A review of history, development, design and research of electric bicycles

•History and development of EBs are reviewed.•An overview of EB markets is presented.•The specifications of EBs are classified according to designs and their components.•The research and development of EBs are reviewed and summarized in various fields.•The rules and regulations of using EBs in several world regions are discussed. The depletion of fossil fuel and increase of environmental pollution caused by internal combustion engine vehicles are big issues worldwide that need to be solved. One of promising solutions to address energy security and environmental pollution is utilization of electric vehicles. Electric bicycle is one of the electric vehicles attracting significant attention because of its many benefits. Many review papers showed potential of electric vehicles for wide application in future, but very few of them solely focused on electric bicycles. This paper shows in detail a review of history, development, design and research of electric bicycles, in which history, development together with markets of electric bicycles are firstly reviewed. The classification of electric bicycles in components and designs is reviewed in detail. The electric bicycle research fields are reviewed based on prior studies to give helpful information for scientists as well as researchers to develop electric bicycles further. Besides the reviews of electric bicycles mentioned above, the rules for utilization of electric bicycles in some world areas are discussed.