17 ms·

Trailerduck is a smart e-bike trailer

104 points by mpweiher 5y ago

ctrlp 5y ago
I've been hoping someone would come out with something like this for a beach cart. Dragging a heavy cart over soft sand has to be one of the biggest problems of our time.
- dun-hn 5y ago
  Interesting idea, but not sure how would be possible to ride a bike on a soft sand :/
  - TheSmiddy 5y ago
    The cart will more likely follow a person walking than someone riding a bike.
    - ctrlp 5y ago
      Right, maybe you have a wristband or something and it just follows you at a short distance.
    - xeromal 5y ago
      There's a piece of luggage that does this. Maybe they can use the tech for one of these beach buggies.
  - bebna 5y ago
    fat tires, like an udx for example
  - ctrlp 5y ago
    Lol, yeah.
  - Johnny555 5y ago
    https://gearjunkie.com/biking/beach-sand-fat-bike https://gearjunkie.com/biking/beach-sand-fat-bike The bike has a 10-inch-wide ATV tire on front to give float. The company touts you can “easily glide over soft beach sand as well as deep snow, mud, high grass, gravel, and anywhere else that regular bikes can’t go.” It has a 4.6-inch rear tire and a 500-watt motor for pedal-assist. A special fork lets you swap the massive rubber up front for a normal fat tire when less float is required.
- gangstead 5y ago
  You think it's bad dragging a tent, chairs, and a soft sided cooler over the dunes now? Once you get the powered buggy the family is going to expect you to bring BBQs, couches, and enormous bomb proof yetis and you'll miss the simpler days when you could just say "that's too much stuff!".\
arpinum 5y ago
Regulations require electric bikes to be 'pedal-assist' and is holding back sustainable transport. Let lightweight vehicles travel 25kmph without pedalling and these regulatory hacks won't be needed. It will likely lead to safer vehicles too compared to these regulatory hack solutions.
- choeger 5y ago
  I'd say 30kph. I never understood the 25kph rule. Make 30kph the default speed limit in cities and let e-bikes drive with that speed on most roads, what's problematic with this approach? Are 5kph more really that more dangerous that you need to create a speed difference between even slow cars and bikes?
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    25kph is average cycling speed of a male cyclist, 20kph for female. The limits there because these devices are just meant to be cycling assistance, not replacements. You don’t want to be mixing two distinct classes of transport together (this is whole reason why protected cycle ways are so important), because overtaking etc is inherently dangerous. There’s nothing preventing people from just creating electric motorbikes etc and driving them on the road with other road traffic. But having vehicles like that mix in close proximity to pedestrians and un-assisted cyclists just moves the problem we already have with car-bike conflict on to cycle lanes and pedestrian spaces. Also that extra 5kph is gonna have a pretty negligible impact on transit times, so is it really worth all the extra problems?
    - mauvehaus 5y ago
      "25kph is average cycling speed of a male cyclist, 20kph for female." Wait, what? I bike commuted for a while in both Cleveland and Boston. I can pretty handily maintain 30kph, and regularly hit over that when either warranted by traffic conditions or on a slight downhill. I do not consider myself a fast cyclist by any measure. I am quite confident that even the most casual group ride of semi serious cyclists would drop me in 5 km on a good day. Is my view of cycling speeds that skewed, or is the distribution very weird in some way? As for the extra 5kph making a difference, no it's not a huge deal in time. It's immensely important to riding safely in faster traffic. I find that the closer you can ride to the speed of traffic, the fewer boneheaded things people do to get past you. Being able to do 40kph for short stretches to basically match the speed of cars through a dodgy intersection is a huge improvement in safety. 30 isn't 40, but every little bit helps.
carlob 5y ago
At what point do we start stretching the definition of what can be allowed on a bike path? 300 kg of cargo at 25 km/h is very close to the momentum of a moped riding at 50 km/h, which is something I definitely don't want to share a bike path with. For what it's worth when I'm in the mood for racing and I have my good road bike I tend to avoid bike paths as a courtesy to other cyclists (and to avoid getting stuck behind someone slow).
- teekert 5y ago
  I feel that this is a discussion very must about to become mainstream in the Netherlands. Electric vehicles of all sorts and sizes are entering the once relaxed and predictable bike lanes (which here are often not just lanes but complete separate roads with no car-roads around, ie. through a park or forest). It's not just e-bikes and their unexpected speed, everywhere now you can rent "e-choppers", with a wide steering bar and a relaxed attitude. However they are much faster and wider than normal bicycles and you can see the annoyance on the faces of people constantly overtaken by them. 25 KPH is really fast on a bike path, and then they are also silent so they pop out of nowhere. It's not a good combo. Many of these bike lanes are of limits to gasoline scooters ("Fietspad dus niet brommen") I'm guessing many of these things are going to forced onto the car-roads by law, like we did 20 years ago with scooters (max 45 kph, require helmet, they are partly forced on car-roads, here is an example where scooters leave the bike path to enter the road: [0]). [0]: https://goo.gl/maps/RxWxazWic2dduqU67 https://goo.gl/maps/RxWxazWic2dduqU67
  - Vinnl 5y ago
