Eav Bikes’ next chapter

This piece first appeared in the March edition of BikeBiz magazine – not subscribed? Get a free subscription.

by Mark Sutton

They’re distinctly recognisable and to this point most widely deployed of the four-wheel cargo bikes now on our city streets, albeit with competition now snapping at the (w)heels. New Eav Bikes CEO Chris Temple talks to BikeBiz about the road ahead…

There are several British manufacturing success stories that probably spring to mind when you ponder the brands that truly make it in this country. With the pace of Eav’s expansion of late, you may soon find the four-wheeled cargo bike joining Bromptons and Pashleys in terms of national importance; even more so now that the brand has active bikes exported as far away as New York and Greece.

In the week before putting this article to press, the MP for Banbury Sean Woodcock is visiting the enhanced site with a view to using the firm to champion British business and of course, hear the manufacturer’s view on all things ranging from trade through to the legislation and standards that may come to govern the sector.

It’s a big ask to go from zero to profitability, especially considering the vast investment in research and development that precludes getting anywhere near profit, but with Chris Temple now at Eav’s helm, the target of moving beyond proof of concept into something sustainable and financially sound is coming into view.

“We are looking to build 400% more Eav cargo bikes than were present in last year’s order book. We built more bikes last year in nine months than the prior two years and that’s with a factory move taking place during that time. We’ve achieved it by taking out the complexity, consolidating our supply base and working around a new design that promotes ease of manufacturing,” says Temple.It’s believable that there’s been a shake-up too. All around are signs of the old being replaced by the new. Whether it’s the soon-to-launch website overhaul and the incoming rebrand, or the fact that when we arrive, there’s a four-deep and perhaps six-long line of Eav cargo bikes seemingly ready for dispatch pointed toward the roller doors, the only evidence of the company’s foundations are older models in for servicing.

For those who didn’t spot it, since early 2024, Eav Bikes has been under new ownership and with that, the focus on becoming a sustainable business in all senses of the word is underway. It won’t have escaped watchers of the cargo bike sector’s attention that lately there have been casualties, and Temple says that he is now determined that Eav won’t be one of them. He believes profitability is imminently on the horizon, and the Mark 5 version of the flagship bike is best positioned to deliver it. In the same breath, he moves on to say that despite the growth trajectory planned, there is an element of matching up to the support network, a situation helped along by retailers like Fix Your Cycle and Fettle, whose Kwik-Fit link up provides large footprint workshops with the equipment to handle larger cargo bikes. This is critical because, without expertly trained and equipped backup, the cargo bike sector will struggle to sustain its momentum. Businesses running fleets must know that they can have a vehicle back on the road quickly, and this underpins the potential success of the sector when it comes to challenging as a genuine alternative to vans for logistics and other service vehicles.

Service vehicle creation is also a large part of the growth of late. While many of us might associate Eav with having scored trials and sales with logistics giants like Evri and FedEx, Temple’s team now has its sights set on even more deployment with councils who may require cage-equipped vehicles for refuse collection, or large sites say with the National Trust where staff need to plant greenery over a wide area. With this in mind, Chris says he’d not be surprised if service work soon makes up 30% of his firm’s cargo bike use.

The scale of the opportunity is underpinned by research from Clean Cities, which showed last year that the number of cargo bikes in use within London rose by 63% and added that it looked likely that these delivery bikes could replace 17% of van deliveries by 2030 in some boroughs.

For Eav Bikes, it’s doing all it can to get out in front of fleet managers and putting in the legwork to familiarise workers with a new, surprisingly more efficient, way of doing business.

Temple says, “Convincing the stereotypical site manager or lifelong van driver that this is the future has its challenges, but with quantifiable financial benefits, real demand coming from outside of the logistics world and companies now coming to us, rather than having to drive inquiries, times are changing. We can now lease our vehicles with Northgate, so that’s helping some businesses dip a toe in without stumping up the current £13,495 retail cost.”

While that overhead sounds like a lot and indeed does make for interesting conversations with the as-yet unfamiliar, when you break down the cost savings, very quickly you realise that the cargo bike is an asset for a business, rather than a quick-to-depreciate liability.

“Transport for London data suggests that the average time to park in the city is between six and nine minutes and I can tell you from experience that parking somewhere like Covent Garden may well cost you £20,” says Chris, implying that the profit margins of doing logistics with a van in the city quickly evaporate.
“We have a customer who was paying somebody to sit in their van and be ready to move it if a traffic warden came along, such was their bill for tickets. You can park our bikes anywhere and, needless to say, take more direct routes, saving yet more time,” Chris concludes.

He is, we calculate, being modest with the savings potential of his bikes, but at this early stage of the segment’s growth, the firm is data collecting, refining and improving all the time. It knows very well that to charge its standard battery, a company will, at today’s electricity prices, pay only pennies north of a pound, rather than the spiralling rates EV vans are facing, not to mention internal combustion engine fuel pricing. Arguably, you could even factor in staff wellbeing as a perk of the switch on account of it being widely accepted that cyclists take fewer sick days.

Then there are the savings on insurance, potential vehicle excise duties, plus all the other costs associated with motoring. As low emissions zones roll out in each of the UK’s major cities, it seems inevitable that companies will gravitate toward the vehicles that Eav produces, which of course means Chris’s priority now is being seen by the right eyes. With production ramping up and the reasons to green up fleets only mounting, you can expect to see far more Eav cargo bikes in the near future.

Needless to say, the economic argument for e-cargo is becoming inevitable.