Ban Or Regulate: India’s E-Bike Dilemma
19 May 2025 6:10 AM IST
Have you seen those tiny e-bikes in big cities? You know, the ones that mostly gig workers ride. With the new quick commerce trend, they often need to deliver within minutes, and sometimes zoom past you.
There are many pros of electric bikes. They are nice vehicles to cover short distances. They also, in part, contribute to reducing India’s air pollution problem.
But then, there’s cons too. Several people from Delhi and Bengaluru have complained about how riders on these e-bikes don’t respect road rules. They drive too fast, drive on the footpath or on the wrong side.
What’s the story of shared e-mobility in big Indian cities? How did they come to dominate our roads? Who rides them?
NOTE: A machine transcribed this episode. A human has looked at this text but there might still be errors. Please refer to the audio above, if you need to clarify something. If you want to give us feedback, please write to us at [email protected].
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TRANSCRIPT
Kudrat (Host): Have you seen those tiny e-bikes in big cities? You know, the ones that mostly gig workers ride. With the new quick commerce trend, they often need to deliver within minutes, and sometimes zoom past you.
There are many pros of electric bikes. They are nice vehicles to cover short distances. They also contribute to reducing India’s air pollution problem. Electric vehicles don’t emit harmful gases, unlike those that run on petrol and diesel.
But there are cons too. Many people from Delhi and Bengaluru have complained through newspaper articles and social media reports about how the riders of these e-bikes don't respect road safety rules. They complain that riders either drive on the wrong side, or drive too fast, or drive on the footpath.
Kudrat (Host): My name is Kudrat Wadhwa, and you’re listening to The Signal Daily. We don’t do hot takes. Instead, we’ll bring you deep dives into the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of consumer trends. The Core produces The Signal Daily, follow us wherever you get your favourite podcasts.
What’s the story of shared mobility in big Indian cities? How did they come to dominate our roads? Who rides them? In this episode of The Signal Daily, we’ll visit one of these e-bike hubs, and learn about what safety regulations that exist around riding these bikes.
Kudrat (Host): There’s several companies that rent e-bikes–there’s Vogo, Zypp Electric, Baaz and Yulu. Out of them, Yulu is particularly popular in India. A November 2024 press release by the company says that their annual revenue in 2024 was $30 million.. Around the time, they had also won even more funding, of 100 million dollars.
Yulu’s founders started the company in 2017. At first, they marketed it as a convenient first and last mile option for office-goers. So, for instance, in my case, my home is at least a 30-minute walk from the closest metro station. Rather than using an auto, which would be more expensive, I could technically use an e-bike to cover that distance.
When its founders started it, the company did find some success.
Here’s a clip of Mr. Amit Gupta, a co-founder of Yulu bikes, speaking to Businessworld.
Kudrat (Host): In 2020, the pandemic hit, meaning we all began working from home. Well, only those of us with white-collar, office jobs. Those who worked in factories or had service jobs like delivering food, had no choice but to be outside.
When their traditional customer base disappeared, Yulu decided to diversify. They made their bike rides more affordable. From an 80% white-collar customer base, now, that group forms 25% of Yulu’s clientele. The rest 75% are delivery workers of companies like Zomato, Swiggy, Blinkit and Zepto.
What’s their experience been like? To find out, I visited an e-bike hub in Delhi, and spoke to a gig worker about his experience.
***
Kudrat (from scene footage): So I stepped out in an auto, which is why there's all this background noise, but I'm basically headed to a Yulu bike stop area. Um, I see that it's close to this metro station in New Delhi, Nehru Enclave, we're on the main road right now and we're about to arrive at the Yulu stop.
Kudrat (from scene footage): So I'm at the Yulu stand now and I see a bunch of, e-bikes that are, seem abandoned. They don't seem in bad shape, but they don't seem in good shape either. They all have some dust collected on it. I also see a lot of electric autos behind me. Um. There's about, I would say maybe 10, 10 bikes here.
I see that there's an Insta Smart delivery guy recharging his battery for his bike, and I'm gonna ask him a few questions now.
Kudrat/Munna (from scene footage): aapka naam kya hai? // munna thakur
Kudrat/Munna (from scene footage): log kehte hain ki aaj kal yulu bikes se accidents kaafi ho rahe hain?
M: ismein ek problem hai.. Bike slip zyaada karta hai
Kudrat (from scene footage): so there's another yulu zone at the same metro station. And these are different kinds of bikes, much cleaner in this reserve parking section. And these are miracle bikes. So as the attendant at the Hulu zone earlier was telling me Miracle bikes are basically bikes that. Tourists use to travel and to explore.
And then the other kinds of bikes, you know, the ones that are shabby and not so well maintained are the ones that delivery people use. So I see yUlu Miracle and Ulu Dex here for tourists.
***
Kudrat (Host): The delivery worker I spoke to, Munna Thakur, said his overall experience with Yulu has been good. He finds the bikes to be within his budget and says he’s able to make relatively good money. He did have some complaints though, about the design of the bike, specifically about the back shocker.
I wanted to learn more about the safety precautions involved in making e-bikes. As well as about the rules around operating them. I reached out to Mr. Jeet Soni, an advocate who specialises in the legal dimension of traditional and emerging technologies.
Jeet Soni: we also have to understand compared to the western indi, uh, western countries in India, the approach right now is very lenient.
Because at the end of the day, the, the idea is to encourage the use of electric mobility solutions, and these also align with our broader goals of reducing carbon emission and elevating urban traffic congestion. Yeah, of course. There is a fair bit of challenges, which you just mentioned, particularly concerning Safety and enforcement.