    Yeah, in more and more places I think they're sending everything above 25 km/h to the road. At the same time, we see "bicycle streets" emerging more and more, which are just as wide as regular streets (and which can be used by cars), but where the bicycle is the primary vehicle. I think they mostly rose in popularity in response to congestion on regular bike paths, but I feel like they also help with the width and speed issues - although above 25km/h is still quite fast. As I get more used to them though, the ones with a limit of 25 feel less problematic to me.
CivBase 5y ago
Is it really a "trailer" if it moves under its own force? It's basically just a tiny EV that follows your bike around. It's neat and all, but why not just drive that instead?
- masklinn 5y ago
  Powered trailers exist so why not. That there is no physical coupling feels dubious though.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >but why not just drive that instead? cost of compliance
- jsight 5y ago
  I was thinking the same thing. How about one that you can sit in, and maybe attach your bike to the front or rear? I guess that's the next step and we can call it bikeless trailer or something.
- vel0city 5y ago
  It seems like its for people who need a car, but don't want to admit they need a car.
furyg3 5y ago
I think this is solving a problem too literally: "I have a bike, but sometimes want to carry more stuff." Though the problem is actually: "I have some stuff, and I want it to get somewhere" It's cute that a little car can follow my bike home from the hardware store with my stuff, but I don't actually care about the following. Just let me summon a trailer, put my stuff in it, and tell it to meet me at home in 20 mins. That way I don't have to pick it up somewhere, or drive it back when I'm done. Of course the issue is that self-driving isn't a thing yet, in which case I may as well drive the thing. Just give me some kind of cargo pickup scooter like a Stint (https://stintum.com/pickup/ https://stintum.com/pickup/).
- ohazi 5y ago
  It seems like this is essentially the same technology, but they use the "needs to follow a bike" property to deal with the fact that your proposed AI trailer likely wouldn't be street legal, and also as an easy way to deter vandalism or theft.
  - jjoonathan 5y ago
    A car fully solves all of these problems simultaneously.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      Way to miss the point. I've been without a car for about 18 months now. Yes, I miss having a car, but I don't miss payments, insurance, or maintenance. I've dealt with small grocery runs with my pedal bike, but it has limitations. Delivery fees have just become part of my budget, but those fees still do not add up to a car payment or insurance fees. As much as I miss my last car, I'm not ready to jump into that level of commitment again any time soon.
      - jjoonathan 5y ago
        Way to miss the point. Any niche between cars and bikes has to compete with both cars and bikes -- and you can aggregate things into cars to get utilization up, as you have discovered by paying for delivery. Bike infrastructure is underdeveloped. Car infrastructure is not, and cars are good at cargo. Shifting cargo-hauling duty onto bike infrastructure is a great way to put bike infrastructure overcapacity, but not a great way to haul cargo. We should reserve bike infrastructure for people, because getting people out of cars and onto bikes is where the magic happens. Turning bikes into small cars -- which is where this idea is clearly headed -- is gross.
btbuildem 5y ago
Their logo implies that eventually they may want to daisy-chain these to make a "trailer train" led by one cyclist. Cool idea, but keep these off bike paths. Too wide and heavy to safely share that space.
dreamcompiler 5y ago
Follow-the-leader is much easier AI technology than full self-driving. Almost certainly we'll soon see this in cross-country tractor-trailer highway freight "trains" where only the lead vehicle needs a human driver.
brnt 5y ago
Here in NL, we've had cargo bikes like these in use for a while (century?) now: https://www.nijland.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bakfiets-1.jpg https://www.nijland.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bakfiets-... They exist in electrified form, and also smaller ones which are much more commonly privately owned (Dutch soccer moms drive these instead of SUVs): https://dutchcargobike.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/bakfiets.jpg https://dutchcargobike.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/bak... Trailerduck does seem more ergonomic (lower floor) and suitable for a larger volume of cargo, but not sure you've then already crossed into cargovan territory.
- emj 5y ago
  There are alot of "new" cargo bike producers out there. This specific trailer seems like a mix of Veloves four wheel bicycle (+300kg capacity) and Carla Cargo (150 kg capacity). It is made for large cargo capacity and is a big difference from the ordinary Bakfiets cargobikes. Full suspension, a well thought out cargo hold and good motor is a must. https://www.velove.se/electric-cargo-bike https://www.velove.se/electric-cargo-bike https://www.velove.se/news/armadillo-40-german-newspapers-dutch-television https://www.velove.se/news/armadillo-40-german-newspapers-du... https://www.carlacargo.de/products/ecarla-ready/ https://www.carlacargo.de/products/ecarla-ready/
jack_riminton 5y ago
Side note: the design of that site is horrible. The colours, contrast, search bar which is inline with the main body all make it really hard to read for me
frankus 5y ago
