When a new owner rides a Pedego electric bike for the first time, it has already travelled thousands of miles through a global supply chain snarled by the pandemic.
The California company’s most affordable model, the Element, dubbed “the pandemic baby” by chief executive Don DiCostanzo because of when it was launched, is built in Shanghai, shipped to the Port of Los Angeles-Long Beach, and then trucked to nearly 200 dealerships around the US.
Like many other companies struggling to weather the supply chain crisis, Pedego has had to try to keep its bikes rolling as it contends with a tight market for lithium-ion battery cells, suppliers in Malaysia closing factories due to Covid-19, the skyrocketing cost of shipping, containers trapped in log-jammed ports and a semiconductor shortage.