The electric cargo bike in professional use in Paris and the petite couronne (the inner ring of départements around Paris)

The sector's reference study is the Panorama de la cyclologistique en France, published in September 2023 by the trade association Les Boîtes à Vélo - France with the support of ADEME (the French environment and energy agency). It is not an ADEME study and we do not present it as one. It is close to three years old at the date of this page: its orders of magnitude are those of 2023 and must be read as such.

The Panorama describes a sector of modest size: 200 operators in 74 towns and cities in May 2023, between 2,200 and 2,400 full-time equivalents, a fleet of between 2,500 and 3,000 cycle-logistics vehicles excluding La Poste and platform-based deliveries, for 80 to 85 million euros of turnover generated in France each year. Those figures put the subject in proportion: the professional cargo bike is not a mass-market phenomenon, it is an answer to a narrow set of situations.

The study itself rules out the claim that the van can be replaced. It writes that cycle logistics cannot fully substitute for light commercial vehicles and heavy goods vehicles, that the cargo bike has a reduced payload, that its speed is low and its range limited, and that in dense city centres cycle logistics fits in as a complement to bulk transport. A director who hears the opposite in a sales pitch should ask for the source.

The operating bounds published by the sector

The Panorama gives, activity by activity, orders of magnitude that make it possible to decide before any investment. For parcel delivery to individuals, it takes parcels of up to 15 kg and generally weighing less than 5 kg, 40 to 60 parcels per pétale, the petal-shaped loop of a round, and a catchment radius of 5 km. For delivery to businesses, the unit load rises to 50 kg. For the sortie de caisse, that is, delivery to the customer from a shop, the study takes a radius of 2 to 3 km and 8 trips a day on average. Couriers cover an average of 46 km a day. Removals are judged suitable for small floor areas over short distances, since several return trips are needed.

Reading the study for what it excludes is more useful still than reading it directly. Substitution is documented where stops are numerous, the distances between stops short, the unit loads light and the parking constraint severe. It is not documented where a heavy load has to be carried to a single distant point, where several tens of kilometres separate two customers, or where the area served is markedly hilly: the study notes, moreover, that topography is one reason for the absence of operators in certain territories, which directly concerns several municipalities of the petite couronne.

The make-up of the French fleet described by the Panorama confirms that format matters more than brand: front-loading two-wheelers (biporteurs) 48%, cargo trikes (triporteurs) and other tricycles 22%, utility trailers 20%, standard cycles 10%. The first decision is not the choice of a supplier, it is the choice of a vehicle architecture in the light of the real round, not least because that choice has legal consequences set out below.

The only performance result we are able to quote

A trial conducted by ADEME with KEDGE Business School and La Poste, published online on 26 October 2022, followed five cargo bikes for one year in the centre of Bordeaux. It concludes that there was a 15% improvement in the average time per parcel delivered by cargo bike compared with combustion-engine delivery, a 23.6% reduction in CO2 emissions and a reduction in total distance travelled of more than 42%.

The scope has to be stated at the same time as the result: five vehicles, a city that is not Paris, one year of observation, a single operator, with its own way of organising its rounds. Those figures are not transferable as they stand to a round in the Paris region. We quote them because they are the only operational performance results we have found in a dated institutional publication. Any other productivity promise circulating in this market should be traced back to its source before it enters a capacity plan.

The legal regime turns on a single point: whether the vehicle complies with the definition of the cycle à pédalage assisté, the pedal-assist cycle. Point 6.11 of article R. 311-1 of the code de la route, in the version in force since 25 July 2026, defines the cycle à pédalage assisté as a cycle fitted with an auxiliary electric motor with a maximum continuous rated power of 0.25 kilowatt, whose power supply is progressively reduced and then cut off when the vehicle reaches 25 km/h, or sooner if the rider stops pedalling. The amendment made by décret n° 2026-652 of 22 July 2026, published in the Journal officiel (the French official gazette) of 24 July 2026, concerns the list of priority vehicles serving the general interest and does not affect that definition.

