E-Bike Tariffs: Do They Protect or Hurt the Industry?

If you followed the news this summer—or generally spend time monitoring e-bike prices as closely as we do—you might have noticed a sweeping cost increase in June-July. In many cases, we observed increases of roughly $200 in the prices of e-bikes corresponding to changes in US tariff policies, which affected specific taxes applied to imported goods.

On June 14th, 2024, an exemption for e-bikes in the United States Trade Representative (USTR)’s Section 301 tariffs list expired. This caused e-bikes, some potential e-bike components, some non-electric bikes, some carbon fiber frames, and some kids’ bikes to become subject to a 25% tariff paid by the importing company to the US Government.

Tariffs are often applied to imports for a variety of reasons. As explained by the Cato Institute, they can help to protect domestic businesses from being undercut by foreign competitors, encourage consumers to support and rely on US-based manufacturers, and create jobs, among other things.

In the case of e-bikes, however, this reasoning collapses.

Many e-bikes originate from China, including many of the best-selling e-bikes our readers and YouTube viewers ride. Very few are produced domestically, and even in those cases, many of their components are manufactured and imported from overseas.

As such, tariffs do not—and at the time of writing, literally cannot—realistically serve to protect domestic manufacturers of e-bikes simply because almost no US-based e-bike manufacturers exist.

If e-bike tariffs DO NOT protect US workers or US companies, what effect do they have on the US e-bike industry?

We analyzed public pricing information and sales data from Electric Bike Report to try to answer this question. Spoiler alert: the data we gathered from the brief 3-4 month period between the expiration of Section 301 tariff exemptions and the writing of this article paints a negative outlook.

In almost every regard, the application of tariffs to e-bike imports has raised consumer prices and hurt sales.

New tariffs will go into effect on January 1, 2026, and recent political discussions relating to November’s Presidential Election have indicated that additional tariffs could be placed not only on Chinese goods but those from all foreign countries. We feel strongly that politicians and our readers need to know what negative impact tariffs have on the e-bike industry.

We hope that you, the reader of this report, will lobby your state and national government representatives to remove current tariffs on e-bikes and prevent future tariffs in order to protect American workers and businesses.

In our research, we reached out to Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A. for help in understanding e-bike-specific tariff codes. A representative advised us that the relevant line items are 8711.90.0000 or 8711.60.00.

While the former relates to electric scooters such as Segway products and e-bikes, Bicycle Retailer explains that the latter defines e-bikes as “Motorcycles with electric power for propulsion, each of a power not exceeding 1,000 W.”

With this information in mind, we also hope to encourage lawmakers to separate and distinguish e-bikes from electric motorcycles and scooters in an effort to unify their legal definition across all avenues.

E-Bike Tariffs Increase Prices, Hurting Brands and Consumers

To collect data, we used an internet archive called Wayback Machine to source e-bike prices prior to June 14th—and ideally, also before Memorial Day sales at the end of May.

We initially gathered numbers for 160 e-bikes, but we reduced our pool to 83 bikes after excluding online sales, in-store prices, discontinued models, clearance bikes soon to be replaced by new models, and products from some smaller brands we were less familiar with.

Our data is shown in the table below. Note that we chose to list the specific brands we analyzed anonymously to eliminate any potentially negative effects from publishing our data.

Additionally, we referenced the (pre-sales-tax) prices actually paid by the customer instead of listed MSRPs that could be artificially inflated; brands will often mark up the MSRP while showing a ‘discounted’ or ‘sale’ price to make consumers feel like they are getting a time-sensitive deal.

We weighted the data based on the number of bikes included in our data set from each brand.

Finally, we excluded bikes from certain legacy brands with global reach due to differences in product sourcing and focused more on direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands that have a higher percentage of manufacturing done in China.

As Forbes reports, economists from Goldman Sachs estimated that consumer prices rise 0.1% for every 1% increase in tariff rates, but our findings suggest more extreme changes in the e-bike market.

As shown by the data above, e-bike prices increased after June 14th by 6.7% on average industry-wide, with some larger companies with greater brand equity showing an approximately 9.5% increase on average.

You may wonder why the additional 25% tariff does not correlate to the same increase in every e-bike’s price. Broadly speaking, production and import costs are only a portion of the total expenditures that the manufacturer’s e-bike prices must account for; overhead, marketing, shipping, and other operating costs are also pieces of the proverbial pie.

Our data shows that most manufacturers are, at least in part, passing on the added cost to consumers. As explained by TaxFoundation.org, this is an expected reaction that coincides with historical instances of tariff implementation or increase. Simply put, consumers usually bear the burden of tariffs, making import fees an indirect tax on the American people.

