Shanghai Blogs

Moving On...to Chevron

2008-01-03T06:27:31Z

Dear Friends and colleagues,
Just wanted to share with you a brief update of my recent happenings.

1. I finished graduate school, at long long last. I received my PhD in Transportation Technology and Policy from the University of California, Davis. If any of you are interested in killing a weekend and reading my dissertation on "The Rise of Electric Two-wheelers in China", you can download it at (http://www.jonathanweinert.com/presentations/Weinert Dissertation-v1-9.pdf) (7MB...may take a while).

2. I recently started work at Chevron Energy Technology Company. My official title is Planning Engineer, and I'll be working in the Alternative Fuels and Energy Group within their Process Planning Department. Our job is to assess upcoming energy technologies (e.g. biofuels, plug-in hybrids, etc) in order to inform Chevron's strategic planning decisions. I've got a great boss and teammates, and am really looking forward to the next chapter of life here at Chevron. (And the signing of the Energy Bill a couple weeks ago was quite a timely bonus to add some extra job security)

3. I'm now a BAR. No, not the thing you do pull-ups from, and not the thing you buy drinks at, I mean I'm a Bay Area Resident. I live in the historic bayside community of Point Richmond, close enough to walk to work, which on a clear day includes views of Golden Gate bridge. It's stones throw (if you have a great arm) from San Francisco.

Jonathan

p.s. added some pictures to document my progression back home to the US and to where I am now.
1: e-bike riding grad student in China

2. Graduation day (dissertation officially signed by my three advsiors Joan Ogden, Dan Sperling, and Andrew Burke. I couldn't have done it without their wonderful guidance and support).

3. My first day of work. Kind of looks like my first day of elementary school picture, though I've reluctantly had to replace bicycle with car and lunchbox with briefcase.

Future Of Electric Two-Wheelers In China

2007-09-14T05:18:14Z

Use of electric two-wheeled vehicles (E2Ws) is growing rapidly in China. It marks the most successful case of electric-drive vehicle adoption in the world. If this trend continues, it may have a large impact on the development of batteries and electric vehicle applications. To understand the likelihood of this trend continuing into the future, we examine the forces driving and resisting a shift to E2Ws currently underway in China’s two-wheeler market using the technique of force-field analysis. Through this examination, we reveal the root causes behind these forces and important insights about the likelihood of a potential shift to electric vehicles.

(See Presentation for Results)

The Future of the Chinese E-bike Industry: lessons learned from the Chinese motorcycle industry

2007-08-06T00:51:14Z

I believe what's happening in the e-bike industry in China is very similar to the case of the Chinese motorcycle (MC) industry evolution a decade ago, though the "Wikinomics" effect of decentralized production is perhaps happening on a larger scale with e-bikes.

What got my thinking about this were the book Wikinomcs by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, and some great reports by Ge Dongsheng, Takahiro Fujimoto, and Yasuo Sugiyama on the Chinese motorcycle industry. My advisor posed a few questions to me on the subject of whether there are parellels between this industry and e-bikes.

   1) what about patent law and intelectural property protection? In this case of motorcycles, the industry evolved before     China (and Vietnam) became concerned about IP protection. Will it change as more protections are put in place?
    2) The motorcycle technology was a mature technology, esp for small cheap motorcycles. Thus the rewards from R&D     were small
    The question is whether circumstances are different for e-bikes? It is not a mature technology, stronger IP protection is     starting to be put in place, and there is no external industry/product to imitate.

My Response:

1. IP protection is still loosely enforced. I glean this from interviews with e-bike managers at the trade shows, and it's reinforced in the models I see on the streets. National gov't has little hope of regulating the estimated 1300 e-bike producers + vast network of parts suppliers. I would argue this industry evolved with maybe even less IP protection than the MC industry (in its beginning when only China SOEs made MCs, they at least paid for the technology from Japan). It's still very "Wild West"-style over there. IP protection is not preventing knock-offs.

"Knock-offs of what?" you might ask. You mention the e-bike industry has no external product/industry to imitate. I would argue that they actually have a big industry with lots of products to imitate, and they're doing a great job. Look at the following two pictures I attached. Can you tell which scooter is electric and which one is LPG? (hint: driver demographics give it away).

