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Jun 17, 2024
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Overwhelming response from applicants caused the Minnesota Department of Revenue to shut the site down hours after it went live.
“Debacle” is one of those words you don’t want anyone using in conjunction with government programs, but that’s the very word being used to describe the rollout of Minnesota’s e-bike rebate program. Within hours of launching the program—which Erik’s Bike Shop, one of the biggest retailers in Minnesota, cautioned potential buyers to act quickly due to the relatively small number of vouchers available—the website had received so much traffic that it crashed.
To be fair, it can be hard to gauge just how popular a new website will be, so calculating just how robust the servers for the site need to be can be a matter of informed guesswork. That said, the Minnesota Department of Revenue was caught flat-footed by the number of people applying for the rebate. There was always a high likelihood that the site would receive exceptional traffic as the program held only $2 million in funds. With rebate amounts capped at $1,500, that means that only 1,300 people would receive rebates. With such a limited number of rebates available in a state that saw an estimated 20,000 e-bikes sold in 2023 alone, the safe money would have bet a staggering amount of traffic to the Minnesota DOR website.
Following several hours of failed operation, the website was taken offline and the Minnesota DOR issued a press release that acknowledged the site’s issues and said, “We are working with our external technology vendors engaged for this program to understand and fix the technical issues on the site.”
Put another way, they are saying they are asking their hosting company (Minnesota IT Services) how much bandwidth they need.
Minnesota residents awaiting news of the program’s return can sign up for email updates with the Minnesota Department of Revenue.
It’s unfortunate that Minnesota miscalculated how popular their e-bike rebate program would be. This will now delay the purchase of many e-bikes by weeks, if not months.
If anything, the site’s poor performance is further proof of just how desirable e-bikes are, though proving e-bikes are popular is about as difficult as proving chocolate is delicious.
The Minnesota DOR anticipates accepting 10,000 applications for an anticipated 1,300 rebate vouchers; once the applicant pool reaches 10,000, the application portal will be closed.
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