4 ms·

US electric bikes set to pass 1M sales annually, globally tracking to $40B

24 points by jseliger 4y ago

jackvalentine 4y ago
ebikes are simply fantastic for personal mobility. Get someone on them once and they love it - and they work doubly well in hilly places by eliminating the slog involved. Definitely the future of personal mobility.
- jseliger 4y ago
  I have one of these: https://www.radpowerbikes.com/collections/electric-bikes/products/radmission-electric-city-bike https://www.radpowerbikes.com/collections/electric-bikes/pro... and it's great. At the time I didn't realize that Lectric makes inexpensive folding e-bikes: https://lectricebikes.com/ https://lectricebikes.com/, and the fold would make it a bit easier to store, but that's a marginal difference.
addicted 4y ago
It’s criminal that US governments give over $7k in tax credits for buying electric cars, which are usually over $40k so are the domain of the middle to upper classes at best, but does not provide any tax breaks for ebikes at all. The government could literally fully buy 5 high quality ebikes for the tax credit it gives for a single EV. If they would give a 50% tax credit for eBikes and push a program to convert a single car lane in most roads in cities to protected micromobility lanes to build out a complete network, they could eliminate the gas problem in both the short and long terms almost entirely.
- slaw 4y ago
  All of these bikes are designed and made in China. Only managements, sales and support is in US. I would rather promote domestic production than giving tax credits.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >All of these bikes are designed and made in China. Jeez, and why is that? Here's a wild idea, instead of offshoring out entire manufacturing sector to sweatshop countries without human rights and environmental regulations, just to drive down cost and increase shareholder value, we instead invest in domestic manufacturing for critical sectors such as transportation (yes bikes are a means of transportation and the best one for cities at that). Or, instead of the government aiding Exxon or BP they aid local E-Bike manufacturing. Several European countries have E-Bike companies with domestic manufacturing. So it's possible to do in the west.
    - trasz 4y ago
      It never ceases to amaze me how Americans claim China has no human rights, but at the same time claim US - the country with worlds highest incarceration ratio, where police can kill random people with impunity, where convicted child rapists can easily avoid prison if they are wealthy enough) is somehow better. (Fun fact: apparently the American condition doesn’t even mention human rights.)
      - feet 4y ago
  - llampx 4y ago
    Are electric car subsidies based on them being manufactured from the ground up in the US?
  - feet 4y ago
    That's just not true at all. There are a bunch of high quality European brands that use European parts
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    Well then give a 70% rebate on bikes that are wholly produced locally and 50% on ones designed and assembled locally. Just whatever you do, don't give it to the ones pulling all the proprietary and drm bullshit.
- dzhiurgis 4y ago
  A car can drive 5 people and overall kinda has more utility. The criminal part is lack of bike paths.
  - dagurp 4y ago
    More electric bikes (should) mean more bike infrastructure and that will increase a bikes utility. Just like more electric cars mean more chargers. Induced demand works for allt types of transport.
  - kevincox 4y ago
    Or you could buy 5 ebikes for the same price which could drive 5 people. Bikes are also far more efficient with road space, especially since cars usually only have 1 person. Sure, a lot of the US lives in car-dependent neighborhoods but ebikes are a nice way to slowly grow out of that and they are excellent in places that aren't car dependent.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    A bakfiets can hold three to five kids, is far easier to park if even the barest effort has been made to accomodate non-car transport, can be taken on a train outside of peak hours, holds as much as a hatchback, and doesn't take away two apartments worth of habitable space and a quarter of an adult's income in infrastructure and healthcare costs from your city.
    - dzhiurgis 4y ago
      > bakfiets Some electric ones I've seen cost as much as a used Nissan Leaf. Don't get me wrong, I loved cycling in Netherlands, but bikes wont work unless there's also great options for public transport. I can't imagine taking 30 mile rides in this from suburbs in Los Angeles or going up mountains at -20C...
      - Schroedingersat 4y ago
        That doesn't make it impractical. It makes it appropriate to certain use cases. A ford ranger is completely impractical in an italian inner city historic area where it doesn't fit in any of the streets. A nissan leaf is equally impractical deep in the canadian north where it can't make it to the next charging station during winter, let alone your destination. Trains are impractical when there are only five people within 20km of any proposed station site. Large cars are wildly impractical in dense cities in temperate or warmer environments (where over half the world's population lives). Even if you try to forcefully change the city to make them viable at massive expense to car owners and non-drivers alike it just results in the downsides being diffuse. In a context where you're trying to get a large number of people in the same place, arranging things so you have to travel 5x as far at 35km/h (traffic rarely moves faster than this on average during peak times) so you can