The e-bike industry is rising up to knock out the domestic MC industry, just as the domestic MC industry rose up and knocked out the Japanese MC industry a decade ago! And they're beating them in the same way the Chinese MC industry beat the Japanese MC makers! Cost.

THey're able to produce a cheaper product that, while not quite as good as a real MC, it satisfies the modest mobility needs of most users. This "good enough" product design is exactly how the Chinese MC makers beat out their high-quality Japanese rivals, whose quality was so good they lost market share quickly in a land of price-conscience Chinese consumers. (Sugiyma 2003)

So how is the e-bike industry able to produce such a cheap mobility product? The secret is in its incredibly simple product architecture (i.e. the relationships amongst the components of a product). E-bikes are modular (each component has a self-contained function) and open (interface is standardized across many companies in the industry). The Chinese MC industry's product architecture is considered "quasi-open" and modular (Ge and Fujimoto 2004), which differs from the closed, "integrated" and traditionally vertical Japanese MC and auto industry. These two traits enabled a large cluster of e-bike assemblers and suppliers to thrive in the Shanghai-Zhejiang-Jiangsu golden triangle, driving up production volume and lowering cost. If MC product architecture is "quasi-open", I'd say e-bike architecture is "uber"-open!

Consider the 3 simple steps to become an e-bike producer: 1. Choose from thick catalogue of local suppliers (ideally one within driving distance) and buy frames, in-wheel motors, huge crate of "one-size fits all" VRLA batteries, controllers, wire harnesses, and various odds and ends. 2. Hire minimum-wage workers to assemble parts together 3. Engine assembly: Stuff three batteries into a box, connect wire from box to controller, connect wire from controller to motor. Body assembly: connect parts using screws and pneumatic tools.

While I'm exaggerating a bit, check out the third picture to illustrate how simple and modular e-bikes really are. The local mechanic near my school built his own. Simple, stylish! (hey, he even attached a brand label onto the front basket for completeness =))

As to your second point about the maturity of the industry, I would argue that both the product and the 4 core technologies used (VRLA battery, brush or brushless motor, controller, charger) are fairly mature. Evidence exists in the vast supplier network, low margins, and product standardization. For example, e-bike batteries only come in two sizes, either 12 Ah or 20Ah), motors and controller are designed for 250W, 350W, and now 500W for 36, 48, and now 60V systems. While of course there is still plenty of room for product innovation in in-hub motors and battery technology, it's got to be cost-competitive with the incumbent "good enough" technology. This raises issues on a potential "technology lock-in" problem inhibiting future innovation in the industry (Ge, Fujimoto 2004)

As for the dirt-cheap VRLA battery technology, its product architecture is also modular and open, enabling a large network of suppliers for the electrodes, separator material, battery case, and acid. They're hand assembled in a very low-tech process (see the pictures from a very primitive battery factory I visited: 1) a simple mold used to soder together the hand-packaged cells of each module, and 2) a view of the plant floor: a bunch of tables). This is the 3rd plant I visited, they're all variations on the same theme. Perhaps there's some room for "process innovation" here.

The birth of this massive e-bike cluster in Eastern coastal China was definitely spurred by gov't policy banning scooters in urban areas which got the market rolling. However I think it is the low cost, driven by simple product architecture of e-bikes and cluster of assemblers/suppliers that sprung up as a result, which is the driving factor now.

Anyway, I need to find more hard data to back up these points and scour the innovation literature some more, but the evolution of the e-bike industry seems to fit the mold of a disruptive innovation that's attacking the incumbent MC industry. I wonder what implications this will have on MC industry in other SE Asian countries, what technology will eventually rise up to beat e-bikes, and what this all means for the electrification of 4-wheelers. Can the modular/open product architecture of electric drive two-wheelers, which enabled a vast decentralized horizontal network of suppliers, be replicated for electric four wheelers??

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, on this matter or points for or against the above argument, please share. This subject will be part of my concluding paper on e-bikes. Thanks!

Motorization in China: A view from the top

2007-08-03T02:59:10Z

I'm back in the US. My wonderful Chinese adventure has finally come to a close (well, temporarily at least). This final 6 month stretch in China was definitely the richest, most interesting, and most educational part of the past two years there, for many reasons. This entry describes a sort of "epiphany" I had over there recently.

