Market sizing report

The electric bike market in London

Nearly two million Londoners could swap a trip for an e-bike, and most have never heard of Voltway.

Reached todayIn market nowNot yet reached

Prepared forVoltway

Date11 November 2026

Prepared by

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Executive summary02

Three things to know about this market.

1

The market is large and growing.

1.90M Londoners could buy an e-bike, and around 76K do each year, spending £210M. The category has grown about 10% a year since 2021.

2

Voltway is reaching very few of them.

Around 95K people, or 5% of the market, know Voltway today. 1.81M people holding £200M in annual spend are not being reached.

3

The audience lives on Voltway's doorstep.

Hackney and Lambeth, where Voltway's two stores are, hold the largest concentrations of the audience in London. Spring is the peak buying season.

Whitespace · Voltway · London02

At a glance03

1.90M people could buy an electric bike in London.

Total addressable market1.90Mpeople · £210M annual category spendMedium confidence

1.55M1.90M2.24M

Reaching today95K5% of the addressable audience

Not reaching1.81M95% of the market · £200M in category spend

Whitespace · Voltway · London03

What the research shows04

8 findings on the electric bike market in London.

Around two in three London adults make three or more trips a week under 10 miles, the distance where an e-bike competes with the car, bus and Tube.
About 4% of the addressable audience buys an e-bike in a typical year, around 76,000 people.
The average e-bike sale in London is about £2,760, with commuter models clustering between £1,800 and £3,500.
Cargo e-bikes are the fastest-growing format, driven by parents replacing a second car for school runs and shopping.
Cycle to Work schemes cut the effective price of an e-bike by up to 42% for employees, and most buyers in the category use one.
Ownership is concentrated in inner London. Hackney, Lambeth and Southwark together hold about a fifth of the addressable audience.
The Ultra Low Emission Zone and rising transport fares are the two triggers buyers mention most often when they start looking.
Most buyers research for four to eight weeks and test ride before purchasing, so local stores and search carry much of the final decision.

Whitespace · Voltway · London04

The market05

A £210M category, every year.

No single published figure sizes the London e-bike market, so this estimate is built from population, travel behaviour and purchase intent, then valued using average transaction prices from retail and panel data.

Of 6.32 million adults aged 18 to 69, around 4.04 million make regular short trips. Just under half of those say they would consider an e-bike within three years, giving an addressable audience of 1.90 million. Around 4% of that audience buys in a typical year.

In market: London adults aged 18 to 69 who buy a new electric bike, including commuter, cargo and folding models, from a retailer or brand in a given year.

Residents8.95M

Adults 18 to 696.32M

Make regular short trips4.04M

Addressable audience1.90M

In market each year · 4%76K

76K buyers × £2,760 average spend£210M a year

Whitespace · Voltway · London05

Trend and timing06

Growing about 10% a year, and busiest in spring.

Annual market value, £M

£128M2021

£151M2022

£168M2023

£181M2024

£196M2025

£210M2026

£226M2027

£243M2028

£261M2029

2021 to 2026 estimated from retail and panel data. 2027 to 2029 are projections at the recent growth rate.

Purchases by month, index

J

F

M

A

M

J

A

S

O

N

D

April to June accounts for about a third of annual purchases. December peaks again on gifting.

Whitespace · Voltway · London06

Who they are07

1.90M people, not one audience.

The addressable market breaks into distinct groups with different lives, media habits and reasons to buy.

34%

Commuters replacing the Tube

646K people

Inner-London workers with a 3 to 8 mile commute who want a faster, cheaper journey than the Underground, and who usually buy through a Cycle to Work scheme.

22%

Parents replacing a second car

418K people

Families in outer zones weighing a cargo e-bike against a second car for school runs and shopping, often prompted by the Ultra Low Emission Zone.

19%

Fitness and weekend riders

361K people

Active Londoners who ride for leisure and want to go further, mainly buying premium hybrid and trail models and researching heavily before they test ride.

25%

Riders returning to cycling

475K people

Older and less confident riders, along with delivery and gig workers, for whom pedal assistance removes the barrier of hills, distance and fatigue.

Segment shares are Whitespace estimates.

Whitespace · Voltway · London07

Where they live08

Half the audience lives in ten boroughs.

Top boroughs by share of the addressable audience. Highlighted boroughs have a Voltway store.

Hackney

7.4%141K

Lambeth

6.7%127K

Southwark

6.3%120K

Islington

5.9%112K

Tower Hamlets

5.6%106K

Wandsworth

5.2%99K

Camden

4.6%87K

Haringey

4.1%78K

Lewisham

3.8%72K

Greenwich

3.4%65K

The top ten boroughs hold 53% of the addressable audience. Voltway's Hackney and Clapham stores sit in the two largest.

Whitespace · Voltway · London08

Where Voltway is today09

You reach around 5% of your market in a typical year.

Voltway is an independent electric bike retailer with stores in Hackney and Clapham. It sells commuter, folding and cargo models from six brands, offers free test rides and servicing, and accepts all major Cycle to Work schemes.

