It's really life changing. I used to ride a motorcycle, and I still own one, but I seldom use it anymore; the ebike is absolutely perfect for short commutes (under 20 km each way).
That said, complete ebikes are more available now, and at good prices, so conversion kits are becoming less relevant.
Depending where you live, how much paperwork you can cope with and how much you earn, the government will give you up to 50% of the purchase price back.
Most of the cost of a used car comes after you purchase it, though : )
Very true! French cars are certainly no exception to that rule :-)
This. I gave up after reading the list of documents I would have to produce.
It varies by metropole. Here in Nice it seems straightforward.
Besides people always get suckered into getting way nicer/newer cars than they really need (myself included). Financing is a difficult thing to keep at the low end. So in practice it’s not really comparable. But cars obviously have plenty of other benefits.
So do high-end non-e bikes.
You can get cheaper and way more expensive but I think this is the sweet spot. (For comparison My non ebike is a hybrid commuter which was about 600)
The ones I like are $2000 to $12,000.
I'm waiting for a Henry Ford type of guy to bring those costs down. I guess the lithium batteries are a big factor in costs?
In the mean time, I'm sticking with my old Zapp bikes. I need a battery though.
There is SO LITTLE material overall in a bike, with 99% of the tech having changed little since the '70s, so I guess it's not patents or IP either. It's not the wheels, I can buy replacements for little. It's not the shifting system, a crappy one is 100 EUR and a decent (low-end) Shimano is under 200. It's not the chain, those are 10 bucks, maybe 25 for the higher strength ones appropriate for an e-bike. It's not the motor, as I can get a conversion kit off ebay for 150-200, which includes a wheel and electronics.
Yet, 25kg of ebike costs 12% of 1000kg of a low end city car, while using 40 times less material and not having to undergo all the same rigorous testing, homologation and what else.
What am I missing? Is it all in the frame? Is it all profit? Am I looking at this from a completely wrong perspective ?
Also there's been a lot of consolidation, and there aren't many big bike manufacturing companies, so some illegal collusion is not out of the question.
If you look at bicycle parts then it seems like half the parts get updated once or twice a decade. Yet the old stuff was mostly fine.
You can already see a litany of comments expressing support for regulating ebikes so they remain a novelty niche in this very thread.
The e-bike has maintenance costs close to 0.
Cars need insurance and fuel at the very minimum.
Not perfectly true. You have to renew brake pads, tires, chain and cassette at regular intervals if you ride a lot. They cost way way less than car maintenance though.
Anyway, the cost of ebikes has gone down a lot over the years, especially as more and more competition shows up and production of various parts (batteries, motors, control units) has scaled up. I just had a quick boggle, ebikes start at around €1200 at the moment (cheaper too, but those are folding bikes).
He got the better part of that deal. (You have to put a price down on the title when you sell. In this case it was technically $1...)
Most of us really wouldn’t mind if people who needed a little extra help (older people, injured people, people new to the sport) were riding bikes that provided a small assist to help out with the hills. It’s actually great to see older people being able to ride again with some help from a motor, for example.
But instead, we’re seeing a lot of e-bike builders abusing the concept to hack or build bikes that are basically electric motorcycles. It gets old fast when your local mountain bike trail is now crowded with kids motoring up the mountain on their modified e-bikes without even pretending to pedal. It’s even worse when they end up deep into trails they’re not qualified to ride with a dead battery and no natural ability to pedal back out.
The end result has been a blanket ban on e-bikes on most trails and a lot of animosity toward e-bikes. I wish there was a better compromise, but after watching all of the dumb outcomes play out on my local trails from a small handful of people abusing the concept, I understand why it had come to this.
I am pretty sure this is not currently true on almost all US National Forest land. Anything with a motor qualifies as for motor vehicle there and you will only be allowed on trails marked for motorized use on the MVUM maps. This includes mobility devices
Occasionally there will be someone waiting at the trailhead writing tickets to people who come off the trail with an e-bike or an off-leash dog. This seems to work as word spreads through Facebook groups and people stay away. Also generates some decent revenue when someone can write tickets for an hour and hand out a couple thousand dollars in fines for blatant violations (they stand right next to the very clear signage at the trailhead)
And the great bit is that if you are ignorant of these laws and get caught on an electric bike doing higher speeds then you get a penalty as if you are riding a motorbike without insurance or a license - aka penalty points on your regular driving license, plus all the other court shenanigans.
When I think electric motorcycle, I think of something that does not have pedals at all.
The US "class" system seems useful, inasmuch as it more or less specifies the capability of the bike with and without pedaling. I'm all for adding a new transportation / recreation option, and have adopted a wait-and-see attitude for how the technology and its use will evolve. So far, e-bikes have not affected my use of a conventional bike, except for people asking me when I'm going to get an e-bike.
The only next thing we saw was the Honda Spree, which as I recall had an electric starter and whatever qualified as an "automatic transmission," and I think that class of scooter is still more or less the standard today. It seemed like a big step forward in terms of ease of use.
As an example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puch_Maxi
A used bike might fit your bill. Or the DIY route. The friction motor might be a bit iffy, but you might be able to buy an electric front or rear wheel for not too much and use the same electronics.