My last three months in China, I took an internship at the Halter Financial Advisory Group. I moved out of my cozy dorm at Tongji on the rural edge of Shanghai, and took a big step up to work in the the thumping financial heart of Shanghai and the jewel of China itself, the JinMao Tower in Pudong (China's tallest skyscraper, though not for long).

What a total contrast in lifestyles from when I first arrived! In one of my first blogs, I told of the visit and gracious hospitality of the Zhang family, the poor security guard at my school who invited me to his modest home, which lacked even plumbing for a toilet. His only transport was an old bicycle.

180 degree shift later, I found myself working day to day in the Jinmao Tower amongst Shanghai's (and thus all of China's) elite. The managers at my firm were car-owners; my colleagues, soon to be car-owners. One day on the way to dinner, we made a little pit-stop at the Porsche dealership so one of our managers could sign the papers for her new car (following the advice of her boss, also a Porsche owner).

This is the other side of life in China that until a few months ago, I knew very little about. This is the side that lives in the beautifully landscaped gated high-rise communities of Pudong, where wide boulevards are easily traversed by the oh so comfortable automobile.

I spent my first year in China riding the bus and subway exclusively. It was so new to me, so it was fun. I wanted to understand the system and the people using this system. My concept of "full bus" was stretched each time I rode the nightbound final bus back from the city and they squeezed 100 people into a bus made for 50. I was amazed and impressed at people's ability to deal with the uber-crowded conditions of public transport. When the sweaty stomach of the guy next to me pushed against me a little closer as another passenger boarded, all I could do was grin and say, "well, this is life in CHina!" The subway at rush hour, which I took a lot, is more of the same.

This is life for a large portion of China's 540 million urban dwellers. No wonder 20 million more people are expected to buy e-bikes this year, and ~5 milion people are expected to purchase cars. Personal mobility is a wonderful thing! If one can afford to escape the hell of bus-riding, most people do. Especially if you're a young woman (I heard some pretty scary stories of "creepy" men on crowded buses).

So during my last few months in CHina, I finally gave up on public transport. The novelty wore off and I could luckily afford not to take it. I commuted by e-bike during the day (which incidentally, was faster than by car), and cruised the city by night in the comfort of air-conditioned taxis. And that's when I finally came to understand and appreciate the Chinese dream of owning a car. It's a powerful driving force (literally) that, for better or worse, is going to have a huge global impact.

My boss with his newly purchased Audi, (behind a advertisement for BMW), May 07

Life and E-bike Research Throughout East Asia (March 07)

2007-03-19T13:49:04Z

This video is a collage of experiences on the road throughout China, Indonesia, Japan, and Vietnam. As a student of Transportation Technology and Policy (for all you wondering what my major is), I'm particularly interested in transportation in different countries at various stages of development. This video is intended to give you a little taste of how people move in these parts of the world. It starts off at the quiet cozy electric bike shop near Tongji University (Shanghai), then takes you on a musical road-trip (guided by one of my favorite musicians) along the roads and rails of some of the East Asia's most vibrant cities.

Summary of Important Factors for E-bike Growth in China and Its Impact on Travel Behavior (February 2 2007)

2007-02-02T19:30:42Z

The following entry is a brief summary of the two papers I've written on electric bicycles and scooters (e-bikes) in China. For the full details, refer to the papers written by Chaktan Ma, Chris Cherry, and also available on my website under the "My Projects" section.

SUMMARY:
E-bikes, though they floundered twice in the 80s and early 90s, experienced extraordinary growth in the late 90s to the present due to a combination of economic, technical, and political factors (Weinert, Ma and Cherry, 2006). Firstly, E-bike technology, specifically motors and batteries, improved significantly during the late 1990’s. Simple technology, a vast supplier base, and weak intellectual property protection made it easier for e-bike makers to enter the industry, increasing competition and driving prices down.
    Secondly, Incomes of urban households and the share spent on transportation both rose considerably due to improving economic conditions nationally. E-bike prices decreased, gasoline prices rose and electricity prices in rural areas dropped, making e-bikes more competitive economically with alternatives like gasoline-powered scooters and bus.
    Thirdly, national and local government policy motivated by energy and air quality issues created favorable conditions for e-bike growth. Banning gasoline powered motorcycles in large city centers removed the most competitive mode from the choice set. National e-bike standards with loop-holes and flexible guidelines created a rich opportunity for manufacturers to create e-bikes that appealed to more users, namely, scooter-style electric bikes.
    Furthermore, due to changes in urban form, performance of alternative transportation modes decreased as trips lengths and congestion increased. This made trips difficult to traverse by bicycle and slow by motorized modes, particularly buses and taxis.
    The history of e-bikes in China provides an important lesson on the powerful impact of regulatory policy, given the evolution of technology to a market acceptable product. While technological progress was required to meet the customer demands for economics and performance, the regulatory environment provided strong impetus for the market to grow and for further investment in technology evolution. Without this the e-bike market would not have emerged. Support for this conclusion can be found by looking at the lack of growth in “anti e-bike” cities. There is further evidence of the sensitivity to local policy in Shanghai, where an alternative (LPG scooters) emerged in a regulatory environment that was otherwise favorable to e-bikes. Where regulatory policy is favorable / neutral, economics and customer expectations will determine market success.