Its website lists about 80 models and shows a 4.8-star rating from around 600 reviews. Its main visible channels are paid search and Instagram, with occasional local press around new store openings.

How we estimated this: Voltway's share of branded and category search in London, its social following and review volume suggest a reach of about 5%, at the upper end of the range for a two-store independent.

95Kreached of 1.90M

Whitespace · Voltway · London09

The gap10

1.81M

people in market you are not reaching, holding £200M in annual category spend.

Most buyers start with a trigger, such as a fare rise, a new job or the Ultra Low Emission Zone, then research for several weeks before test riding. Demand therefore flows through search, comparison content and Cycle to Work provider directories, and is usually settled in store. National chains dominate those research moments, so a two-store independent is likely to be invisible to most buyers outside its immediate neighbourhoods, even in boroughs with the highest concentration of the audience.

Also competing for this audience

Evans CyclesHalfordsFully ChargedCycle RepublicBrompton ElectricDirect-to-consumer brands

Whitespace · Voltway · London10

The opportunity11

What winning a share of the gap is worth.

The 1.81M people Voltway isn't reaching include about 72K buyers a year, spending £200M. These scenarios show the value of winning a small share of them.

Win 1% of the gap£2.0Ma year in added revenue · 720 buyers

Win 3% of the gap£6.0Ma year in added revenue · 2,170 buyers

Win 5% of the gap£10.0Ma year in added revenue · 3,610 buyers

Scenarios, not a forecast. Based on £200M in annual category spend from people not currently reached.

Whitespace · Voltway · London11

Reach by channel12

Where your market can be reached.

Addressable devices within the 1.90M-person market, by channel. People use many devices and channels, so these figures overlap and are deliberately not added together.

Deduplicated addressable audience1.82Munique people · 96% of the market

Programmatic display3.9Mdevices

Programmatic video3.0Mdevices

Programmatic native3.1Mdevices

Digital out-of-home1.4Mpeople in screen audience

Connected TV780KTV screens

Digital audio1.5Mdevices

Paid search3.6Mdevices

Paid social2.7Mdevices

Whitespace · Voltway · London12

Reach planner13

What a budget could reach.

Move the budget. Each channel has a ceiling, and the total removes people reached by more than one channel.

Monthly media budget

£30K

0%Of the market reached

0People reached

Reach by channel

The line marks each channel's ceiling. Model based on typical London CPMs and frequency.

Whitespace · Voltway · London13

Methodology14

Every number, step by step.

Define the geographyBase = Adults | Households | Businesses
Define the category buyerThe category is mapped to a vertical in the Whitespace benchmark library, which sets the market unit and who counts as in market.
Size the addressable marketTAM = Base × Behaviour × Intent
Value the marketValue = TAM × In-market rate × Spend per buyer
Estimate current reachMissed = TAM × (1 − Current reach)
Map reach by channelDevices(c) = TAM × Online × Reach(c) × Devices per person(c)
Deduplicate the audienceDedup = TAM × (Online × Coverage + Offline × Reach(DOOH))

Input	Value	Source	Confidence
Population	8.95M	Public data Office for National Statistics, Census 2021 and mid-2024 population estimates. View source	High
Adults 18 to 69	6.32M	Public data Office for National Statistics, Census 2021, usual residents aged 18 to 69, Greater London. View source	High
Regular short trips	64%	Public data Department for Transport, National Travel Survey 2024, London region. View source	High
Open to an e-bike	47%	Estimate Consumer panel survey of London adults, 2026. Survey intent overstates purchase, so this input carries most of the range.	Medium
In-market rate	4%	Estimate Bicycle Association market data and retail panel estimates, 2025. View source	Medium
Spend per buyer	£2,760	Benchmark Average e-bike transaction value across commuter, folding and cargo models, 2025.	Medium
Current reach	5%	Estimate Share of category search, social following and review volume.	Low
Online share	96%	Benchmark Share of UK adults online at least weekly, 2025.	High

Vertical: Micromobility and cycling retail. Industry sources for this category include national travel surveys, cycling industry sales reports, retail panel data and census population data.

Whitespace · Voltway · London14

Data sources and notes15

Built from public data and a published method.

Every figure in this report is tagged with its source and confidence. Where specific data was not available, the figure is a clearly labelled estimate. This report sizes an opportunity. It is not a sales forecast and contains no budget recommendation.

Source	Type	Status
National census and mid-year population estimates	Public data	Applied
National travel survey	Public data	Applied
Consumer panel, micromobility module	Panel	Applied
Whitespace benchmark library	Benchmark	Applied
Bicycle Association market data	Industry	Referenced
Retail transaction data	Industry	Referenced

Whitespace · Voltway · London15

Next step16

Let's talk about the 1.81M people you're missing.

We'll walk through how this audience behaves, where they spend their time and what it would take to reach them.

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Your agency · Your contact details16