315 Exposes Surging Rental E-Bike Violations, Names Halo Rental E-Bikes and Others for Breaking New National Standards

During an investigation, reporters found that not only do local individual rental shops violate national standards by renting out electric bikes, but some well-known chain brands also exhibit this phenomenon. Hello Bike, a leading brand in the electric bike rental industry, states on its official website that it has established over 5,000 stores in more than 100 cities nationwide. Reporters visited a Hello Bike rental store for an on-site investigation. The staff at the store said that their electric bikes can reach speeds of up to 75 km/h. Under the guise of franchise expansion, the reporter contacted Mr. Mi, the provincial recruitment manager for Hello Bike. Mr. Mi revealed in detail that even before the implementation of the new national standards, some electric bike channel distributors had already applied for license plates for a large number of electric bikes that had not yet been produced, using their certificates of conformity. When customers needed these bikes, they would have the manufacturers produce vehicles according to the standards before the new national standards took effect. These newly produced electric bikes naturally became old models before the new standards were introduced, thus avoiding the “one vehicle, one pool, one charging code” mutual recognition mechanism in the new standards. This also made it easy to lift speed restrictions on the vehicles. The operation method of “Electric Donkey Brother” is even more straightforward. Manager Wang from the company clearly told the reporter that they uniformly supply stores with electric motorcycles, but they hang electric bike licenses on them. These licenses are actually bought directly, with as many as needed, and at a low cost. (CCTV Finance)