Chinese electric two-wheelers gain popularity overseas amid soaring fuel costs

China

Chinese electric two-wheelers gain popularity overseas amid soaring fuel costs

2026-04-06 17:01 Last Updated At：04-07 00:17

Chinese electric two-wheelers are gaining popularity in overseas markets amid rising international oil prices driven by geopolitical conflicts.

An electric bicycle company in Jinhua City, east China's Zhejiang Province, is racing against time to fulfill export orders.

"Recently, order volumes have increased significantly. In March alone, we exported more than 6,000 electric bicycles, and in April, we will ship over 7,000 units. Our production orders have already been scheduled through July," said Liu Du, deputy manager of the company.

A person in charge of an electric motorcycle company in Jiangmen City, south China's Guangdong Province, said its inventory in the Southeast Asian market is nearly sold out and requires urgent replenishment.

"Since March, due to rising oil prices, our products have become very popular with consumers. Currently, the entire product line is out of stock in the (Southeast Asian) market," said Deng Zanchang, deputy manager of the company.

Many other electric motorcycle companies in the city reported that since early March, continuously surging oil prices have driven up both inquiries and exports of electric motorcycles.

"Since March, the order demand for our electric motorcycles has increased significantly, up by 30 percent compared with the same period last year," said Zhang Linqing, manager of the international trade department of a local electric motorcycle company.

"In March this year, production enterprises in Jiangmen exported electric bicycles, motorcycles, and spare parts valued at more than 25 million yuan (about 3.6 million U.S. dollars), a year-on-year increase of 1.4 times," said Li Wen, head of the supervision section of Gaosha Customs.

The ongoing U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran and its retaliation have triggered a shortage of liquefied petroleum gas in many countries because of the reduction of sea traffic through the key oil shipping route, the Strait of Hormuz.

The closure of the sea route has already sent global oil prices soaring.

China launches Shenzhou-23 manned spaceship

China's Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the country's northwest on Sunday, sending three astronauts to its orbiting space station.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, lifted off from the launch site at 23:08 Beijing Time (15:08 GMT).

The crew members consist of mission commander Zhu Yangzhu, and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying, who is also the first astronaut from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

In another notable first, one of the crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.

After entering orbit, the Shenzhou-23 spaceship will perform a fast automated rendezvous and docking with the radial port of the space station core module Tianhe, forming a combination of three modules and three spacecraft.

Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.