Colorado revives popular e-bike $1,000 rebates

Colorado residents have renewed chances at 2,800 e-bike vouchers worth $1,000 each starting Aug. 24, as state energy officials revive a popular discount program that used up all the available money during its first run from 2023 to 2025. 

Coloradans with incomes at or below 80% of the median for their county can join the quarterly lotteries for the vouchers, which helped nearly 8,000 residents buy e-bikes during the last program run. Colorado has about $3 million to spend on the renewed version of the vouchers. 

E-bike voucher programs run by the state and Denver have been oversubscribed for years, and state officials said 89% of those who got rebates in the first state program would not have bought an e-bike without the steep discount. Those who qualify for the new round of $1,000 vouchers can use an additional $300 for a cargo bike or an adaptive e-bike, with no extra qualification necessary. 

“Colorado is committed to reducing pollution from the transportation sector with a holistic approach that makes zero-emission technologies such as e-bikes a viable option for day to day travel,” Colorado Energy Office Executive Director Will Toor said in a news release. “Our initial e-bike rebate program was a great success, having a real impact on people’s lives.”

Coloradans can find their county’s 80% median income levels here. 

Colorado officials said more than 34,000 people tried for the earlier round of vouchers, which spent nearly $10 million. Registration for the first quarterly round in the renewed voucher program will be open for a week beginning 11 a.m. Aug. 24. 

Interested residents can register for the lottery with just their name and best contact. If notified by email that they were picked for a voucher, they then have a week to provide income and residency information. As in Denver, e-bikes must be bought from a qualified, participating dealer. The $1,000 rebate is given as a discount at the point of sale. 

The $3 million for the current round of vouchers will come from the Community Access Enterprise, and that will allow renewals of the program in future years, the CEO said. The Community Access Enterprise is funded by small fees on retail deliveries, and can be used to support clean electric transportation initiatives.