    While electric bikes have some positive impacts on transportation and urban air quality, policy makers are not unanimously in favor of this mode resulting in e-bike bans in three cities. Safety is the most commonly cited concern due to their silent nature and increasing speed and weight.    City planners and policy makers are undecided on how to plan for and regulate e-bikes because it is not yet clear what effect they will have on travel behavior, public transportation use, and safety. To begin to understand these effects, we have surveyed 750 bicycle and 450 e-bike users in Shijiazhuang, a medium-sized city with particularly high two-wheeled vehicle (2WV) use, to identify differences in travel characteristics and attitudes (Weinert et al, 2006).
    From the survey results, we found that e-bikes are enabling people to commute longer distances. This has important implications on energy use, accessibility and urban expansion of cities. People under-served by public transportation are shifting to e-bike though they depend on public transit as a back-up option (i.e. during inclement weather).
    There are concerns by both bicycle and e-bike users about the e-bikes being too fast, however e-bikers find crossing intersection easier than bicycles. Women feel safer crossing intersections on an e-bike compared to regular bike, however they have strong reservations about increasing e-bike speed capability.
    E-bikes have zero tail-pipe emissions, however the electricity used to charge their batteries comes from power plants which emit pollution; these plants are 70% coal fired in China. Lead emissions from batteries production and recycling also have serious health implications due to high lead loss rates in the Chinese lead and battery industries (Cherry, 2006).

Authors
Jonathan Weinert, PhD Candidate, UC-Davis Institute of Transportation Studies,
Chaktan Ma, Masters student, Tsinghua University Transportation Engineering,
Chris Cherry, PhD Candidate, UC Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies
Dr. Yang Xinmiao, Professor Tsinghua University

Day in the Life of an E-bike Owner (Nov 22, 2006)

2006-11-22T14:20:50Z

As of Oct 20, I became the proud owner of an electric vehicle. While in America, this makes me join the ranks of a select few thousand, I'm just a drop in the bucket of the 18 million people in China who are also projected to buy one in 2006. I'm not talking no EV1, Smart car, or GEM. No, I forked over a whopping $260 (post-haggling, I'll have you know), for a slick new, sizzling "Vespa" style e-bike!

Life on campus at Tongji University has never been the same. All of a sudden, my morning commute from my dorm to the office goes by a LOT quicker (used to take me 5 minutes by bike. I shaved it down to 2.5 min by E-bike. I rule!!). I get a lot of stares/glares as I silently whiz past the crowds of bikers and walkers on their way to class. My dorm security guard comments, "Wow, your bike is cute. Hehe, kind of looks like a girls style e-bike." I pay him no heed. I know this bike is one thing and one thing only: big PIMPIN' (that means "cool" for all you over 35). I'll let the picture below do the talking.(can you tell which one's mine??)

So let me give you the stats on my new ride (nicknamed Xiao Ma Zha, or "lil' grasshopper"). It made by a subsidiary of Honda (XinDaZhou in China). It does 0-27 km/hr in about 18 seconds. After 8 hours of
charging, I can go about 30-35 km. Motor power: 250 Watts (that's 0.34 hp for all you gear-heads out there. I know you're jealous!).
It weighs 50 kg. It has no less than 32 small but absolutely precious butterfly stickers on its body panels (and two on the battery).

