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You are here: Home / Electric Bike Advocacy / Touring E-Bike Factories In China: Giant, Golden Wheel, & Yadea – Part 2 [VIDEOS]

Touring E-Bike Factories In China: Giant, Golden Wheel, & Yadea – Part 2 [VIDEOS]

April 7, 2015 by Pete 6 Comments

golden wheel frames 4Let’s take a look at how bicycles are built!

In this report from the ExtraEnergy & CBA electric bike industry tour of China we will take a look at the assembly facilities of Giant Bicycles, Golden Wheel Bicycles, and Yadea.

Giant Bicycles is an industry giant in the traditional bicycle world and their bikes are sold worldwide.

Golden Wheel makes many bikes under different brand names. They have an impressive facility which includes melting aluminum to create their own aluminum frame tubes!

Yadea is one of the larger e-bike companies for the Chinese market and we were fortunate to be able to attend an opening ceremony for their new facility.

Make sure you checkout Part 1 for more background on this tour of electric bike factories in China.

Giant Bicycles

We visited the Giant Bicycles assembly facility in Suzhou.  They have other assembly facilities in China.

giant bicycles factory

The name Giant Bicycles is fitting because they are one of the largest bicycle companies in the world. They manufacturer complete bikes for their brand as well as other brands.

giant bicycles showroom

Giant currently has around 10,000 employees worldwide and they make a wide variety of traditional bicycles that are sold in markets all over the world.

giant bicycle scooter

Giant makes about 300,000 electric bikes a year. 150,000 of the e-bikes are for the Chinese market and they are mostly this scooter style e-bike.  But that may be changing…..

giant bicycles ebikes

150,000 electric bikes are exported to other e-bike markets around the world.  The German market is their biggest export market.

giant bicycles electric bikes

According to the general manager of the Giant Bicycle facility in Suzhou, the bicycle style pedal assist electric bike (pedelec) will be the future of Chinese market.

giant bicycle tools

We toured their assembly facility where they build their aluminum frames and assemble their bikes.  Unfortunately they wouldn’t allow pictures or video of their assembly facilities.

I can say that it is amazing how they quickly shape the aluminum tubes and weld the frames together!

Their bicycle assembly line is also very impressive with the amount of people on the line doing their part to move the bicycle along its way in the assembly process. Giant has a number of Holland Mechanics wheel building machines that create a wheel in a few minutes.

Giant has been selling electric bikes in the U.S. for a while and I believe that we will see more of their bikes here as the market grows.

Golden Wheel Bicycle Group

Golden Wheel Bicycle Group is in Tianjin, which is near Beijing.

golden wheel bikes

Golden Wheel is an impressive bicycle company.  They have 26 branch factories, 46 production lines, and over 4500 employees.  They makes steel, aluminum, and carbon fiber frames in addition to suspension forks, handlebars, seats, cranks and chainwheels.

golden wheel aluminium melting

And they don’t just buy aluminum frame tubes…….they melt aluminum blocks in this huge furnace and create their own tubes.

A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Apr 7, 2015 at 11:09am PDT


Here’s a video of the furnace.

golden wheel aluminium blocksHere are the aluminum blocks ready for the furnace.

golden wheel aluminium These are the aluminum bars that are created from the furnace.

golden wheel aluminium tubes And these are the aluminum frame tubes created from the bars.

A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Apr 7, 2015 at 11:11am PDT

And a video of the tubes.

golden wheel aluminium frame Here is the ExtraEnergy tour group getting a closer look at a finished aluminum frame from the factory. Golden Wheel makes 750,000+ aluminum frames a year!

golden wheel frames 4 There were many racks of aluminum frames found around the Tianjin facility.

golden wheel pete in the frames And yours truly caught in the action of dodging frames as they were moving through on the assembly line. Photo credit to Susanne Bruesch from Pedelec Adventures.

A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Apr 7, 2015 at 10:45am PDT

Here’s a quick video of frames being painted.

