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Do you deliver packages in a tropical climate? If the answer is no, maybe you have a different use case than the people in the article. Being able to make it

by luma 2y ago

Do you deliver packages in a tropical climate? If the answer is no, maybe you have a different use case than the people in the article. Being able to make it through the day might carry more significance for these users than being able to tear the thing down without any electrical knowledge. HN in a nutshell - you see an article full of first-hand reports of the users and their use case and your immediate reaction is that you know better about what they want and need than they do.

kibwen 2y ago
I ride an e-bike 30 miles a day. It's my main mode of transportation, as I don't own a car. Right now it's in the shop for repairs; I understand well the time cost and wallet cost of regular maintenance and am actively considering building my own bike to find a better solution. Please don't pretend that you know me.
numpad0 2y ago
Hot and humid is the worst for any machines. Which tropical climate is. It's also lowkey why Toyota ended up being ~the most reliable brand of cars.
- DanielHB 2y ago
  I can tell you for a fact that snow and salted streets is far, far worse for an e-bike (I assume cars/trucks too, but maybe not since the gears are more isolated from the street?). However these places are like that only for 2-4 months of the year. Compound that to e-bikes batteries usually (always?) don't have heating systems to keep them at >0 C, at least you can take them out of the bike when not in use though. Worse is there are some cities that have both, humid summers and salted streets in winter.
- devilbunny 2y ago
  You're right about hot and humid, but Bogota (which is where the story is set) is not hot. Highest temperature ever recorded was 30 Celsius and usual highs all year are about 20 C. Average altitude is 2600 m/8600 ft. It is humid, but that doesn't seem to translate into especially heavy rain - total precip is less than 900 mm/yr, or somewhere between Minneapolis and Chicago.
itishappy 2y ago
I think you're entirely misunderstanding the comment you're replying to here. Of course having a usable bike is critical, but the comment was about reparability and cost of ownership in the long term. A repair shop won't be able to help you fix a bike if there's no parts available. This has nothing to do with the users electrical knowledge.
- jjice 2y ago
  Agreed - maintainability directly contributes to whether or not something is "affordable" which is one of the center points of the article. Cheap and not repairable can quickly become expensive and wasteful.

by luma 2y ago

kibwen 2y ago

I ride an e-bike 30 miles a day. It's my main mode of transportation, as I don't own a car. Right now it's in the shop for repairs; I understand well the time cost and wallet cost of regular maintenance and am actively considering building my own bike to find a better solution. Please don't pretend that you know me.

numpad0 2y ago

Hot and humid is the worst for any machines. Which tropical climate is. It's also lowkey why Toyota ended up being ~the most reliable brand of cars.

DanielHB 2y ago
I can tell you for a fact that snow and salted streets is far, far worse for an e-bike (I assume cars/trucks too, but maybe not since the gears are more isolated from the street?). However these places are like that only for 2-4 months of the year. Compound that to e-bikes batteries usually (always?) don't have heating systems to keep them at >0 C, at least you can take them out of the bike when not in use though. Worse is there are some cities that have both, humid summers and salted streets in winter.
devilbunny 2y ago
You're right about hot and humid, but Bogota (which is where the story is set) is not hot. Highest temperature ever recorded was 30 Celsius and usual highs all year are about 20 C. Average altitude is 2600 m/8600 ft. It is humid, but that doesn't seem to translate into especially heavy rain - total precip is less than 900 mm/yr, or somewhere between Minneapolis and Chicago.

itishappy 2y ago

I think you're entirely misunderstanding the comment you're replying to here. Of course having a usable bike is critical, but the comment was about reparability and cost of ownership in the long term. A repair shop won't be able to help you fix a bike if there's no parts available. This has nothing to do with the users electrical knowledge.

jjice 2y ago
Agreed - maintainability directly contributes to whether or not something is "affordable" which is one of the center points of the article. Cheap and not repairable can quickly become expensive and wasteful.