I'll admit, I've had to bring the e-bike into the dealer twice for some work already. I noticed the actual range was nowhere near the stated 50 km range (I only got 28 km on an accelerated discharge test). One of the batteries was faulty, but they swapped it out and now my bike manages to crank out a modest 35 km per charge. Only other problem is that my horn intermittently fails (not a minor safety hazard in China!), and the brakes needed adjusting. Besides that, this bike is a gem.

One downside to this whole e-bike thing however is what I call the
"General Tsao Effect". I used to really look forward to a quick
little bike ride from the cafeteria back to the office after lunch to
work off that heavy "General Tsao's Chicken" sitting in my gut.¹
Now, it just sits there. Pre-E-bike, this past year in China, I've
been exclusively relying on bicycle and bus to get to/from and around
campus. If you want to know why there are very few fat people here,
one main reason is that going anywhere takes a fair amount of work
(standing, waiting, pedaling, guarding bag from theives), which is
tiring day after day! I've had the recent fortunate experience of
suddenly lifting myself out of the ranks of the non-motorized to the
"elite" motorized class (though admittedly still on the lower tier).
As an American, I don't remember making this transition, probably
because my parents drove me everywhere I needed to go pre-16, and I
just rode a bike for fun (or for my paper route).

Seriously, this whole e-bike life is surprisingly pretty nice.
Electric drive is great because it's so quiet and peaceful yet
powerful, kind of like sailing. I can see why this technology is so
attractive in China. They're not all that fast compared with cars or
motor scooters, but they're a heck of lot easier and more comfortable
than riding a bike, which is what a lot of people switch from.

Satisfied Customer,
Jonathan

1. Actually, they don't have any General Tsao's chicken anywhere in CHina! Yeah, disappointing, I know! Believe me I've searched. In fact, I haven't even never heard of this mythical General Tsao. For the best GTC, you will have to settle for Middle Kingdom in Ann Arbor Michigan.

E-bikes in Shijiazhuang (see for yourself)

2006-06-10T04:47:21Z

June 10, 2006: I made a video in Shijiazhuang, China to give you all a little background about my recent research on electric bikes in China. E-bikes are especially important in cities like Shijiazhuang, where the majority of people can't afford a car, so their choices are to be totally crammed in a bus, or move around by bike. E-bikes make this journey much easier. Furthermore, electric bikes emit zero tail-pipe emission, are virtually silent, and and are incredibly energy efficient (1.2 kWh/100 km).

Enjoy!!! (background music by the Chinese band S.H.E., "Superstar")

Hello from Beijing

2006-06-01T15:50:53Z

Just wanted to send a little hello from China and tell you what's new.

1. Biggest new thing is: I've changed my research subject! Instead of researching hydrogen and fuel cells, I am now exploring a relatively recent, and rapidly growing transportation phenomenon in China: the rise of the electric bike. To find out why and learn more about this, check out my latest blog on this and new e-bike/music video at www.fuelcelltrek.com

2. I've been spending the last few weeks up in Beijing working with some researchers at Tsinghua, so I'm getting to experience a whole new city, college (which is very beautiful by the way), and make new friends which is always fun! Right now we're working on a project with the World Bank on how to preserve bicycling (and e-biking) as a form of transportation in Shijiazhuang, one of China's capital cities (pop 9 million). The car is slowly taking over there, but the e-bike may help slow this process.

3. I did an interview with the BBC recently about a really interesting development on a large island next to Shanghai, and how they want to make this island completely energy self-sufficient and environmentally sustainable. It's called The Dongtan Island project. If you want to learn more about how Shanghai plans to build the world's first Eco-city (and hear my 2 cents on it), click on http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/costingtheearth_20060427.shtml (if you don't want to listen to the whole show, I come in around minute 21, but don't mind me throwing a few embarrassing Valley-girl-ish "like"s here and there).

4. I just partook in my friends wedding... and I was the Best Man! For those that got my last message last Thanksgiving, weddings are indeed pretty wild, though at this wedding (unfortunately) no one got naked and (fortunately) there were no wolves. They DID however haze me worse than any fraternity guy I've ever encountered (best man traditionally winds up very drunk at the end of the night). See attached picture (it's a little bit like a "Where's Waldo" picture isn't it?.)