There’s a related product (can’t find the link) that has a physical connection to the bike that includes a load cell that drives a motor in the trailer to keep the net force (when accelerating or braking) at zero. In fact if you know the gross mass of the trailer you can get pretty close with just an accelerometer, but I don’t know of a commercial product that does this.
lolc 5y ago
Am I too cynical in not giving this piece of overengineering the slightest chance to survive actual use? Just get a cargo bike. Or a car. I don't see what niche this is supposed to fill. > Because the specially-designed drawbar with which it attaches to the bike is packed with sensors, it takes its cues from the towing vehicle and performs all maneuvers (braking, acceleration and maintaining speed, and turning) on its own. At least they were smart enough to not try and wing it with cameras only. Even if the graphics in the article suggest it.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > Just get a cargo bike. Or a car. I don't see what niche this is supposed to fill. Right from the article: Cargo bikes can't pull the weight, cars are going to be all but banned or be impeded by tolls from inner cities whereas this is supposed to be licensed as a bike trailer. The prime target market will be tradespeople and couriers.
  - thescriptkiddie 5y ago
    Cargo bicycles (well, tricycles) capable of carrying a 300kg load are available.
annoyingnoob 5y ago
Is it really 'smart' when its just running a program? Not to be offensive, I have yet to see a truly 'smart' device of any kind.
- wongarsu 5y ago
  Smart is an ill-defined marketing term just like AI. But in the end everything is just hardware, and some of it runs some software. If "just running a program" is your yardstick I'm not sure what could satisfy your definition of "smart"?
  - annoyingnoob 5y ago
    When the world gets past 'just running a program' we'll know. Until then the creator might feel clever but the device is not smart. I suppose a space like HN is a place to be honest about what our technology can and cannot do. I think of this as a place where its okay to question ill-defined marketing terms and even do away with them when they don't apply.
entropicgravity 5y ago
To expand the scope here a little, personal electric transport will take over city centres over the next five to fifteen years and managing that transition will be tricky and divisive. The fundamental driving force of this change is that electric vehicles scale much better than fossil fuel power vehicles. A 500watt ebike is perfectly quiet, clean and reliable whereas a gas engine of similar power and weight is messy, polluting and loud. Start with bike paths. In North America, the standard is becoming 20mph/32kph. I ride an ebike often and I find this is more than fast enough and probably equal to about an automobile's 40mph with traffic lights. Vehicles allowed on these paths should have a limited width and the allowed speed should depend upon its weight. It's not necessary to restrict motor power since speed is regulated by weight. So yes, if you're on a pedal bike you still have to follow the speed limits even if it's down hill. Some jurisdictions already follow this scheme with police and speed guns (Calgary is one as I recall). The next step is to transition fossil fuel traffic to electric traffic in the city core. The most effective approach here is to initially allocate an entire lane on say, every fourth road, to electric (but not pedal only), vehicles of all sorts. The reason for excluding pedal only, ie normal bikes, is that their acceleration is too slow when starting from a dead stop at intersections. Whereas electric bikes have excellent acceleration, even better than cars from a dead stop. Allocating a full lane to electric traffic (even Teslas) will be a big incentive for commuters to switch to electric transport. Another benefit is that it's much cheaper to do it this way than to create bespoke bike lanes. Just the low concrete dividers on top of the lane lines is enough and they can be laid down or removed very easily and cheaply for flexibility. As more commuters adopt electric transport more lanes can be allocated to them. Before you know it the city core will be all electric excepting delivery trucks.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  The problem with bikes is the collision safety issues as well as protection from weather. It's not so much that pedalling is hard, but that it's not safe, and requires a high trust society. While there are small island of high trust urban socities still around, they are not the norm. Yes, I know of all the bike riders in Holland. I also know that the rest of the world is very different from Holland. This is why ever larger SUVs are popular. That's not to say that they can't be electric, but the future is more with the frigthteningly large cybertruk clad with bulletproof glass that provides someone comfort driving through a dystopia of riots, assaults, and protection from other cybetruck drivers running into them, rather than a version of happy milk-maids bicycling through meadows of flowers. This vision of bike riders, while certainly very pretty, is lost in the Julie Andrews past, and will remain a dream as long as we continue to live distrustful, isolated lives. Unfortunately nothing I've seen has made me believe the west is even capable of turning that around, and whether it turns around or not has nothing to do with urban planning or technological advances.
mschuster91 5y ago
Interesting concept, but... it's developed here in Germany? The country that took years to legalize electric bikes and e-scooters? As a German, hats off to them and good luck, they will need it.
jsilence 5y ago
Carla Cargo is a very similar product: https://www.carlacargo.de/ https://www.carlacargo.de/

