E-bike thefts have risen sharply in the UK, with police data revealing a 103% increase in the last year and a 257% increase in the last two years.
This is despite bike thefts in the UK actually falling with 64,201 cases recorded in 2023, a 15% decrease from 2022, Evolve E-bikes has reported.
In 2023, 6.2% of bike thefts involved an e-bike, up from 1.4% in 2021. Evolve theorises that thieves are turning their attention to more lucrative targets, as last year it was reported that the average cost of an e-bike had risen by over 25% since the start of COVID-19.
The Kingston e-bike store, which opened its doors in autumn 2023, sent Freedom of Information requests to every police force in England and Wales, with 24 out of 47 authorities providing data on e-bike thefts. It also used UK police data to obtain the overall bike theft data from all forces between 2021 and 2023.
This revealed that West Yorkshire reported the highest number of e-bike thefts in 2023 with 446. Avon & Somerset was second with 144, followed by North Yorkshire (124), Cambridgeshire (105), Dorset (94), Surrey (86), Kent (52), Warwickshire (37), Norfolk (36), and Northamptonshire (36).
London had the most cases of general bike theft, recording 54,438 thefts between 2021 and 2023.
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The Netherlands has also seen a rise in e-bike thefts in recent years. According to Dutch bike theft monitor SAFE, 2021 saw a 25% increase in the number of people reporting their e-bikes stolen compared to the year before, despite reports of non-electric bike thefts falling by 45%.
E-bikes made up 56% of new bikes sales in the Netherlands in 2023, according to the Dutch RAI Association, however in the UK e-bikes accounted for just 9% of total bike sales last year, the Bicycle Association (BA) reported.
BA data also shows that UK e-bike volume sales fell 7% in 2023, although were still ahead of 2019 levels.
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