The Quiet Revolution: Electric Bikes in China

2006-05-18T07:40:20Z

May, 18 2006: So, as some of you know, I’ve been on a quest for the past four years seeking out a form of transportation that doesn’t pollute our cities, that’s energy efficient, and that doesn’t depend on oil. I had high hopes that I’d find this in fuel cell and hydrogen technology, thus I embarked on my “fuel cell trek”. This trek has led me from the world’s automotive heartland, Detroit (though maybe not for much longer), to the world’s center of innovation, California, (where semi-conductors and boy-bands were born), and finally to the world’s manufacturing mecca, and rising global consumer of cars, China.

Well, after four years of looking, I finally found it in a very unsuspecting place. In the 1,000 year old village in the Shanghai countryside, where people live on a couple dollars a day and the average home lacks even a toilet, it hit me (well, almost). I was crossing the intersection and nearly got blind-sided by a surprisingly quiet…zero-emission… Electric Bicycle.

(my all-time favorite ebike picture: A guy riding his ebike...carrying another guy...carrying another ebike...while onlooker stares in disbelief!)

While this was my very first encounter with this intriguing technology, it definitely wasn’t the last. It’s kind of like when you sit down on the sidewalk in summertime and start staring at the ground, first you see one ant… then a couple more… then you realize the whole ground is swarming with bugs. That’s how electric bikes are in China. Once I started noticing them, I noticed that they’re everywhere and the numbers are growing fast. In 2000, 330,000 were sold in all of China. By 2005, they were selling 10 million a year. (picture below of guy taking a heavy load by ebike)

Being a graduate student researcher, it’s my job to ask questions that will keep me in school a little while longer (joke^_^), so I starting inquiring into WHY this is such a big phenomenon in China, while in the rest of the developed world, the car is the mode of choice. Well the first obvious reason is that these bikes and the fuel they consumer are dirt cheap. You can buy one for the price of an average cell phone here ($100-$250 USD), and to charge the battery for a month's worth of commuting (3-40 km/day) is a whopping $1.25. Another big reason is that cities have started banning gas powered scooters and motorcycles in some city centers to reduce air pollution. Ebikes came in to fill the void. Another reason is the strong history of bicycle use in China. China has an estimated 450 million bicycles, and most people (besides the extremely poor) have at some point in there life used a bike to go to work or school. There’s more reasons, which I’m beginning to explore and which will ultimately form my dissertation. I’ll bore you with the details at a later time.

The important point is that, in terms of sustainable transportation for developing countries, this is a really interesting technology!

Why:
- You can go 100 km on 1.5 kWh, equivalent to 1,362 mpg gasoline equivalent (33.5kWh=1 gal gas equiv)
- It's a zero-emission vehicle (important for urban cities, though pollution is still generated at the power plant, which is usually coal in China)
- The fuel can be made from renewable energy

These three reasons alone make e-bikes a homerun for cities plagued with poor air quality and governments worried about energy security and future oil supply. No need to even mention the benefits to congestion, parking, and the increasing mobility it's bringing to working women and the elderly.

The even more interesting question is: what will e-bikes lead to? The world is watching (while nervously biting their nails) while China buys more and more cars and gasoline. This will inevitably drive up oil prices around the world, not to mention the environmental disasters that loom ahead from the CO2 and other pollutants emitted by a billion more cars.

Will battery technology develop faster because of this huge new market and possibly open the door to completely electric (or at least strong hybrid vehicles)? Will the super-cheap Chinese ebike and rising congestion in cities “drive” people out of their cars and onto an e-bike? Will a Chinese-specific new all electric mini-car evolve from this?

Hydrogen:
So what does this mean for hydrogen (and more importantly, for Hydrogen Boy ;-), see my Halloween 2004 costume). Well, as some may say, I guess I’ve jumped off the hydrogen wagon, at least for now. It just seems so far away. I’ve been involved pretty heavily for the past 3 years, and of course there’s been some great progress, but realistically, there’s some huge technical challenges that need to be overcome (namely in reducing cost and durability of fuel cells). In China, these problems are magnified by the even greater pressure for cheap and reliable transport. I’ve been going to fuel cell and hydrogen conferences and events for years which was pretty much the only place I could catch a glimpse of the the technology in action. I just went to my first ebike trade show last week in Shanghai where hundreds of exhibitors were showing off their ebikes or batteries, motors, etc. My friend, upon leaving the show, hopped on his e-bike to head back home. I can’t wait for the day when people are actually driving fuel cell cars to fuel cell conferences, but it seems still a long way off.