chapter 8 IS in business{0}
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Ch. 8 IS in business
Many of us do not imagine ourselves ridding a bicycle to work, or even to school. We would rather drive and get where we are going faster. What if there was a bike that could get you where you wanted faster than a regular bike, and with less work? There is now, e bikes. What is an e bike you may be thinking? It is basically like a traditional bike but is equipped with a small motor that power the bike and assist the rider with pedaling. These bikes reduce the sweat it takes to go over hills and far distances and is better for the environment too.
E bikes are popular in Europe and China, with over 100 million in China, but are new to the United States. Many believe it may take a while for Americans to mentally shift their perspectives of bike riding as a main source of transportation. Ultra Motor US hopes to change this in the near future. They are planning on three types of customers; those active adults who have gotten a bit too old to ride a traditional bike, those who would like to help out the environment, and many who don’t want to pay to fuel up their SUV’s in the future when oil prices are high.
Other companies are now jumping on the e bike train, seeing a gold mine in the future. 200,000 e bikes were sold last year. Though sales have dropped this year, because of the economy, many companies still see them as a good idea for future production. There were more than 20 companies producing e bikes this year, which is a jump from only 5 last year.
e bikes range from a few hundred dollars, like the E ip Trailz hybrid, which is 398 at wal mart, to more than 13,000 for the top of the line models. Prices increase as battery technology and components get better.
I think this article related to the topic of supply chain mainly because these companies are thinking of the competitive OM strategy, making low cost bikes and high cost bikes, seeking out their competition (ordinary bikes) and for seeing the future (oil prices going up) with these factors the e bike business could be very successful. We could all be riding e bikes in the future.
Almasy S. (2009) Will e-bikes be the new commuter cool?
retreived October 15, 2009 from the cnn.com/tech website:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/15/electric.bicycles/index.html
Posted by Angela Barrientos at 9:58