| NEWS | Battery Bump Levi Conlow sold homemade skateboards in a Phoenix dorm. Now he sells the most popular e-bike in North America. BY ELIAS WEISS W hen Levi Conlow sold homemade electric skateboards out of his Grand Canyon University dorm room in 2016, he didn’t know he’d end up on Forbes 30 Under 30 List in 2022. After his first electric bicycle bombed at the Maricopa County Home & Garden Show in 2018, he didn’t expect it would be the top-selling e-bike in all of North America just four years later. It is now, he claims. Boy, has this been his year. On a recent visit to the expansive, modern office and showroom of Lectric eBikes in Deer Valley, the 26-year-old CEO wore a T-shirt and pulled his long, dark hair into a bun as he laughed and recounted his early failures. “This is ultimate start-up vibes,” he told Phoenix New Times. The fledgling entrepreneur set up shop in the former medical equipment ware- house on Utopia Road near 23rd Avenue in June 2021. The company also has a distri- bution center in South Phoenix. Just outside his office, an army of 20-somethings clad in designer beanies, Phoenix Suns jerseys, Cuban chains, and snapback hats clacked away on sleek new computers. Others collaborated during meetings over table tennis and conferences in the video game room. A monolithic mural illuminated one interior wall, displaying the message, “It’s a great day to have a great day.” Conlow’s Phoenix-based company is the fastest-growing e-bike provider in the country, it claims. Despite only being around for three years, Lectric predicts it will sell more than 170,000 e-bikes this year alone. “I’m so obsessed with trying to get as many bikes out there as possible,” Conlow said. “I want this to be a tool to change the way people move, and it has the potential to do that.” Grabbing Market Share In recent years, Phoenix has emerged as a hub for electric vehicles. Tesla, Lucid, Lectric eBikes CEO Levi Conlow. Polestar, Rivian, ElectraMeccanica, and Atlis Motor Vehicles have all set up shop in metro Phoenix, with Lucid Motors rolling out the first all-electric, made-in-Arizona vehicle late last year. “Phoenix pulls people from all across the U.S. to one common place. You get great talent from all across the country,” Conlow said. “That’s what is so unique about Phoenix right now and what is driving this massive surge of innovation. It’s a big city, but it is very manageable to make an impact here.” This year, electric vehicle sales are expected to reach 650,000 in the U.S. Of those EV sales, Tesla accounts for roughly 75 percent, which leaves the remaining 160,000 sales to be made up by every other electric vehicle provider in the U.S. combined. Lectric sells more electric bikes in a single year than others in the market, including Rad Power Bikes, Heybike, BeeCool Bikes, Hiboy, and VTUVIA. “Tesla has a strong hold on the EV market,” said Ashlee Larrison, a spokes- person for the company. “But e-bikes are growing in popularity every single year. We’re getting a lot more eyes on the industry as a whole.” The only electric vehicles to outsell Lectric in 2021 were the Tesla Model Y and the Tesla Model 3, Larrison said. Last year, Lectric’s flagship model accounted for more than 10 percent of all e-bikes sold in the U.S., according to an internal report from the company. This year, it will own a market share exceeding 20 percent, Conlow said. The Coronavirus Spike Business wasn’t always so good. In 2018, Conlow was “running on fumes,” he said, as he emptied his wedding Periwinkle Protest fund to bankroll a final attempt at launching Lectric. He created a Shopify website that sold just two indi- vidual electric bikes. “After months of selling nothing,” Conlow recalled, the website generated $30,000 in sales one day after going live. Same thing the next day. On the seventh day, Conlow’s website generated more than $100,000, thanks to YouTubers shouting out the product, he said. “It was absolutely Elias Weiss bonkers,” Conlow said. After 21 days, the young entrepreneur recorded his first $1 million in sales — with a team of just two employees. By 2020, the company had a dozen employees. The coronavirus pandemic proved to be a blessing in disguise for the start-up as it found its footing in a tough business climate in the state. By this stage of the company, about half of startups have already gone belly-up, according to research from Mesa Community College. “Everybody was sitting at home, bored out of their minds,” Conlow reflected. “People wanted to be outside on a bike, and they needed transportation solutions to get around big cities like Phoenix when COVID shut public transport down.” In 2020, the company did more than $30 million in sales, according to internal reports. In 2021, it breached $85 million. ‘The Young Serving the Old’ Today, Lectric eBikes employs 100 people and claims to sell the majority of all non- Tesla electric vehicles in the U.S. Conlow describes himself as “gutsy,” which he said loosely stands for “greatest urban transpor- tation solution ever.” “We are far from being done,” he said. “That is why I get up and choose to work on this every day.” Most of Lectric’s customers are elderly people in search of outdoor leisure and a safe, easy way to run errands close to home. As such, the company has had much success selling its product locally in a state that ranked No. 3 for retirement this year. As showroom supervisor Alex Lo Duca quipped, “We’re the young serving the old.” The bikes are produced in China and distributed locally. Lectric’s XP 2.0, its best-selling model, can travel 100 miles on one charge, which takes three or four hours. The machine can reach speeds up to 28 miles per hour and sells for $999. In Conlow’s own words, “It’s a pretty sick bike.” Trailer park residents battle Grand Canyon University over eviction plans. BY KATYA SCHWENK M onths after Grand Canyon University first made public plans to kick out longtime residents of a small west Phoenix mobile home park to make way for a new development, the battle between the trailer owners and the school is not yet over. On September 19, several dozen resi- dents of the Periwinkle Mobile Home Park, which sits at 27th Avenue and Colter Street, gathered outside the university’s front gates on Camelback Road, holding signs and occasionally joining together in chants. For months, residents have been fighting the planned evictions by the school, which owns the property. Most have lived in the trailer park for years, if not decades, and said they have nowhere to go. Katya Schwenk Children who live in the mobile home park protested alongside their parents. On April 29, the university notified resi- dents that they had until October 30 to pack up and leave. After an initial outcry — which included lawmakers marching with resi- dents through the streets — the trailer owners scored some concessions. GCU pushed the eviction date to May 28 and promised some assistance with finding new housing. Residents want the university to give them a fair deal. GCU purchased the 4.65- acre property for $3.4 million in 2016. Grand Canyon Education, the publicly traded company that operates the Phoenix campus, had $260 million in income last year, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Bob Romantic, a GCU spokesperson, did not respond to a call or email from Phoenix New Times seeking comment. In letters to residents, copies of which New Times reviewed, attorneys for the university acknowledged that evictions “can be a hardship or inconvenience” but pushed forward. >>p 11 9 phoenixnewtimes.com | CONTENTS | FEEDBACK | OPINION | NEWS | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | PHOENIX NEW TIMES SEPT 29TH–OCT 5TH, 2022