The Grin Technologies motor simulator https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html predicts (the "Load Line") 837 Watts for "MTB upright", 648W for "MTB, Tuck" and 570W for "Road, Tuck".
I do find that in an upright position it takes 100-200W of human power in addition to 750W power measured at the input to the motor controller. The controller's pretty efficient, but the motor (GMAC) is only 85% max, so there's maybe 570W at the axle. The US CPSC and California laws aren't clear whether the 750W/1 horsepower limit is power in or power out, but power in is what shows on the display, so I limit it to that. Also, even a mild grade will cause the motor to approach the 70 deg C limit I chose after 1 minute. I live in the flattish Santa Clara County, but I'd definitely want a mid-drive if I lived in a hilly area. A 250 or 350W Riese & Müller Delite https://www.r-m.de/en-us/bikes/delite/ I test rode needed a lot of human power to hit the 45 kph max, but it climbed hills in Larkspur like a goat.
750W will have no problem getting a recumbent bike to 30MPH, but don't count on it for an upright.
Downhill mountainbikes are popular conversions. They are designed with high speeds and impacts in mind. The cost may be prohibitive to many DIYers though.
For high speed (50km/h), adequate tires are also necessary. E50 rated tires are now widely available that can handle the speeds and loads.
You're much more likely to target a "trail" full suspension mountain bike or fixed tail bike. You'll have a lot more cost options and they're more suitable for a commuting purpose, they'd still have plenty of travel and braking compared to a standard commuter or utility E-bike. As a note, my mid-level trail bike came with a better set of brakes then my high end cargo hauler e-bike which weighed about 10 times as much.
Long seatposts that bring you up to a typical height are fine. The suspension is doing the work, no need to leave the saddle.
I wouldn't recommend converting a road bike as they are more fragile.
I’d guess e-scooter/moped is next best thing tho parking is an issue in some places.
A "cheap" bike is just a rigid frame with rigid forks.
My assumption is that people buy them since they are a touch more comfortable than a full rigid bike frame.
A fat tire can stand in for a shock, but "cheap" bikes don't usually fit 3" of rubber either.
[1] https://elettrica-bike.it/en/product/fat-bike-vulcano-s-tipe...
I don’t see any ebikes being sold without at least a 50mm front shock. The added weight of the battery+motor makes it essential
Ahhhh I think I understand - it's a "speedbike" right? So only for driving on roads like a car, so there's no question of forest tracks or gravel walkways.
Yep, they're both commuter/cruiser type bikes, so probably not best offroad.
Both have the top end Bosch Class 3 motor, so they're usually against the rules on trails in my area.
If you ride it like a bicycle and try to avoid potholes and curbs, simpler designs work great.
For example, a 2021 Chevy Surburban is a HUGE SUV, but does 70mph-0 in 166 feet. Better than a 1999 Camaro Z28 or Mustang GT, at 184 and 182 feet, respectively.
In the 2000s one of the car magazines tested top trim (big engine, race package, etc) classic muscle cars on modern tires and they put down respectable numbers, not better than 00s cars, but respectable.
Suspension and chassis stuff hasn't come all that far since the 90s so high end cars of that era should be able to handle very respectably compared to modern stuff. The differences are more apparent at the low end. Modern crossovers handle very respectably for what they are.
Obviously modern stuff will always win in a straight line because power levels increased massively over the past 20yr.
The article with the Suburban data: https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a35048882/tahoe-yukon-...
Mustang and Camaro:
https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/comparison-test/a151408...
You have to go back to the days of drum brakes and no power assist for this to even be close to true. Yet it gets tossed around in every comment thread about modifying anything that rolls because it gets easy virtue points from the safety crowd.
OE brakes on damn near every vehicle made in the last 50yr from a Walmart bike up to a semi truck are more than capable of stopping harder than even nice tires can grip the road. Will you go through more consumables if you use the vehicle harder (enabled by having more power on tap) sure? You'll also go through more tires too. That doesn't mean the brakes are insufficient.
You can shift towards the back of the bike with your body for instance.
Like the body of a larger person or a person wearing a backpack?
On the down tube is better. Carrying the batteries in a back pack can be done. I did that for a few months.
Get an electric moped/scooter/motorcycle if you want to ride faster than you can pedal.
There are kits available to convert a low performance e-bike into a high performance one, which runs much faster and needs a registration and a number plate.
But cause an accident, which doesn't even needs to be your own fault with such a revamped bike and your insurance will tell you that you're shit out of luck and you will have to pay for the whole damage. Potentially ruining your life.
(It's worth mentioning that the other main reason you don't see regen used much on bikes is that freewheel systems allow the use of gearing, which greatly improves starting torque, which really is what matters for ebiking comfort. Direct drive systems are less efficient, so they are already starting from behind the curve with regards to making regen worthwhile.)
I was thinking, the one in the linked article uses friction against the back wheel. What happens the moment you get a good chunk of debris in there? It could get painful very quickly.
I don't know how important some of these improvements are, I just remember reading this advice more than once, and safety is important. So be smart and do your research.