Luyuan & the electric bicycle industry in China

Luyuan, meaning green power in Chinese, was started in 1996 with two persons and one machine in a tiny workshop, and today it is the largest electric bicycle manufacturer and the most respected e-bike brand of China with close to 1.5 million Luyuan vehicles rolling on the roads of China and the world.

It all began with a simple belief that the current way of life on cars and oil would hardly be sustainable. Mr. Jie Ni, the founder, left a leading local venture capital firm to pursue his dream to provide an environment friendly vehicle to ordinary people in a country of 1.3 billion population and in an economy growing at a dazzling speed to meet its energy challenges.

Luyuan Electric Vehicle Limited Company was formally founded on July 3rd, 1997, and was one of the earliest enterprises specialized in electric bicycle R&D and manufacturing in China. Though the first factory was simple and small, the Luyuan people went bull-headed with their faith, enthusiasm and will power.

As a trail blazer, Luyuan has been through a journey of innovations, successes as well as numerous challenges including controversies over E-bike’s right to road, complaints on poor quality of early batteries. 2002-2003 seemed a winter season for China’s e-bike industry with one setback after another. E.g. Beijing city government denied electric bicycle rights to road on the allegation that E-bike traffic was bard to manage and the battery caused pollution; The policy was then followed by Fuzhou city government and a few others. As the industry leader, Luyuan took on the responsibility of representing the industry and confronting the arbitrary decisions of governments on numerous news media and in courts when necessary. Thanks to the efforts and support of millions of consumers with growing awareness of their rights, China’s e-bike sales grew even faster and reached the historical 5 million units a year in 2004 and 15 million in 2006.

Luyuan is proud that it has been a successful pioneer in championing the E-bike cause in China, changing existing concept of the way of life and help people accept new things. Luyuan was a key member of a national standards association that helped write the national standards on E Bicycles and its main components including batteries.

With seven leading experts and officials from Chinese government including the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Construction, National Development and Reform Commission, and State Council Development and Research Centre, Chairman Jie Ni was appointed as the industry representative to a government committee to draft the National Strategy for China’s Light Electric Vehicles Industry in 2006. Mr. Jie Ni was awarded “Businessman of the year” the same year, by Zhejiang TV, the most influential media of the wealthiest province of China, for Luyuan’s contribution to China’s electric bike industry.

Today, Luyuan is stronger than ever before, and so is its confidence in devoting its enthusiasm and hard work to improve the green transportation for a better tomorrow and better environment for all of us.