> If they can’t find it you get a new one.
Can't figure out why they weren't profitable.
Their prices for that trace-or-replace service were quite a bit higher than what my insurance agency charges me for my theft insurance. That operation may have lost money, but that's not obvious.
I share your worries about the trace-or-replace service. Specifically about the "trace" part of trace-or-replace. Ok, the program is excellent promotion, and did put them on the map. But, tracing stops making economic sense very quickly: Bills rack-up very rapidly when you send a couple of your people in a multi-day hunt in an unknown location.
That said, it is a shame that you can’t have specialised bicycle service shops in the centre of London. VanMoof offered a pretty good bespoke experience and my X2 has had a few issues but it’s going quite well four years in. What goes up quickly comes down quickly, I suppose.
They have some fine features that IMO justify their prices, but I'm guessing that I'm an outlier wrt judging bike values and my neighbour more mainstream, so I called them expensive.
I mean, you can get a regular bike for €300, €700 if you want to splurge. But of course, the downside of that would be that you'd get more exercise.
If exercise was the primary focus alongside a commuter, then getting a non-electric bike would be likely the focus.
Source: I just bought a bicycle and went through months of asking colleagues and friends their opinions on e-bikes. I ended up with a bike cause I’m not planning to commute
And what you would have is an expensive bike. $2k is an expensive bike.
The fact the market offers a $3,000,000 car doesn't mean a $100,000 car isn't an expensive car.
We can stop going in circles. You think it's expensive, but it's not an order of magnitude more expensive, like your example cites. Others don't think it's that expensive, and I agree with them. Researching e-bikes 1-2k seems like market price, and they were within that range.
Otherwise 500-700 is the low end for quality bikes.
45 minutes of cycling on an electric bike was still plenty of exercise, and if I hadn't done that, I would've probably taken a train.
But when I choose too I can lower the assist level, pedal hard, and/or go faster and longer.
Best of both worlds. But I have a European ebike with torque sensing, not the glorified escooters with pedals where the motor is either full torque or no torque: I still have to pedal to make the bike move.
Eg. if your through axle breaks, good luck finding a store that stocks one in the correct length with the correct thread and the correct thread length, and even if you do, you'll probably end up paying 40€ for a small piece of metal.
The big exception right now are thru-axles, yes, but the vast majority of bikes don't use thru-axles (and there's no reason a vanmoof commuter bike would need to use those), they use quick release axles, and those are completely standard.
I've had very high end bikes where all but a couple components were standard, and those that weren't will probably become standard soon, too.
Another problem is that every manufacturer has their own standard, eg. Shimano has 24mm hollowtech bottom bracket axles, whereas SRAM has 30mm axles, and they come in a million different sizes (threaded BSA, threaded italian, 68mm wide or 73mm wide, press fit external or internal).
In any case, a bike shop will rarely have the part in stock, because there are so many of them.
Sometimes it's even worse, when a manufacturer just updates their "standard" every few years, eg. the Shimano i-Spec standard for mounting shifter levers has 4 incompatible variants.
ps. I also happen to own a Brompton, which is another strategy - fold your bike so you can take it with you anywhere. Even it was heavily overpriced (~900 GBP IIRC), and it has propietary parts so servicing is not easy. My excuse for buying it is that it paid back it's price in about a year of commuting (by not having to pay for public transport).
The actual cut off for the assistance is typically set to 27.5 km/h, because regulations allow for 10% of tolerance... Then, depending on transmission ratios, it can be quite comfortable to ride at ~30 km/h. The acceleration boost at lower speeds is still super useful.
Of course, VanMoof's and Cowboy's original spiel was that you could easily disable the limit in software.
There are eBikes costing 4000 euro.
My van moof was about 2800 because I bought the 2 packages taking care of theft and repairs. Because of their image I never have to lock the bike besides their amazing kick lock bike, so getting on and off the bike with locking and unlocking it is a matter of seconds.
This is not expensive at all.
*their image amongst bicycle thief’s makes the bike unattractive. They hunt down stolen bikes if you bought their theft service. If they can’t find it you get a new one.