104 points by mpweiher 5y ago

I've been hoping someone would come out with something like this for a beach cart. Dragging a heavy cart over soft sand has to be one of the biggest problems of our time.

dun-hn 5y ago
Interesting idea, but not sure how would be possible to ride a bike on a soft sand :/
- TheSmiddy 5y ago
  The cart will more likely follow a person walking than someone riding a bike.
  - ctrlp 5y ago
    Right, maybe you have a wristband or something and it just follows you at a short distance.
  - xeromal 5y ago
    There's a piece of luggage that does this. Maybe they can use the tech for one of these beach buggies.
- bebna 5y ago
  fat tires, like an udx for example
- ctrlp 5y ago
  Lol, yeah.
- Johnny555 5y ago
  https://gearjunkie.com/biking/beach-sand-fat-bike https://gearjunkie.com/biking/beach-sand-fat-bike The bike has a 10-inch-wide ATV tire on front to give float. The company touts you can “easily glide over soft beach sand as well as deep snow, mud, high grass, gravel, and anywhere else that regular bikes can’t go.” It has a 4.6-inch rear tire and a 500-watt motor for pedal-assist. A special fork lets you swap the massive rubber up front for a normal fat tire when less float is required.
gangstead 5y ago
You think it's bad dragging a tent, chairs, and a soft sided cooler over the dunes now? Once you get the powered buggy the family is going to expect you to bring BBQs, couches, and enormous bomb proof yetis and you'll miss the simpler days when you could just say "that's too much stuff!".\

arpinum 5y ago

Regulations require electric bikes to be 'pedal-assist' and is holding back sustainable transport. Let lightweight vehicles travel 25kmph without pedalling and these regulatory hacks won't be needed. It will likely lead to safer vehicles too compared to these regulatory hack solutions.

