Best electric bike 2024: Folding, hybrid and city e-bikes tested

Whether you want to commute with ease or take some of the effort out of your weekend rides, the best electric bikes can help you cycle farther, explore new places and show up at your destination as fresh as the moment you left the house.

They’re designed to gently assist with pedalling, rather than take all of the effort out of riding. Depending on where you ride and the level of assistance you choose, electric bikes help you quickly get back up to speed when pulling away from traffic lights, and make inclines feel like riding on flat ground.

Electric bike motors can only assist you up to a legal limit of 15.5mph, which makes them ideal city bikes, especially in places with lots of hills to traverse. And because they supplement the effort you put in, they’re excellent for riders who feel less able to get out and about on a traditional bike.

The latest electric bikes are less bulky, have greater range and come in a wider range of styles than ever, from hybrid bikes and mountain bikes to Dutch-style city bikes, folding bikes and even cargo bikes with space for kids.

Choosing the best electric bike for you depends on where you’re going to ride it, where you’re going to store it, how far you plan on going, how experienced a cyclist you are, your budget and the type of terrain you plan on tackling. To help you decide, we’ve rounded up our top electric bikes of 2024.

How we tested

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Most of our electric bike testing takes place in and around London. We swap in each electric bike for our regular commute across London for a number of weeks to compare performance along the same route – a good mix of dedicated cycle lanes, mixed traffic and hill climbs – and in different weather conditions.

For electric bikes with some off-road credentials, we make a trip along canal towpaths to a local nature trail to test performance across uneven terrain and steeper inclines. We also subject the bikes to a real boneshaker of a gravelled path – a particularly unpleasant section of our favourite rural route.

We rate folding electric bikes on how easy they are to get in and out of our tester’s small, high-rise flat, as well as how easy they are to fold up, store at the office, the cafe or on a train, and how easy they are to move when folded.

The best electric bikes for 2024 are: