It’s 7am in central Beijing and the sun’s early rays percolate through the thick city smog to glint off the chrome handlebars of a throng of one-man vehicles jockeying with bicycles for position at a teeming road junction.
The signal changes and the maelstrom pushes forward – a dozen bicycles followed by a pedal-driven rickshaw, two sputtering motorbikes, more bicycles and a tricycle delivery cart piled high with scrap metal.
At the back of this motley procession, primary school teacher Guo Hongli appears amid the noise and dust, dodges an oncoming car and coasts across the intersection. Her vehicle is a sky-blue Mainland Dove, a quiet electric bicycle, marked out by its moped-style footboard, under-saddle battery and back wheel, drum-shaped hub motor.
Electrically powered bicycles and scooters (known in the West as light electric vehicles or LEVs) like the Mainland Dove are a recent but highly popular addition to China’s teeming roads. Since first appearing a decade ago, they have become mainstream transport in both urban and rural areas.
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