The Italian bicycle market sector closes 2025 with a drop in sales of four percent compared to the previous year, with purchases of “muscular” vehicles falling by three percent and e-bikes by seven percent
Declines or growth rates of this magnitude are obviously neither alarming nor particularly exciting, especially considering that, in the case of bicycles, domestic production increased by six percent, exports improved by 11 percent, and imports fell by 28 percent.
Overall, the sector would appear to be relatively healthy — were it not for the fact that behind the decline in e-bike sales lies a phenomenon bordering on illegality.
Demand is not actually decreasing. Instead, it is increasingly being satisfied by technically illegal Asian-made products, often imported through unofficial channels: low-cost, low-quality vehicles marketed as e-bikes even though they are, in reality, genuine mopeds. The primary users of these vehicles are urban delivery riders, whose numbers fluctuate between 30,000 and 40,000 units, compared with approximately 256,000 e-bikes sold in 2025 between both “legal” and “irregular” products.
This indicates that purchases of the latter are also being made by broader segments of the Italian population.
In any case, the result is unfair competition that is extremely difficult to combat between companies producing and distributing compliant e-bikes — while paying for certifications, testing, and homologation procedures — and those who simply ignore the rules and sell illegal vehicles at bargain prices. The phenomenon should be fought rigorously by targeting both end users and sales channels, yet in reality it appears to thrive thanks to opaque commercial interests that some parties have no desire to interrupt, as well as to the longstanding tendency of politics and the justice system to justify lawbreakers on the grounds of social or economic hardship.
Ancma, the industry association, has called on the Italian Government to act with greater firmness. However, such action should be framed within a broader integrated strategy against the most widespread forms of motor-related illegality. This would include banning engine tuning control units designed to illegally increase performance, as well as revising the homologation criteria for electric vehicle power ratings, which are currently based on continuous power output rather than peak performance.
The consequence is that even very high-performance electric cars can legally be driven by inexperienced newly licensed drivers. The same issue also exists in recreational boating, where institutions routinely turn a blind eye to the phenomenon of so-called “detuned” outboard engines — officially marketed as 40-horsepower units while in reality delivering nearly double that output.
Title: Italian bicycle market in decline: difficult times
Author: Furio Oldani
Translation with ChatGPT
