Life, it is often said, is a journey, not a destination.
Boris Mordkovich’s journey has taken him from his birthplace in Lithuania to Brooklyn, back to the former Soviet Union with nonprofit Kiva, from Capetown to London (in an 1980 Land Rover) and, most recently, from New York to San Francisco, on an electric bicycle built by Evelo, his startup company.
And he’s just 27.
“When a good adventure is offered, you don’t refuse it,” Boris said, when we talked via Skype the other day.
Boris recently reached out to me to tell me about his latest adventure, Evelo, which is one of a dozen or so companies trying to persuade Americans to try electric bikes–which are not not motorcycles or mopeds, but bicycles with pedals that get a boost from an electric motor.
If you’re reading this blog, you’ve heard about electric cars. But you may not be familiar with electric bikes. I was surprised to learn from Boris that about 30 million electric bikes were sold worldwide last year. Probably 90% were sold in China, and another million or two in Europe. But even in the US — notwithstanding all the hype about Tesla, the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf–electric bikes may well have outsold electric cars. I’d be more definitive but reliable statistics on e-bikes are hard to come by.
Why would anyone buy an e-bike? The Evelo website answers that question with a set of questions of its own: [click to continue...]
















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