were put on the market, and tracking tests showed that the products still needed major improvements. After riding one vehicle for less than three months, the electric motor burned out and the removable lead-acid battery used with it could not be recharged further. However, the subjects generally reported that the electric bikes felt good to ride and the weight-bearing effect was good. In 1996, when the sale of fuel-powered scooters (and their polluting two-stroke engines) was explicitly banned in Shanghai, Thousand Cranes devoted itself to the development of electric bicycles, filling a market gap in time. Zhang Minwei, the cautious general manager of Qianhe, could not help but recall when the company's first bike rolled off the production line in 1997. At that time, they only adopted the shape structure of an ordinary bicycle, putting a 150 or 180-watt hub motor on the front wheel, adding a 24-volt, 7-amp-hour lead-acid battery on the back seat, and then putting a simple electronic controller on the bicycle handle. Since the introduction of the prototype, subsequent products have improved dramatically: the motor is no longer changed every three months, and the battery can be recharged about 300 times, travel 50 kilometers on a single charge, and is virtually pollution-free. In terms of energy units alone, an electric bike ridden by a single person is 15 to 20 times more efficient than an ordinary household car.

After talking about the thousand cranes, we still have to talk about the green source, this enterprise is worthy of all our electric people respect a business, and, the founder of the green source, that is, its chairman Ni Jie and general manager Hu Jihong, more attention to us, and the history of the green source of entrepreneurship, can also be said to a certain extent into the small electric car industry development history. As we all know, this industry was born under the conditions of no capital, no technology and no support. However, the advantages of the 14 inch foldable e-bike itself, such as environmental protection, convenience and cheapness, and the material and spiritual benefits it can bring to the manufacturer, so it is also some electric people who are still working tirelessly. From the company's top management to the ordinary staff, all we see is perseverance and confidence, and "really professional" is no longer a mere advertising slogan. In the history of Luyuan, Ni Jie and Hu Jihong have made a lot of efforts and suffered a lot for the development of the company, so they are serving the company with their hearts and producing every electric bicycle with their hearts. When it comes to Luyuan's first electric bicycle, Ni Jie and Hu Jihong's faces are full of excitement. Ni Jie, Chairman of Luyuan Group, recalled that there were already several electric bicycle manufacturers in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. In April 1996, Ni Jie bought one back for careful study. In July 1997, Jinhua Luyuan Electric Bicycle Co. During this process, Ni Jie had a friend who was an electric bicycle salesman who warned him that he could not touch this thing, and to this day he still has a lot of them piled up in his warehouse, which cannot be sold. In Shanghai, Ni Jie himself saw that business was slow in the shopping malls that distributed electric bicycles. "At that time, Mr. Ni identified this industry for two main reasons: first, as a means of transportation, electric bicycles must have a large market demand; second, because environmental protection, energy saving, in line with the development trend, must have long-term prospects." "The employees of Luyuan recalled. In the same year, the first batch of products out, Ni Jie often get up early and push the car to the park door to the uncles and aunts to promote, finally a few bold uncles and aunts were moved by his sincerity and buy this new thing, "green source" electric car has the first sales experience. Ni Jie said that it was their bold consumption behavior that made his entrepreneurial ideal a reality and the development of Jinhua electric car today. So in 2005, when he was awarded as the "Zhejiang Businessman of the Year", he made an acceptance speech: "The great consumption power is the source of the surging productivity." This has become one of Ni Jie's three famous assertions.

The second stage is called the first production scale stage, because there were several opportunities to push the 14 inch foldable e-bike forward during this period, which made the electric bicycle, which was struggling in the primary stage, usher in the spring all of a sudden, and the development of the industry entered the scale, and the most valuable of these opportunities were the "motorcycle ban" in various cities and the "motorcycle ban" in 2003. "and the SARS outbreak in 2003. This time period is generally identified as the period from 2000 to 2004, in this time period, with the key technical breakthroughs and electric bicycle performance continues to improve, so that the 14 inch foldable e-bike has become an alternative to motorcycles and bicycles, and its fast, environmentally friendly, convenient and cheap, but also more consumers agree, but also stimulate the market for electric bicycle demand. In the growing market demand, enterprises that had previously developed and produced them rose rapidly, and some new enterprises began to enter, and their investment in e-bikes continued to increase, resulting in rapid expansion of production capacity (see Exhibit 1.1 for details). Moreover, the rapid rise of enterprises in this period is a big operation, and has left the old generation of R & D production enterprises behind. However, the new day, green source, thousand cranes, mainland pigeons and other brands as the representative of the upper-scale enterprises have been formed, and in accordance with the North-South differences, but also the formation of the industry in Wuxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Tianjin as the representative of the three major industrial clusters.