choeger 5y ago
I'd say 30kph. I never understood the 25kph rule. Make 30kph the default speed limit in cities and let e-bikes drive with that speed on most roads, what's problematic with this approach? Are 5kph more really that more dangerous that you need to create a speed difference between even slow cars and bikes?
- avianlyric 5y ago
  25kph is average cycling speed of a male cyclist, 20kph for female. The limits there because these devices are just meant to be cycling assistance, not replacements. You don’t want to be mixing two distinct classes of transport together (this is whole reason why protected cycle ways are so important), because overtaking etc is inherently dangerous. There’s nothing preventing people from just creating electric motorbikes etc and driving them on the road with other road traffic. But having vehicles like that mix in close proximity to pedestrians and un-assisted cyclists just moves the problem we already have with car-bike conflict on to cycle lanes and pedestrian spaces. Also that extra 5kph is gonna have a pretty negligible impact on transit times, so is it really worth all the extra problems?
  - mauvehaus 5y ago
    "25kph is average cycling speed of a male cyclist, 20kph for female." Wait, what? I bike commuted for a while in both Cleveland and Boston. I can pretty handily maintain 30kph, and regularly hit over that when either warranted by traffic conditions or on a slight downhill. I do not consider myself a fast cyclist by any measure. I am quite confident that even the most casual group ride of semi serious cyclists would drop me in 5 km on a good day. Is my view of cycling speeds that skewed, or is the distribution very weird in some way? As for the extra 5kph making a difference, no it's not a huge deal in time. It's immensely important to riding safely in faster traffic. I find that the closer you can ride to the speed of traffic, the fewer boneheaded things people do to get past you. Being able to do 40kph for short stretches to basically match the speed of cars through a dodgy intersection is a huge improvement in safety. 30 isn't 40, but every little bit helps.

carlob 5y ago

At what point do we start stretching the definition of what can be allowed on a bike path? 300 kg of cargo at 25 km/h is very close to the momentum of a moped riding at 50 km/h, which is something I definitely don't want to share a bike path with. For what it's worth when I'm in the mood for racing and I have my good road bike I tend to avoid bike paths as a courtesy to other cyclists (and to avoid getting stuck behind someone slow).

teekert 5y ago
I feel that this is a discussion very must about to become mainstream in the Netherlands. Electric vehicles of all sorts and sizes are entering the once relaxed and predictable bike lanes (which here are often not just lanes but complete separate roads with no car-roads around, ie. through a park or forest). It's not just e-bikes and their unexpected speed, everywhere now you can rent "e-choppers", with a wide steering bar and a relaxed attitude. However they are much faster and wider than normal bicycles and you can see the annoyance on the faces of people constantly overtaken by them. 25 KPH is really fast on a bike path, and then they are also silent so they pop out of nowhere. It's not a good combo. Many of these bike lanes are of limits to gasoline scooters ("Fietspad dus niet brommen") I'm guessing many of these things are going to forced onto the car-roads by law, like we did 20 years ago with scooters (max 45 kph, require helmet, they are partly forced on car-roads, here is an example where scooters leave the bike path to enter the road: [0]). [0]: https://goo.gl/maps/RxWxazWic2dduqU67 https://goo.gl/maps/RxWxazWic2dduqU67
- Vinnl 5y ago
  Yeah, in more and more places I think they're sending everything above 25 km/h to the road. At the same time, we see "bicycle streets" emerging more and more, which are just as wide as regular streets (and which can be used by cars), but where the bicycle is the primary vehicle. I think they mostly rose in popularity in response to congestion on regular bike paths, but I feel like they also help with the width and speed issues - although above 25km/h is still quite fast. As I get more used to them though, the ones with a limit of 25 feel less problematic to me.

