International business management firm specializing in the Light Electric Vehicle (LEV) industry, ECycleElectric (ECE), have estimated that a minimum of 260,000 electric bikes were sold in the USA during 2017. The ECE found that 215,000 complete ebikes were imported into the USA during the 12 months of 2017, while an additional 15,000 were thought to have been domestically assembled.

The firm noted that while a lack of specific HS code for electric bicycles into the US market presented major obstacles to obtaining exact import numbers. It believed the figure of 215,000 imported ebikes to be realistic and could encompass a likely margin of error of 10% which could see imported units of as many as 263,000.

A press release from ECE noted that the dollars value was greater than the units, when compared to normal bicycles. With the average ebike somewhere between $1,000 and $3,000, and many examples reaching towards (or even past) $6,000, this small volume represents a larger slice than is immediately obvious. The average value of a human-powered bike is far less.