bring a 2t hunk of metal and plastic with you that not only gets you to your destination slower than a brisk walk would if you hadn't - it also makes everyone sick via pollution (even electric cars cause massive air pollution issues due to particles -- a tesla actually causes more pm2.5 emissions than a euro6 hatchback) and diabetes; makes large tracts of the city uninhabitable due to proximity to loud, dangerous machines, wastes about half of the available space in parking, setbacks, roads, and so on; and reduces the maximum density due to congestion. This doesn't make a bike or a car impractical. It makes the bike an absolute no brainer for 70% of the trips of half the world's population (given sane infrastructure) and an option to add to a healthy mix for 95% of the rest. Trains are just as important, and cars should be optional everywhere (even if living without owning one is impractical for 20% of the population)
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Yet the simpler option of taxing carbon fuels appropriately is also attacked for being unfair to the poor (which it isn't, and if it was could be fixed easily). Americans seem to prefer complaining about their government to actually having competent government.
kedikedi 4y ago
I just got mine about a week ago and I’m totally in love with it. So far I can see that the bike can replace the car for most of the time (exceptions are bad weather and when I need to carry things) and my bike route is definitely more interesting than my car route. The only problem I see is that bikes are also very easy to be stolen and the police here (Finland) doesn’t seem to do much about it.
- kmlx 4y ago
  > The only problem I see is that bikes are also very easy to be stolen and the police here (Finland) doesn’t seem to do much about it. i solved this by getting insurance. when mine was stolen police told me they never find them except when they find a huge number of stolen bikes all at the same place and time (eg a warehouse, a garage etc)
  - exodust 4y ago
    Also a good D-lock with 18mm steel will help. Because e-bikes can carry more weight, a heavier lock is not a burden to carry around. Bolt cutters won't work on 18mm of steel, and a portable grinder will take too long.
    - kmlx 4y ago
      > Also a good D-lock with 18mm steel will help. this didn't help me. they cut through that easily.
    - kedikedi 4y ago
      True, bolt cutters are useless on a thick u-lock but I am not sure about the cutting disc taking too long. I’ll try to find some* 18mm steel and try to cut it with my 18V grinder. I’ll comment the result here :) *it may be a different grade steel than a lock steel
      - kedikedi 4y ago
        Experiment results: my grinder was able to cut 18mm steel rod in about 20 seconds. For completeness sake, I used a machinable steel rod, turned to 18mm. For cutting I used a Makita 18V grinder with a 125mm disc (I had a partially used disc. A full disc would cut it faster) and with a full battery (it cuts slightly slower as battery runs out).
exodust 4y ago
Interesting picture at end of article showing woman carrying e-bike up the steps: https://electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2022/01/soltera_ls_3.jpeg https://electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2022/01/solte... The bike would weigh about 20kg. She's carrying it on her shoulder like it's nothing. E-bikes are awesome, but not easily carried on shoulder. The speed limiter is another annoyance, to comply with laws the assistance cuts out at 25kph or similar. On straight paths 25 feels sluggish on a big sturdy ebike, so there's incentive for rider to fix and circumvent or bump the limit by 10 or so.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Then we need to have and enforce the power limits at sale more effectively and test to the real power limit rather than using a protocol designed to test a lower bound. If we allow manufacturers to design them with a 1000W motor 'limited' to 750W and with suspension for for 50km/h then hand them over to customers with a wink, then that's what they'll do. If we then cave to their lobbying that it can only be solved by locking down the controller and preventing modification, they'll do that too. Enforce making the motor and frame smaller and lighter until 25km/h feels right. Sure, some people will DIY a higher power motor, but it will be so few it does not matter if all the bikes for sale on the shop floor or larger online sellers are truly 250W with a peak torque at under 20km/h in top gear. 25-32kph is the ideal status quo speed for human piloted transport. Faster than traffic can flow in medium to high density areas, but slow enough that it is hard to kill yourself and everyone has plenty of time to react at conflict points without burdensome traffic control measures. Pushing for faster ebikes just turns what little dedicated infrastructure there is into mini stroads and we're back to the same idiotic arms race that got us here in the first place.
  - exodust 4y ago
    In Australia the motor cuts out at 25 km/h. This is too slow. The motor cuts in and out frequently and the bike feels "off". So I paid a guy to halve the speed that is reported to the controller. This is the best way to modify the bike, as it can be easily reversed. No hardware change needed, and no trace of tampering. I couldn't do it myself. A guy with special bluetooth device and software connected to my bike made the change. Bike is now good. Motor no longer cuts out at 25 km/h. I almost never ride above 35 km/h anyway, and often use the lowest power setting. If they had made the limit 32 km/h, I probably would never have bothered hacking the firmware.