A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Apr 7, 2015 at 10:48am PDT

And a video of the decal installation.

golden wheel frames 3 Here are more racks of aluminum frames ready for assembly.

golden wheel carbon frame Golden Wheel also makes carbon fiber frames by hand.  It looks like a process that takes a significant amount of time, hence the higher price of carbon fiber bikes.

golden wheel carbon frames Here is a rack of carbon frames ready for painting.

golden wheel frames Golden Wheel also makes steel frames and forks. In fact, they make over 4.5 million steel frames & forks a year! This is a line of frames that comes down from the ceiling conveyor system and feeds them into the bike assembly line.

Here are a few videos of the steel frame factory:

A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Apr 7, 2015 at 10:51am PDT

The frame factory.

  A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Apr 7, 2015 at 11:00am PDT

Steel frame alignment:

A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Apr 7, 2015 at 11:04am PDT

Steel frame welding.

  A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Apr 7, 2015 at 10:55am PDT

Steel fork welding.

A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Apr 7, 2015 at 10:53am PDT

Steel fork alignment.

golden wheel factory In this view you can see 2 of the many bicycle assembly lines at Golden Wheel.  They have 46 total assembly lines for bikes and bike parts.

golden wheel frames 5 At this stage of the assembly line the front and rear derailleurs are being installed on the frames.

  A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Apr 7, 2015 at 11:14am PDT

Here is a video of the derailleur installation.

A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Apr 7, 2015 at 11:16am PDT

And a video of the bottom bracket installation.

golden wheel bike assembly line Another view of the assembly line with some mountain bikes being built.

A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Mar 31, 2015 at 3:03pm PDT

And a video of the assembly line.

golden wheel bike parking Not only do they build bicycles but a large number of the employees ride bikes and electric bikes to work. There is a nice covered bike parking area at the facility.

golden wheel bikes Considering how the factories were impressive, the showroom was equally impressive with it’s large assortment of different bikes and e-bikes.

golden wheel ebike shimano steps e-Totem is their electric bike brand. Golden Wheel makes 120,000 electric bikes a year.  This commuter/touring style e-Totem uses the new Shimano STEPS mid drive system.

golden wheel electric bike A cross style e-Totem electric bike.

golden wheel fat electric bike To keep up with the fat e-bike trend e-Totem had a number of fat e-bikes on display.

golden wheel ebike I had a chance to test ride one of the e-Totem commuter style e-bikes during the visit.

golden wheel shimano steps It used the Shimano STEPS mid drive that was pretty smooth and relatively quiet. It wasn’t a long test ride so I can’t really give it a full review. Stay tuned for a complete review on a Shimano STEPS bike soon though!

golden wheel test rides Sascha Nachtnebel from Greenfinder, N8 Business Development heading out for a test ride on a Totem mountain bike.

  A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Apr 7, 2015 at 11:19am PDT

Here’s a video of the bike test riding.

golden wheel  meeting

We had a good discussion with the owner and management of Golden Wheel about the future of the Chinese electric bike market. They believe that the pedelec style electric bike with lithium batteries will become more popular in the market as a more Chinese people have more money to spend on bicycles. In addition, using bicycles for fun and recreation instead of pure transportation is on the rise in China.

Yadea

Yadea is one of the larger electric bike companies located in the 4 parts of China: JiangSu, Zhejiang, Tianjin, and Guangdong. They make 3.2 million bikes a year (with a capacity to make 5 million a year) with distribution in China, Europe, U.S., and many other countries. They claim to have 10-15% of the Chinese LEV (light electric vehicle) market share. There are 5,300 employees that work for Yadea.

yadea bikes ebike group

The ExtraEnergy tour group at the Yadea headquarters near Shanghai.

yadea bikes showroom

The Yadea showroom had a wide variety of the scooter style electric bikes on display.

A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Apr 7, 2015 at 10:24am PDT

Here’s a quick video of the scooter style e-bike being built on the assembly line.

yadea bikes electric bikes They make electric bikes in many different styles along with the accessories to go with them.

yadea bikes scooter style ebikes An example of Yadea scooter style e-bikes. Most of them didn’t have pedals, but…..

yadea bikes electric mountain bike They are working on further promoting the bicycle style e-bike with lithium batteries that will appeal to the younger generations living in large cities.

yadea bikes electric commuter bike Here is a good example of a sporty commuter style e-bike that is focused on appealing to young urban commuters.