In truth, e-bike brands only have so many options. They could attempt to negotiate reduced production prices with foreign factories. They can choose to absorb the added cost, thereby reducing profit margins. As we have discussed, they might choose to pass on the added cost to consumers. In the most likely scenario, companies might combine these tactics.

In the cases of the brands that have, at least to this point, maintained consistent prices, we assume one of the following scenarios. These brands may have greater profit margins or lower cost structures, allowing them to absorb the tariff with reduced effect. Alternatively, they may intentionally suffer the loss of profits in an effort to gain market share.

When considering the brands that have lowered prices, we can only assume that they are feeling the effects of decreased sales due to tariffs and reduced consumer spending power caused by inflation. By lowering prices, these brands might be attempting to clear old inventory and generate sales.

A few caveats about our data should be considered.

First, the industry has likely not yet felt the full impact of added tariff costs, so current pricing data may not reflect long-term effects.

We expect that many brands are currently selling through existing inventory that was imported before June 14th. As new production runs are ordered, produced, and imported into the US, we expect prices on more models to increase, which will likely push the industry average higher.

We believe this is evidenced by price increases on some specific models from Company 12, as this brand released many new models in 2024. These bikes are likely to be more popular than older models, so we assume the company has imported shipments of these bikes from China after the tariff increase.

Assuming that tariffs’ impacts on the e-bike industry will continue to develop, we can extrapolate from our data to project possible futures.

The Future of E-Bike Tariffs and the Industry

As we are now well into October, the 2024 US Presidential Election is looming on the horizon. While neither major presidential candidate has made firm proposals regarding the future of tariffs, one potential outcome is a 10% tariff applied to all foreign imports and an increased 60% tariff on all goods imported from China.

Our data points to roughly a 10% consumer-level price increase following the introduction of a 25% tariff on e-bikes. Therefore, we have calculated possible projected pricing changes should the 10%/60% tariff increase go into effect.

As shown in the table above, a 10% tariff—which would affect e-bike brands manufacturing e-bikes in Europe, Taiwan, or elsewhere outside of China—could result in a 4% increase in consumer pricing.

A 60% tariff—which would, again, affect many of the best e-bikes on the market—has the potential to increase their prices by a total of 24% when compared to tariff-exempt pricing (or an additional 12.7% from the current post-exemption expiration levels).

Current and future price increases will likely prevent at least some consumers from purchasing e-bikes. Conversion rates from our e-bike reviews have shown a 20-30% decrease in sales following the expiration of Section 301 tariff exemptions. If tariffs on Chinese-made e-bikes increase to 60%, we can only speculate on the severity of the impact on the industry.

Broadly speaking, we can imagine that local bike shops, US-based e-bike brands of all sizes, and their employees would all be hurt tremendously. Some brands could potentially shift manufacturing to less-tariffed countries, but not without significant cost, time, and effort.

Due to the extreme nature of the proposal to add a 10% tariff to products originating from every country outside the USA, we are unsure how to attempt to model this.

It is also worth noting that the current US Presidential administration has enacted, increased, or planned to enact/increase tariffs on Electric Vehicles (EVs), lithium-ion batteries used in EVs, and non-EV-specific lithium-ion batteries made in China. While we are uncertain of the potential effects of these tariffs, those relating to e-bikes are set to go into effect in January 2026.

Clearly, consumers and e-bike brands are suffering now, and the problems could get worse. This is evidenced by broadly reduced pricing across a handful of specific e-bike brands and events like Rad Power Bikes’ most recent round of layoffs.

With such drastic reductions in sales, we expect consolidation in the market, with some e-bike brands shutting down or selling to larger, more established companies.

However, considering that the bike industry is an ecosystem, the effects may not end there; employees of e-bike manufacturers, bike shops, and other ancillary businesses could lose their jobs.

The E-Bike Industry Needs Your Help

With little to no ground-up domestic production of e-bikes, all of the current evidence around e-bike tariffs suggests that the added import taxes harm the industry, its employees, and consumers at large. If tariffs are extended or increased, this harm is likely to intensify.

As advocates for the e-bike industry, the environment, and anything encouraging healthy and active lifestyles, we firmly oppose tariffs on e-bikes.

We encourage lawmakers to once again exempt e-bikes and their components from Section 301 tariffs. We also encourage more care in understanding the harm tariffs can inflict on the industry and consumers.

What can you do to help?

While it may sound trite or cliche, everyone’s voice matters.

If you agree with our take on the matter, we encourage you to contact your legislators to express your concerns. Linking to this article allows our research to support and enact change. If you are unsure who to contact, please reference Congress.gov to identify lawmakers based on your location.