Life EV Takes Over Rad Power Bikes Amid Market Changes

In the world of e-bikes, Rad Power Bikes was in the vanguard and an innovator that built their business on a direct purchase sales model and a quality product for the price. 

Last year, Rad Power Bikes went into bankruptcy, and now has been sold and taken possession by Life Electric Vehicles Holdings. (Also known as Life EV.)  

According to electrek.com,
‘The move positions Life EV as the new owner of one of the most recognizable names in the e-bike industry. The company says it plans to continue operating under the Rad Power Bikes brand in the United States while expanding retail operations in select markets.’ 

The details are a little sketchy right now. The word is that Life EV wants to actually move more manufacturing into the United States, not less, although there’s no word yet on what’s going to happen to the Seattle facilities.  

What about previous commitments? 

Recurrent users of Rad Power Bikes Life EV says that right now is that they will “Support Rad customers by honoring certain warranties and gift cards in accordance with the terms of the asset purchase agreement” 

Not a lot of detail and not particularly reassuring. We can hope that when the details do come out that it’ll be a more positive statement for E-bike owners. 

Back before COVID, Rad Power Bikes set the standard for the e-bike industry in America. The Seattle based company became the largest e-bike company based in the United States. Their business plan was to design and engineer the e-bikes here in the States, then have the parts manufactured in China shipped back and assembled in their Seattle factory. 

Life EV says that they are going to take that foundation and build on it to make it an even more robust business based in the United States. Life EV says that they are actually going to bring more assembly and manufacturing into the United States not less. Saying. “transition production toward US-based assembly through affiliated manufacturing operations using a Foreign Trade Zone structure” 

This is encouraging to me. 

Rad Power Bikes is not the only brand that Life EV is going to be putting forward; they have also acquired. Serial 1, the premium (and highly respected) e-bike brand started by Harley-Davidson.  

It’s been a tough couple of years for Rad Power Bikes, and it’s good to see that maybe their problems are over. We’ll have to wait and see.