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I'm Steve Hatherly today with Yuxian and Yuxian.
Coming up, for years, shared e-bikes were the ones that got away,
kept out of China's biggest cities while their pedal-powered cousins took over every street corner.
Then Beijing blinked.
New rules just slipped through, bringing e-bikes into the system for the first time.
So what broke the deadlock?
And when the city that said no for so long finally says yes, what happens next?
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at qq.com for a long time china's biggest cities have kept shared electric bicycles at arm's length
i should rephrase electric bikes not bicycles right they kept them out of the biggest cities
when shared bicycles were welcomed the reasoning was quite simple safety risks, cluttered streets,
and a public transit system that already seemed to cover most of the short trips that people needed to make.
But Beijing has just revised its rules to formally bring shared e-bikes into the regulated fold.
So is Beijing setting an example for how other megacities can let their e-bikes in?
And why is it happening right now?