Kudrat (Host): As a country, right now, India is focusing on electrifying its mobility infrastructure. And, as Mr. Soni told The Signal Daily, most e-bikes out on the road right now don’t technically classify as motor vehicles. If a vehicle moves under 25 km/hour and has a wattage of less than 250, it isn’t subject to the same regulation as, say, a motor vehicle would be.
Jeet Soni: So, uh, it, it ties back to the main question as to how India is actually looking at regulating this, these, uh, uh, these electronic, uh, or we call it e mobility vehicles. Yeah. So right now, as you may be aware, uh, this electric, uh, micro mobility is, is, uh, fairly light touch Regulatory treatment is the, uh, is what they're getting. Okay.
Which means that if the vehicle has a motor par under 250 watts Yeah. And a speed below 2025 kilometer per hour. Yeah. It's not even considered as a motor vehicle under the motor vehicle law. Yeah.
So you have this entire law, which prescribes all the standards from the manufacturing to how a vehicle can be, uh, manufactured. What licensing are required, what are the safety measures that are required? Everything goes away the moment these thresholds are met. Right. So it, it's basically an exemption from most of the compliance burden you would normally expect with a two-wheeler. Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it.
So right now, as a country, we're kind of focusing on electrifying our, uh, vehicles.
And so, uh, the state isn't putting as much pre, you know, pressure on, like, IM implementing some of these regulations that exist for other, um, vehicles. That's, that's correct.
The focus is squarely on access and adoption and uh, and, uh, it's a very growth first mindset as of now, but it may evolve as adoption scales and incidents becomes more, uh, like it increases.
Kudrat (Host): India doesn’t have a tonne of legal regulation right now around driving e-vehicles.
Still, the companies that operate them say they aren’t careless.
They said they give basic training to their drivers. Here’s Ankit Taparia of Yulu talking about what Yulu does to ensure the safety of its riders and pedestrians.
Ankit Taparia: The first part is information and education. Yeah. So riders, uh, might not know what is the right way to write, what are the right traffic rules, right? What is the road safe riding behavior? So there is the, the whole information slash education piece that happens around that. Mostly led through digital channels.
Kudrat (Host): 50% of Indians don’t have a driving license. But you don’t even need one to ride these bikes, since they fall under the 25km/hour speed range.
Yulu says it’s aware of that and trains its riders through the app itself.
Mr. Taparia also told me they have a system in place to detect when someone is driving on the wrong side of the road. After giving the rider several warnings, the company then bars them from using the app.
Kudrat (Host): Yulu says it has some systems in order to help train their riders. But, just because one company is doing something doesn’t mean all the other players are too.
So, what’s the solution? Other countries across the world have also dealt with rash drivers on e-bikes. Some cities, Hong Kong and Paris, even went to the extent of completely banning them.
Should India go their route too?
Jeet Soni: especially when we look at the France, uh, uh, I think it, it was in Fran, uh, France that, uh, uh, that there was a, there was a public vote that happened and majority of, uh, Parisians chose to ban scoter due to these exact safety concern that you were mentioning.
Yeah, accidents were rising. Parking was chaotic and a lot of backlash also, I think came from the older citizen and people with the mobility issues. Yeah.
Now, should we as a country should also go down to that road? Probably not yet. Mm-hmm.
But we definitely need a course correction at this stage as, as I've been mentioning that India's still in the growth phase of micro mobility.
Yeah. And for these like Bangalore, Pune, Delhi e scooters solve a massive last mile gap. Mm. Right.
Banning them would just scale off a very real solution to the urban congestion and also the pollution for cities like Delhi. Yeah.
But ignoring safety is equally risky as well. So, uh, in, in what, how I look at is what we need as a country right now is not a ban. Yeah. It's a smart regulation that we, uh, we need at the moment. Think about speed caps enforced by, let's say, man, uh, speed caps being enforced, mandatory reflectors or lights being put, because even those are not necessary in India right now, right? Mm-hmm.
Designated parking zones or maybe even lightweight training module for frequent li riders.
Like for example, today these bikes are majorly being used by all the delivery, uh, delivery associates of the, uh, of most of the e-commerce. Uh. Uh, e-commerce platforms, right? Yeah. Yeah.
And definitely, uh, infrastructure needs to get better dedicated lanes, smoother payment. Because let's face it, it's not just the rider who's at the risk.
Yeah. But everyone else on the road too, right? Yeah. Yeah. Instead of saying ban or don't ban, I think the cushion should be that how do we design safety into this entire system without killing this, uh, new innovation, which is coming out.
Kudrat (Host): There’s no denying that electric vehicles are the future. Since they have almost zero emissions, they in part contribute to reducing global warming and air pollution, an issue that particularly plagues India.
Right now, there’s almost no regulation governing them, though, if they come under the 25 km / hour and 250 watts specifications.
With more bikes like that on the road though, we need smart regulation to ensure they’re safe to ride – making mandatory reflective lights, better shockers and so on, as Mr. Soni said.
Even that’s not enough, however.
After all, these e-bikes aren’t the only cause of accidents in India – every year, 462 people die in road accidents, according to a recent report.
We also need better roads, more street lighting, better law enforcement for bad drivers, in short, better infrastructure, overall.
Kudrat (Host): That’s all for today. You just heard The Signal Daily. We don’t do hot takes. Instead, we’ll bring you deep dives, into the ‘how’ and ‘why’ on consumer trends.
The Core produces The Signal Daily. Follow us wherever you get your favourite podcasts. To check out the rest of our work, go to www.thecore.in.
If you have feedback, we’d love to hear from you. Write to us @[email protected].
Thank you for listening.