CivBase 5y ago

Is it really a "trailer" if it moves under its own force? It's basically just a tiny EV that follows your bike around. It's neat and all, but why not just drive that instead?

masklinn 5y ago
Powered trailers exist so why not. That there is no physical coupling feels dubious though.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>but why not just drive that instead? cost of compliance
jsight 5y ago
I was thinking the same thing. How about one that you can sit in, and maybe attach your bike to the front or rear? I guess that's the next step and we can call it bikeless trailer or something.
vel0city 5y ago
It seems like its for people who need a car, but don't want to admit they need a car.

furyg3 5y ago

I think this is solving a problem too literally: "I have a bike, but sometimes want to carry more stuff." Though the problem is actually: "I have some stuff, and I want it to get somewhere" It's cute that a little car can follow my bike home from the hardware store with my stuff, but I don't actually care about the following. Just let me summon a trailer, put my stuff in it, and tell it to meet me at home in 20 mins. That way I don't have to pick it up somewhere, or drive it back when I'm done. Of course the issue is that self-driving isn't a thing yet, in which case I may as well drive the thing. Just give me some kind of cargo pickup scooter like a Stint (https://stintum.com/pickup/ https://stintum.com/pickup/).

ohazi 5y ago
It seems like this is essentially the same technology, but they use the "needs to follow a bike" property to deal with the fact that your proposed AI trailer likely wouldn't be street legal, and also as an easy way to deter vandalism or theft.
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  A car fully solves all of these problems simultaneously.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Way to miss the point. I've been without a car for about 18 months now. Yes, I miss having a car, but I don't miss payments, insurance, or maintenance. I've dealt with small grocery runs with my pedal bike, but it has limitations. Delivery fees have just become part of my budget, but those fees still do not add up to a car payment or insurance fees. As much as I miss my last car, I'm not ready to jump into that level of commitment again any time soon.
    - jjoonathan 5y ago
      Way to miss the point. Any niche between cars and bikes has to compete with both cars and bikes -- and you can aggregate things into cars to get utilization up, as you have discovered by paying for delivery. Bike infrastructure is underdeveloped. Car infrastructure is not, and cars are good at cargo. Shifting cargo-hauling duty onto bike infrastructure is a great way to put bike infrastructure overcapacity, but not a great way to haul cargo. We should reserve bike infrastructure for people, because getting people out of cars and onto bikes is where the magic happens. Turning bikes into small cars -- which is where this idea is clearly headed -- is gross.

btbuildem 5y ago

Their logo implies that eventually they may want to daisy-chain these to make a "trailer train" led by one cyclist. Cool idea, but keep these off bike paths. Too wide and heavy to safely share that space.

dreamcompiler 5y ago

Follow-the-leader is much easier AI technology than full self-driving. Almost certainly we'll soon see this in cross-country tractor-trailer highway freight "trains" where only the lead vehicle needs a human driver.

brnt 5y ago

Here in NL, we've had cargo bikes like these in use for a while (century?) now: https://www.nijland.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bakfiets-1.jpg https://www.nijland.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bakfiets-... They exist in electrified form, and also smaller ones which are much more commonly privately owned (Dutch soccer moms drive these instead of SUVs): https://dutchcargobike.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/bakfiets.jpg https://dutchcargobike.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/bak... Trailerduck does seem more ergonomic (lower floor) and suitable for a larger volume of cargo, but not sure you've then already crossed into cargovan territory.

emj 5y ago
There are alot of "new" cargo bike producers out there. This specific trailer seems like a mix of Veloves four wheel bicycle (+300kg capacity) and Carla Cargo (150 kg capacity). It is made for large cargo capacity and is a big difference from the ordinary Bakfiets cargobikes. Full suspension, a well thought out cargo hold and good motor is a must. https://www.velove.se/electric-cargo-bike https://www.velove.se/electric-cargo-bike https://www.velove.se/news/armadillo-40-german-newspapers-dutch-television https://www.velove.se/news/armadillo-40-german-newspapers-du... https://www.carlacargo.de/products/ecarla-ready/ https://www.carlacargo.de/products/ecarla-ready/

jack_riminton 5y ago

Side note: the design of that site is horrible. The colours, contrast, search bar which is inline with the main body all make it really hard to read for me

frankus 5y ago

There’s a related product (can’t find the link) that has a physical connection to the bike that includes a load cell that drives a motor in the trailer to keep the net force (when accelerating or braking) at zero. In fact if you know the gross mass of the trailer you can get pretty close with just an accelerometer, but I don’t know of a commercial product that does this.

