CCTV's 315 Evening Gala | Exposes the rampant rental electric bikes, naming Hailong Rent Electric Vehicles and others for violating the new national standards

On March 15, news reports from CCTV Finance stated, “The speed can reach 40 to 50, 50 to 60 kilometers per hour.” The latest national implementation of the “Safety Technical Specifications for Electric Bicycles,” effective in 2025, clearly stipulates: the maximum design speed should not exceed 25 kilometers per hour, the battery pack nominal value should not exceed 48 volts, and the output power of the motor should be less than or equal to 400 watts. According to data from the Traffic Safety Research Center of the Ministry of Public Security, electric bicycle accidents account for about 10% of the total urban road traffic accidents, one of the main reasons being that electric bicycles violate speed limits and drive over the limit. In the live broadcast room, faced with numerous consumers, e-commerce hosts showed no concern for national standards, openly promoting the performance of their non-compliant, over-limit electric bicycles, and stating these illegal electric bicycles can be rented freely. A vehicle rented from an electric bicycle rental shop allowed the reporter to experience extreme speeding, with a tested speed reaching as high as 80 kilometers per hour.

In the investigation, the reporter found that not only individual local rental stores were renting electric bicycles that violated national standards, but some well-known chain brands also exhibited this phenomenon. Hello Bike is a leading brand in the electric bicycle rental industry, and its official website states that it has established over 5,000 stores in more than 100 cities nationwide. The reporter visited a Hello Bike offline store for an investigation. The staff at the Hello Bike rental store stated that their electric bicycles can reach speeds of up to 75 kilometers per hour.

The reporter contacted Manager Mi, the provincial franchise manager for Hello Bike, under the guise of a franchise inquiry. Manager Mi revealed in detail that even before the new national standard was implemented, some electric bicycle distributors had applied for electric bicycle licenses using a large number of certificates for electric bicycles that had not yet been produced. When customers needed these vehicles, they would have manufacturers produce corresponding vehicles according to the standards before the new national standard. These newly produced electric bicycles naturally became old vehicles before the introduction of the new national standard, thus circumventing the mutual recognition and collaboration mechanism of “one vehicle, one pool, one charge code” in the new national standard, enabling easy removal of speed limits. The operation method of Dianniu Brother is even more direct; the company’s Manager Wang explicitly told the reporter that the electric motorcycles they uniformly distributed to each store were simply electric motorcycles but were registered with electric bicycle licenses. Such licenses were actually bought directly, with no limit on quantity and at a low price. (CCTV Finance)