As long as the vehicle stays within those characteristics, it remains a cycle. It therefore requires neither registration nor a driving licence, and the service-public.fr factsheet on bicycle insurance, checked on 13 November 2025, states that such a pedal-assist bike is not subject to any compulsory insurance. Beyond those characteristics, the vehicle moves into the category of cyclomoteurs, mopeds under French law, and insurance becomes compulsory. The absence of an obligation under the code de la route obviously says nothing about the cover a business is well advised to take out for its vehicles and its employees: that subject is for its insurer, and this page does not settle it.

Helmet wearing calls for a precise reading of the text. Article R. 431-1-3 of the code de la route requires a helmet for the rider and the passenger of a cycle who are under twelve. Its paragraph III punishes, with the fine laid down for fourth-class contraventions, any adult who carries or accompanies a child under twelve without one. For a fleet ridden by adult employees, no helmet obligation therefore follows from the code de la route, which in no way prejudges what the business decides to impose within its own organisation.

The high-visibility vest comes under a different article, often confused with the previous one. Article R. 431-1-1, in force since 21 September 2016, provides that when riding at night, or by day when visibility is poor, every rider and passenger of a cycle must wear, hors agglomération, that is, outside built-up areas, a high-visibility vest complying with the regulations, on pain of the fine laid down for second-class contraventions. The words hors agglomération sharply limit the reach of the rule within Paris intra-muros, but it becomes operative again on links in the grande couronne.

One last point, technical and heavy with consequences, concerns the number of wheels. Article R. 110-2 of the code de la route, in the version in force since 25 April 2022, defines the piste cyclable, the protected cycle track, as a carriageway reserved exclusively for two- or three-wheeled cycles, for cyclomobiles légers (light powered cycles under French law) and for engins de déplacement personnel motorisés. A four-wheeled cargo bike does not fall within that list. The Panorama de la cyclologistique reads it the same way when it notes, as a French peculiarity, that quadricycles are indeed defined as cycles in the regulations but cannot use cycle tracks. That point alone can disqualify a vehicle format for a Paris round, and it is to be checked before the order is placed.

Wander Fleet introduces businesses in Île-de-France to sociétés de crédit-bail that may finance the equipping of their employees or of their rounds with electric cargo bikes. Our role is limited to that introduction.

This activity is carried out in the capacity of indicateur (mere introducer) within the meaning of point 2° of article R. 519-2 of the code monétaire et financier (the French Monetary and Financial Code), that is, a person whose role is confined to pointing out or introducing interested parties, without handing over any documents other than advertising material. Wander Fleet is not registered with ORIAS (the French register of insurance, banking and finance intermediaries) and does not carry on the activity of intermédiaire en opérations de banque et en services de paiement (banking and payment services intermediary under French law).

Several prohibitions follow, and we apply them to ourselves. Wander does not finance, does not negotiate, does not distribute credit and addresses no costing to a given client; the simulators on this site, self-service and based on published and adjustable assumptions, are not a costing addressed to anyone. The binding costing, the term, the guarantees required and the acceptance of the file are matters for the établissement financier (the financing institution) alone, a société de crédit-bail, separate from Wander. Nor do we sell the vehicles or maintain them.

A word on vocabulary, because it carries consequences. The term leasing is used on this site as a market term. The legal characterisation of the financed transaction is crédit-bail within the meaning of article L. 313-7 of the code monétaire et financier, which distinguishes it from simple hire by the existence of a purchase option for the lessee, at a price taking account at least in part of the lease payments made. That distinction is not cosmetic: it governs the accounting treatment, the tax treatment and, as we have seen, access to certain public grants.

Lastly, a point of transparency. No financing contract has been signed to date. We therefore claim no partnership, and every page on this site that mentions a société de crédit-bail does so by designating it as a third party, separate from Wander.