Seems to be an improved e-bike. Would like to buy 2 when they become available locally.

Are a couple of zeros missing from the production target? Even then, one million/year would be low by Chinese standards. Sanyo can do more.

The suggested manufacturer's retail price for the bike on the Sanyo page is 125 790 Yen, which is around $1225. That might seem like a bit steep price for a bicycle, but personally I'd recommend to try one before saying that. I bought a kit for around €1000 last summer with about twice larger lithium-ion pack and it's really smooth sailing. If this is what it takes to make people use bicycles more, I'm all for it.

For real mass use in cities at least couple of more things are needed: slow down car traffic and give right of way to foot and bicycle traffic plus covered bicycles for bad weather for people who want that. There will still probably be a chicken and egg problem, since it'll need lot of people using these before people will get excited. However, this is happening in some Asian cities and I just hope that they will forget that they ever wanted a car. Cities would be so much nicer without them. In Europe some cities in Netherlands and Denmark might serve as an example. They just have to get more stringent with cars. At least it should be tried out somewhere and see what people would think. Make driving a car in some small and compact city slow and very expensive and see what happens. European Union could compensate for the citizens for the trouble they have to go through by being a testbed for common good...

Most bike electric regenerative schemes in the past have recovered a paltry 3 to 5% regeneration, not worth the cost & complexity. Better be many times better than that.
Will the bike actually go 50KM at a speed that cobwebs don't form on you? A 4 Ah lithium battery is too small. If that bike has hub motors, they're also too tiny. If it doesn't have hub motors....why?

i dont know where you get this news from, but sanyo its been selling electric bikes with regenerative brakes for at least 5years (i got one) i bought it for 80thousand yen.
what is new is that now they are selling it with litium battery instead of nimh.
regenerative braking can make a 50% improved eficiency for bikes (like mine) that always do the same trip donwhill and back.
if not this case, the regenerative brake is not worth, in fact more expesive ones from matsushita or bridgestone dont have regenerative brakes.

This makes sense. If they are PM motors, they can regenerate well. In something like a bike, efficiency is the key word. Any way you can put energy back in by gravity without adding much to the cost is a great idea.

The electric bicycle forum.

www.ebikehub.com

the problem is large serges of current can not be absorbed quickly by batterys. what is needed are super capacitors they are light weight and will absorb current instantaniously. this energy can trickle back into the battery slowly or be given back to the motor directly for quick off the line starts.

what's the relative cost of capacitors vs Lith-Ion batteries? do they work in all conditions (heat/cold) A benefit I remember reading about here which was used by some massive capacitor system on a military vehicle, is that you can instantly dump the charge for safety.

I was really searching for a mechanical regen brake system for bikes, that would be cool for non-electric bikes. I read here that some car companies have developed hydraulic regen for trucks but you could probably use springs for bicycle regen systems!!!

Here's some interesting work related to hydraulic regenerative breaking:

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/49565/2/ME450%20Final%20Team%2005.pdf