24 points by jseliger 4y ago

ebikes are simply fantastic for personal mobility. Get someone on them once and they love it - and they work doubly well in hilly places by eliminating the slog involved. Definitely the future of personal mobility.

jseliger 4y ago
I have one of these: https://www.radpowerbikes.com/collections/electric-bikes/products/radmission-electric-city-bike https://www.radpowerbikes.com/collections/electric-bikes/pro... and it's great. At the time I didn't realize that Lectric makes inexpensive folding e-bikes: https://lectricebikes.com/ https://lectricebikes.com/, and the fold would make it a bit easier to store, but that's a marginal difference.

addicted 4y ago

It’s criminal that US governments give over $7k in tax credits for buying electric cars, which are usually over $40k so are the domain of the middle to upper classes at best, but does not provide any tax breaks for ebikes at all. The government could literally fully buy 5 high quality ebikes for the tax credit it gives for a single EV. If they would give a 50% tax credit for eBikes and push a program to convert a single car lane in most roads in cities to protected micromobility lanes to build out a complete network, they could eliminate the gas problem in both the short and long terms almost entirely.

slaw 4y ago
All of these bikes are designed and made in China. Only managements, sales and support is in US. I would rather promote domestic production than giving tax credits.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >All of these bikes are designed and made in China. Jeez, and why is that? Here's a wild idea, instead of offshoring out entire manufacturing sector to sweatshop countries without human rights and environmental regulations, just to drive down cost and increase shareholder value, we instead invest in domestic manufacturing for critical sectors such as transportation (yes bikes are a means of transportation and the best one for cities at that). Or, instead of the government aiding Exxon or BP they aid local E-Bike manufacturing. Several European countries have E-Bike companies with domestic manufacturing. So it's possible to do in the west.
  - trasz 4y ago
    It never ceases to amaze me how Americans claim China has no human rights, but at the same time claim US - the country with worlds highest incarceration ratio, where police can kill random people with impunity, where convicted child rapists can easily avoid prison if they are wealthy enough) is somehow better. (Fun fact: apparently the American condition doesn’t even mention human rights.)
    - feet 4y ago
- llampx 4y ago
  Are electric car subsidies based on them being manufactured from the ground up in the US?
- feet 4y ago
  That's just not true at all. There are a bunch of high quality European brands that use European parts
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Well then give a 70% rebate on bikes that are wholly produced locally and 50% on ones designed and assembled locally. Just whatever you do, don't give it to the ones pulling all the proprietary and drm bullshit.
dzhiurgis 4y ago
A car can drive 5 people and overall kinda has more utility. The criminal part is lack of bike paths.
- dagurp 4y ago
  More electric bikes (should) mean more bike infrastructure and that will increase a bikes utility. Just like more electric cars mean more chargers. Induced demand works for allt types of transport.
- kevincox 4y ago
  Or you could buy 5 ebikes for the same price which could drive 5 people. Bikes are also far more efficient with road space, especially since cars usually only have 1 person. Sure, a lot of the US lives in car-dependent neighborhoods but ebikes are a nice way to slowly grow out of that and they are excellent in places that aren't car dependent.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  A bakfiets can hold three to five kids, is far easier to park if even the barest effort has been made to accomodate non-car transport, can be taken on a train outside of peak hours, holds as much as a hatchback, and doesn't take away two apartments worth of habitable space and a quarter of an adult's income in infrastructure and healthcare costs from your city.
  - dzhiurgis 4y ago
    > bakfiets Some electric ones I've seen cost as much as a used Nissan Leaf. Don't get me wrong, I loved cycling in Netherlands, but bikes wont work unless there's also great options for public transport. I can't imagine taking 30 mile rides in this from suburbs in Los Angeles or going up mountains at -20C...
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      That doesn't make it impractical. It makes it appropriate to certain use cases. A ford ranger is completely impractical in an italian inner city historic area where it doesn't fit in any of the streets. A nissan leaf is equally impractical deep in the canadian north where it can't make it to the next charging station during winter, let alone your destination. Trains are impractical when there are only five people within 20km of any proposed station site. Large cars are wildly impractical in dense cities in temperate or warmer environments (where over half the world's population lives). Even if you try to forcefully change the city to make them viable at massive expense to car owners and non-drivers alike it just results in the downsides being diffuse. In a context where you're trying to get a large number of people in the same place, arranging things so you have to travel 5x as far at 35km/h (traffic rarely moves faster than this on average during peak times) so you can bring a 2t hunk of metal and plastic with you that not only gets you to your destination slower than a brisk walk would if you hadn't - it also makes everyone sick via pollution (even electric cars cause massive air pollution issues due to particles -- a tesla actually causes more pm2.5 emissions than a euro6 hatchback) and diabetes; makes large tracts of the city uninhabitable due to proximity to loud, dangerous machines, wastes about half of the available space in parking, setbacks, roads, and so on; and reduces the maximum density due to congestion. This doesn't make a bike or a car impractical. It makes the bike an absolute no brainer for 70% of the trips of half the world's population (given sane infrastructure) and an option to add to a healthy mix for 95% of the rest. Trains are just as important, and cars should be optional everywhere (even if living without owning one is impractical for 20% of the population)
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Yet the simpler option of taxing carbon fuels appropriately is also attacked for being unfair to the poor (which it isn't, and if it was could be fixed easily). Americans seem to prefer complaining about their government to actually having competent government.