lolc 5y ago

Am I too cynical in not giving this piece of overengineering the slightest chance to survive actual use? Just get a cargo bike. Or a car. I don't see what niche this is supposed to fill. > Because the specially-designed drawbar with which it attaches to the bike is packed with sensors, it takes its cues from the towing vehicle and performs all maneuvers (braking, acceleration and maintaining speed, and turning) on its own. At least they were smart enough to not try and wing it with cameras only. Even if the graphics in the article suggest it.

mschuster91 5y ago
> Just get a cargo bike. Or a car. I don't see what niche this is supposed to fill. Right from the article: Cargo bikes can't pull the weight, cars are going to be all but banned or be impeded by tolls from inner cities whereas this is supposed to be licensed as a bike trailer. The prime target market will be tradespeople and couriers.
- thescriptkiddie 5y ago
  Cargo bicycles (well, tricycles) capable of carrying a 300kg load are available.

annoyingnoob 5y ago

Is it really 'smart' when its just running a program? Not to be offensive, I have yet to see a truly 'smart' device of any kind.

wongarsu 5y ago
Smart is an ill-defined marketing term just like AI. But in the end everything is just hardware, and some of it runs some software. If "just running a program" is your yardstick I'm not sure what could satisfy your definition of "smart"?
- annoyingnoob 5y ago
  When the world gets past 'just running a program' we'll know. Until then the creator might feel clever but the device is not smart. I suppose a space like HN is a place to be honest about what our technology can and cannot do. I think of this as a place where its okay to question ill-defined marketing terms and even do away with them when they don't apply.

entropicgravity 5y ago

To expand the scope here a little, personal electric transport will take over city centres over the next five to fifteen years and managing that transition will be tricky and divisive. The fundamental driving force of this change is that electric vehicles scale much better than fossil fuel power vehicles. A 500watt ebike is perfectly quiet, clean and reliable whereas a gas engine of similar power and weight is messy, polluting and loud. Start with bike paths. In North America, the standard is becoming 20mph/32kph. I ride an ebike often and I find this is more than fast enough and probably equal to about an automobile's 40mph with traffic lights. Vehicles allowed on these paths should have a limited width and the allowed speed should depend upon its weight. It's not necessary to restrict motor power since speed is regulated by weight. So yes, if you're on a pedal bike you still have to follow the speed limits even if it's down hill. Some jurisdictions already follow this scheme with police and speed guns (Calgary is one as I recall). The next step is to transition fossil fuel traffic to electric traffic in the city core. The most effective approach here is to initially allocate an entire lane on say, every fourth road, to electric (but not pedal only), vehicles of all sorts. The reason for excluding pedal only, ie normal bikes, is that their acceleration is too slow when starting from a dead stop at intersections. Whereas electric bikes have excellent acceleration, even better than cars from a dead stop. Allocating a full lane to electric traffic (even Teslas) will be a big incentive for commuters to switch to electric transport. Another benefit is that it's much cheaper to do it this way than to create bespoke bike lanes. Just the low concrete dividers on top of the lane lines is enough and they can be laid down or removed very easily and cheaply for flexibility. As more commuters adopt electric transport more lanes can be allocated to them. Before you know it the city core will be all electric excepting delivery trucks.

rsj_hn 5y ago
The problem with bikes is the collision safety issues as well as protection from weather. It's not so much that pedalling is hard, but that it's not safe, and requires a high trust society. While there are small island of high trust urban socities still around, they are not the norm. Yes, I know of all the bike riders in Holland. I also know that the rest of the world is very different from Holland. This is why ever larger SUVs are popular. That's not to say that they can't be electric, but the future is more with the frigthteningly large cybertruk clad with bulletproof glass that provides someone comfort driving through a dystopia of riots, assaults, and protection from other cybetruck drivers running into them, rather than a version of happy milk-maids bicycling through meadows of flowers. This vision of bike riders, while certainly very pretty, is lost in the Julie Andrews past, and will remain a dream as long as we continue to live distrustful, isolated lives. Unfortunately nothing I've seen has made me believe the west is even capable of turning that around, and whether it turns around or not has nothing to do with urban planning or technological advances.

mschuster91 5y ago

Interesting concept, but... it's developed here in Germany? The country that took years to legalize electric bikes and e-scooters? As a German, hats off to them and good luck, they will need it.

jsilence 5y ago

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