NYC E-Bike Empire

A story about how a Chinese immigrant built a controversial but successful electric bike empire in New York City.

"In New York, there are 70,000 Uber Eats and DoorDash people in Manhattan and Brooklyn riding these electric bikes that fly. They look like normal bicycles but go 60 miles an hour. They all have these gloves on their bikes covering a motorcycle-style acceleration grip, which is illegal.

There's this guy who came from China in 2011 - his American name is Andy. He admits he paid $45 to get smuggled in from Mexico. He noticed all these delivery riders getting punished for not delivering quickly enough. So he borrowed $12,000 and started importing electric bikes from China.

He opened a shop, then scaled to 30 different stores around Manhattan. His company, Fly E-bikes, sells these bikes that go 40-50 miles per hour for just $1,000. They're completely illegal - they don't follow any laws. There's supposed to be a metal plate saying it meets USA standards, but nobody checks.

Andy ended up selling 70,000 bikes in four years. A few months ago, in September, he took the company public on NASDAQ under FLEY. Before going public, they were doing $30 million in revenue with $2-3 million in profit. But they're getting sued because their bikes catch on fire - homes have burned down, people have died from battery fires.

One of the lawyers suing them said, 'Six years ago these guys were busboys serving dishes in restaurants, now they're running a publicly traded company.' They know nothing about building bikes - they're just getting the cheapest products from China. When asked why he went public, Andy said he was inspired by the movie Wolf of Wall Street. Now because of all the lawsuits and law-breaking, their stock has crashed."