kedikedi 4y ago

I just got mine about a week ago and I’m totally in love with it. So far I can see that the bike can replace the car for most of the time (exceptions are bad weather and when I need to carry things) and my bike route is definitely more interesting than my car route. The only problem I see is that bikes are also very easy to be stolen and the police here (Finland) doesn’t seem to do much about it.

kmlx 4y ago
> The only problem I see is that bikes are also very easy to be stolen and the police here (Finland) doesn’t seem to do much about it. i solved this by getting insurance. when mine was stolen police told me they never find them except when they find a huge number of stolen bikes all at the same place and time (eg a warehouse, a garage etc)
- exodust 4y ago
  Also a good D-lock with 18mm steel will help. Because e-bikes can carry more weight, a heavier lock is not a burden to carry around. Bolt cutters won't work on 18mm of steel, and a portable grinder will take too long.
  - kmlx 4y ago
    > Also a good D-lock with 18mm steel will help. this didn't help me. they cut through that easily.
  - kedikedi 4y ago
    True, bolt cutters are useless on a thick u-lock but I am not sure about the cutting disc taking too long. I’ll try to find some* 18mm steel and try to cut it with my 18V grinder. I’ll comment the result here :) *it may be a different grade steel than a lock steel
    - kedikedi 4y ago
      Experiment results: my grinder was able to cut 18mm steel rod in about 20 seconds. For completeness sake, I used a machinable steel rod, turned to 18mm. For cutting I used a Makita 18V grinder with a 125mm disc (I had a partially used disc. A full disc would cut it faster) and with a full battery (it cuts slightly slower as battery runs out).

exodust 4y ago

Interesting picture at end of article showing woman carrying e-bike up the steps: https://electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2022/01/soltera_ls_3.jpeg https://electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2022/01/solte... The bike would weigh about 20kg. She's carrying it on her shoulder like it's nothing. E-bikes are awesome, but not easily carried on shoulder. The speed limiter is another annoyance, to comply with laws the assistance cuts out at 25kph or similar. On straight paths 25 feels sluggish on a big sturdy ebike, so there's incentive for rider to fix and circumvent or bump the limit by 10 or so.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
Then we need to have and enforce the power limits at sale more effectively and test to the real power limit rather than using a protocol designed to test a lower bound. If we allow manufacturers to design them with a 1000W motor 'limited' to 750W and with suspension for for 50km/h then hand them over to customers with a wink, then that's what they'll do. If we then cave to their lobbying that it can only be solved by locking down the controller and preventing modification, they'll do that too. Enforce making the motor and frame smaller and lighter until 25km/h feels right. Sure, some people will DIY a higher power motor, but it will be so few it does not matter if all the bikes for sale on the shop floor or larger online sellers are truly 250W with a peak torque at under 20km/h in top gear. 25-32kph is the ideal status quo speed for human piloted transport. Faster than traffic can flow in medium to high density areas, but slow enough that it is hard to kill yourself and everyone has plenty of time to react at conflict points without burdensome traffic control measures. Pushing for faster ebikes just turns what little dedicated infrastructure there is into mini stroads and we're back to the same idiotic arms race that got us here in the first place.
- exodust 4y ago
  In Australia the motor cuts out at 25 km/h. This is too slow. The motor cuts in and out frequently and the bike feels "off". So I paid a guy to halve the speed that is reported to the controller. This is the best way to modify the bike, as it can be easily reversed. No hardware change needed, and no trace of tampering. I couldn't do it myself. A guy with special bluetooth device and software connected to my bike made the change. Bike is now good. Motor no longer cuts out at 25 km/h. I almost never ride above 35 km/h anyway, and often use the lowest power setting. If they had made the limit 32 km/h, I probably would never have bothered hacking the firmware.