At this stage, the focus should be on the northern Tianjin Fujitec, Colin and Wuxi's new day, Yadi, Speedy and Redou Qianlima and other enterprises, because their entry and growth to the development of the industry has brought new elements, but also let us feel the industry out of the flowering atmosphere. Tianjin's electric bicycle companies are transformed from producing bicycles to producing electric bicycles, but they have not discarded the production of bicycles and are producing mostly simple models of electric bicycles. Because they have continuously accumulated experience in the process of bicycle R&D and production, especially in baking paint and decals, and their product types and varieties are fully in line with gb1776-1999, and also meet the needs of northern consumers for electric bicycle use, so they have formed in a short period of time an industrialized agglomeration. Wuxi's Xinri, Yadi, Speedy, Tianjue, etc. are specializing in luxury models and have put a lot of effort into the research and development of 14 inch foldable e-bikes, and it is because of them that China's electric bicycle industry has reached its current industry scale. Perhaps because of this, the industry's "South luxury, North simple" was formed, and is still influential today!

The third stage is from 2005 to the present, which is the rapid development stage of China's electric bicycle, and is called the "spurt stage" by the industry. During this period, the fierce competition among enterprises greatly stimulated the progress of technology and the proliferation of new technologies, and the technical level of the whole industry improved significantly, with the battery life and capacity increasing by 35%, and the motor developing from a single brushed and toothed motor to a brushless high-efficiency motor as the mainstream, with a 5-fold increase in life, a nearly 30% increase in efficiency, and a 3.5-fold increase in climbing and load capacity. In the performance improvement at the same time, the manufacturing cost also dropped significantly, the price power down to the original 21%; in the controller system and charging system, the technology level also improved significantly. Especially in battery technology and motor technology have made great progress, lead-acid batteries for electric vehicles have led the international in technological breakthroughs, and the formation of Tianneng, Chaowei as the leader of the Zhejiang Changxing plate, Kanglian, Shuangdeng as the representative of the Jiangsu plate and Rui Da as the representative of the Guangdong plate. The battery also has a single lead-acid battery evolved into a multi-type high-performance battery, and the emergence of lithium batteries, more driven by the development of electric bicycles, especially the simple models. In terms of motors, the invention of permanent magnet brushless motors has significantly accelerated the pace of industry development. The key to motor performance is the performance of strong magnetic materials, a variety of permanent magnetic materials, rare earth permanent magnetic material performance is the most superior. China is recognized as the world's largest country of rare-earth resources and strong country of manufacturing rare-earth products. Due to the good performance, low price and strong manufacturing capability of rare earth strong magnetic materials, the bldc (brushless DC permanent magnet motor) system, which is expensive in the international market, is widely used in Chinese enterprises, and the electric bicycle industry has thus gained a unique resource advantage. In terms of the total production and sales volume of the industry (see Exhibit 1.2), in 2005, the total production of various light electric vehicles (including electric bicycles) by hundreds of enterprises nationwide is expected to have exceeded 9 million units, with about 2-3 million units exported, achieving an industrial output value of 20 billion yuan, a profit tax of about 6 billion yuan, and employment of nearly 1 million people in the related production and service fields. If we consider the driving effect on upstream accessories industry and downstream service industry, the overall industry scale will reach more than 35 billion yuan. At present, the production and sales of light electric vehicles in China have accounted for more than 90% of the world, and China has become the world's largest producer, consumer and exporter of light electric vehicles.

This stage is mainly about the emergence of new technologies such as battery technology and motor technology, because it is due to the continuous innovation of the two major components, namely motor and battery, that the development of electric bicycles has moved forward step by step. With the continuous improvement of lead-acid battery technology, the range of electric bicycles has increased and the performance of electric bicycles has improved, so that consumers do not have too many complaints and are no longer skeptical when buying them. However, the emergence of a battery technology has caused a thousand waves in the e-bike industry, namely lithium-ion batteries, which are more long-lasting and environmentally friendly than lead-acid batteries, and have also reduced in weight and volume, and then lithium-ion bikes have appeared in people's eyes. Motor is more varied, what magnesium wheel, aluminum wheel, space wheel, inverter motor, magic motor, these are all in improving the performance of the motor at the same time, either in the weight of the contribution, or in the load and speed to improve the level. However, in terms of motors, all of these evolutions serve the luxury models, and all of these technologies have led to faster progress in updating the luxury models and accelerated the development of the industry even more.

Through three different periods of development, the advance of China's 14 inch foldable e-bike has not stopped, and with the speed of consumer demand and the extreme expansion of market demand, the development of the industry has maintained a growth rate of over 80% in recent years. Although in 2007, under the influence of national policies, industry standards, raw material price increases and other factors, the industry has been in a downturn, but from the market scale, the scale and total volume of the industry is still on the rise, only in terms of speed has slowed down. The convenience, environmental protection, low price and other advantages of the 14 inch foldable e-bike has become a fact for all to see, increasingly become a modern urban transportation speed is low, short and medium distance, easy to operate and park, the closest to the actual needs of a means of transportation. Especially in the current situation of congestion and untimely public transportation, light electric vehicles are undoubtedly the first choice of some low- and middle-income people. Compared with expensive fuel vehicles, despite their shortcomings in driving range and power, their superior convenience and economy (charging is easier and cheaper than refueling) make them show increasing alternative advantages in the context of rising fuel prices.