The European Commission will extend its anti-dumping and countervailing duties on import electric bikes from China for another five years.
The Commission says it is extending the duties to safeguard the future of the European ebike industry “which directly employs 12,000 people and is vital for the EU’s green transition and sustainable mobility”.
Following an expiry review investigation, the Commission says it found ebike producers in China continue to “benefit from unfair subsidies” and that imports to the EU were made at dumped prices.
Measures on ebikes were first introduced in 2019. Anti-dumping duties range from 10.3 per cent to 70.1 per cent, while countervailing duties range from 3.9 per cent to 17.2 per cent.
The measures are said to have “helped mitigate the injurious effect of unfairly subsidised and dumped Chinese imports, particularly for EU producers in the entry-level and mid-range markets.” They are also said to have allowed new European companies to enter the market, alongside promoting investment in technology and sustainable production methods.
When duties were first introduced, China’s position as an importer of ebikes to the EU was marginalised, but Chinese manufacturers soon benefited from the boom in ebikes.
The import market share of China increased from 16 per cent in January 2024 to 25 per cent in September. This meant it started the year as the third biggest ebike exporting country to the EU at the start of 2024 but then it passed Taiwan and Vietnam to become the largest by the third quarter, according to Bike Europe.
Are duties the answer?
While we can presume many European ebike companies will welcome the duties, other organisations will be less supportive.
LEVA-EU is Europe’s only trade association that works exclusively on light electric vehicles, and it has challenged the claims made by the Commission.
It says the Commission’s measures “inadvertently facilitate the entry of extremely low-cost electric bicycles that cannot realistically comply with EU technical regulations.”
The trade association says that during the review period nearly 21,000 Chinese ebikes were imported at the average price of €298.
“LEVA-EU questions how Chinese ebikes priced so low can adhere to stringent EU requirements, such as testing according to EU standards,” it says in a press release, highlighting the risk of ebike fires.
Instead of duties, LEVA-EU calls for “significantly enhanced market surveillance” to stop the influx of low-quality products.
Annick Roetynck, managing director of LEVA-EU, says: “Robust market surveillance, not trade defence, is the only sustainable way forward. By addressing these critical issues, the EU can support a thriving and competitive electric cycle industry while ensuring safety and compliance for consumers.”
The view from the UK
The extension of anti-dumping and countervailing duties in the EU follows recent debate over the future of tariffs on bikes from China in the UK.
The UK inherited its anti-dumping measures from the EU following Brexit, but in May last year, the Trade Remedies Authority looked into ebikes imported from China. It concluded that current measures should be revoked because retaining the measures would “not be in the economic interest of the UK”.
This is despite concern that removing anti-dumping measures could exacerbate the issue of low-quality ebike conversion kits entering the country.
More recently Brompton CEO William Butler-Adams warned that axing tariffs on Chinese bikes could ‘kill’ business because of cheap bikes entering the market. Butler-Adams said removing tariffs could result in the loss of 600 jobs at Brompton’s west London factory.
“We know that in the rest of Europe, these tariffs are remaining… That’s all we’re asking for here – a level playing field,” Butler-Adams said in the Financial Times. The CEO’s comments come after Brompton reported a 99 per cent drop in profits.
The Department for Business and Trade is yet to make a decision on the tariffs.