yadea bikes meeting During our discussion with the Yadea management we learned that they are selling 300,000 electric bicycles with lithium batteies.  They are planning on selling 500,000 with lithium batteries in the near future. Right now, these pedelec style electric bicycles are popular in North China near Tianjin. Yadea sees these types of electric bicycles appealing to the younger people who live in cities. Cycling in China is becoming more popular as a recreational sport. For some people with additional income, a nice bike is a status symbol.

yadea bikes energy tube discussion During our meeting with the Yadea management, Rüdiger Nierescher from EnergyTube gave a brief presentation of their universal battery product.

energy tube EnergyTube is a 100 watt hour universal lithium battery pack that can be scaled to work with a variety of LEV’s (use as many as you need) in addition to many house hold products. A company called Ettrak has plans to develop the EnergyTube to work as a rental program so that you can have them shipped to you or you can pick them up at a local charging vending machine. Renting batteries would be a great way to get over the initial higher price of electric bikes. I will post more about EnergyTube and Ettrak in the future. Stay tuned!

yadea bikes opening ceremony During our time in China we were able to attend the grand opening of a new Yadea facility. It was an impressive event with many dealers and Yadea staff in attendance.

A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Apr 7, 2015 at 10:38am PDT

And a video of the crowd.

A video posted by Electric Bike Report (@electricbikereport) on Apr 7, 2015 at 10:32am PDT

And some of the entertainment from the ceremony.

yadea bikes opening ceremony drumming

There were drummers on both sides of the stage that were getting the crowd excited for Yadea’s presentations.

More Reports

Stay tuned for more reports of the factories and companies that we visited.

-Pete

P.S. Don’t forget to join the Electric Bike Report community for updates from the electric bike world, plus ebike riding and maintenance tips!

Related

Filed Under: Electric Bike Advocacy Tagged With: China Bicycle Association, EnergyTube, Ettrak, ExtraEnergy, Giant Bicycle, Golden Wheel Bicycle Company, Yadea

Comments

  1. Bob Sharpe says

    April 8, 2015 at 12:01 pm

    Thanks for posting this, Pete. I imagine it’s really cool to be able to see this process from the inside. I appreciate you sharing it here.

    Reply
  2. Joe Guzman says

    May 22, 2015 at 10:25 am

    I am with Bob. Really appreciate that you posted this. Even for us on the internet, it’s like a kid being in a candy shop. .

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Trip Report: Touring Electric Bike Factories in China – Part 1 | Electric Bike Report | Electric Bike, Ebikes, Electric Bicycles, E Bike, Reviews says:
    April 7, 2015 at 1:04 pm

    […] following is a brief introduction to the companies that we visited. Here is the report from our visit to Giant Bicycles, Golden Wheel bicycles, and Yadea electric bikes.  Stay tuned for more in depth reports on the other […]

    Reply
  2. E-Bike Factory Tours in China: Bafang Motor & King Meter Display – Part 4 | Electric Bike Report | Electric Bike, Ebikes, Electric Bicycles, E Bike, Reviews says:
    April 15, 2015 at 5:57 pm

    […] sure you checkout the introduction to the e-bike factory tours in China,the report from touring the Giant Bicycles, Golden Wheel, and Yadea e-bike factories, and the report from 3 e-bike battery […]

    Reply
  3. E-Bike Battery Factory Tours in China: Tianneng, Phylion, & Lishen – Part 3 [VIDEOS] | Electric Bike Report | Electric Bike, Ebikes, Electric Bicycles, E Bike, Reviews says:
    April 16, 2015 at 3:26 pm

    […] sure you also checkout the introduction to the e-bike factory tours in China, the report from touring Giant Bicycles, Golden Wheel, and Yadea e-bike factories, and the visit to Bafang Motor & King Meter […]

    Reply
  4. E-Bike Factory Tours in China: Aima & More, Plus China North Bike Show – Part 5 [VIDEOS] | Electric Bike Report | Electric Bike, Ebikes, Electric Bicycles, E Bike, Reviews says:
    April 21, 2015 at 3:36 pm

    […] sure you checkout the introduction to the e-bike factory tours in China, the report from touring the Giant Bicycles, Golden Wheel, and Yadea e-bike factories, the report from 3 e-bike battery factories, and the report from Bafang Motor Company and King […]

    Reply

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