I’d never driven before coming to China.
Well okay, I had driven once before, but that was thirty years ago, when a friend and I were travelling around the Yucatan Peninsula in a bright orange VW Beetle. I didn’t have a car license then (and I still don’t have one now), but the wide, empty jungle roads made for easy driving, and with villages few and far between, I was happy to share the burden of driving.
Fast-forward to last year in Beijing. I arrived after 20 years in Lebanon, a country where driving makes sense given the poor public transportation system, but much less sense given the daredevil approach to driving. When I say that for the first six years I lived there, traffic lights were optional, this is because 95% of the time, they weren’t working, but then decades of driving during the long civil war had imbued the Lebanese with an unwillingness to stop at traffic lights, and the ability to navigate its narrow coastal and mountain roads with an ease and elan at speeds that would make an accomplished stunt driver blush.
In contrast, Beijing’s gleaming road network was practically Swiss in its regimentation, even if the flow of cars was idiosyncratic, and to some drivers, lights seemed to be a suggestion, not a command.
As one of the world’s 6 billion carless, I’m quite accustomed to using public transport (when it’s available), to get around and so at first, I enjoyed being back in a city with an efficient bus and subway system. But soon, the combination of a relatively long commute and the desire to see more of my new home than my underground progression allowed, combined with the desire to be mask-free at least part of the day, had me considering other options.
With no license, and only a smattering of Mandarin, taking the test here didn’t seem feasible (although I have since learned that it’s possible to take the written part in English), so I decided to get an e-scooter.
My decision was met with (largely predictable) cries of “you must be mad!” and “are you sure you’re feeling quite right?” but clearly, I wasn’t the only one thinking along the same lines. The scooter I chose, a zippy black and red-striped number, was just one of 600,892 e-bikes (or ‘new energy’ bikes, as they’re also known) the company I bought it from sold last year, a 42% rise in sales year-on-year. Nor were they the only winners. Brands like Xinri Sunra and market leaders, Yaeda, also did very well, especially considering the complete COVID-related shutdown of Chinese industry during in the first quarter of 2020.
Accounting for almost 70% of all new electric scooter sales in the world, China also has the world’s largest domestic motorcycle market, and while sales of traditional motorcycles have been declining, after a temporary dip in response to tightened regulations a couple of years back, sales of e-bikes have rebounded, especially in urban areas, where mobility, the environment, rising disposable incomes and reticence to share space with others due to the pandemic are driving sales among young urbanites. E-scooters now account for almost 50% of China’s two-wheel market, a much quicker transition rate away from petrol than with cars, and by 2025, it’s estimated the domestic e-bike market will be worth $12.5 billion.
So, did I make the right choice? Despite a spill or two, yes. I love my scooter and the freedom it affords me. And the fact that I’ve also joined a fast-rising national and global trend is just the cherry on my cake.