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Comment by Gigachad | Hacker News Reader

IMO, the number one hurdle for ebikes is theft. The things cost a decent chunk of money and there is basically no way to secure them properly. I have owned an ebike and it's such a fun way to get around, but I quickly sold it because I was in constant fear of it being stolen. And shortly after, one of my cheap non ebikes was stolen while locked inside my apartments bike storage area.

I think electric scooters might have a bigger impact on transport as they are easier to store inside.

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> I have owned an ebike and it's such a fun way to get around, but I quickly sold it because I was in constant fear of it being stolen.

A foldable / small form factor bike seems like a good mitigation factor, and also helps when moving the bike around (e.g. on public transports).

With regular bikes it's way more of a tradeoff because the smaller wheels tend to lower top speed or increase effort a lot, but an ebike compensates for that.

The big issue is an SFF/foldable bike is way more expensive than a regular, and when you add ebike on top it gets into pretty ridiculous ranges.

A good U lock for quick stops, and storing in a secure area overnight and at work does a lot to prevent most theft.

Additionally, renters/homeowners insurance. Just make sure it covers ebikes (some do not, like Travelers). Policies usually cover theft away from home.

Foldable bikes to bring in your home are also a solution if you do not have a safe place to secure your bike overnight.

There is clearly a pain point in need of an innovative solution, might be a sizeable market.

HN will hate this but the solution is likely to serial number every part on the bike and software lock it down so if you take a battery or something from one bike, it becomes bricked when you stick it in another bike. This would get hard with non electronic parts like wheels though.

The frame already has a serial number on it and in most places you can file your bike's S/N with the local police department so that if you file a report and they find it they can look it up and reach out to you. This part is already done and works pretty well for recovery (not for reducing theft).

For e-bikes in particular the batteries have a lock, and the motor has DRMed firmware on most big name bikes. It hasn't helped theft, it's just annoying for the user. In general the thief can just grab the entire bike and throw it in a truck, then once they're offsite they have as much time as they want to rewrite the firmware or pick the lock so this doesn't really help.

That wouldn’t eliminate theft but it would only make it worse for the consumer.

you should see what's happening to rental ebikes and scooters in SF. I've got a giant pile of hub bldc motors and battery packs I've picked up off the street that the scrappers left. all of those had gps and were ostensibly only unlockable with the service.

I don't see any way the rental company is going to stop that. its certainly not like the police here are going to be anything but abusive if you called them about a bike or scooter that you left out for anyone to get at.

VanMoof has an insurance program with their own employees as bike hunters who will track down your stolen bike, and replace it if they can't find it: https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear/a35429606/stolen-bicycl...

Solution is to get rid of the traditional bike rack and have a proper indoor, locked area for bikes.

iPhones had a similar theft problem till they implemented decent anti-theft DRM. Now it's rare to see iPhones stolen.

Ebikes could do the same. It would be a shame for the 'hacker' crowd, but with locked down firmware and all parts cryptographically linked by serial number, there would be no valuable parts to strip from a stolen bike.

That's not true, because the bare battery cells are still valuable, and can be easily stripped from the battery module and sold separately. Also, the mechanical parts are difficult to secure with DRM.

VanMoof has some phone home anti theft as a service with integrated tracking. I guess e-bikes could use some kind if location tag embedded in a non removable part like the frame. Rental e scooters have anti theft feature that they sound an alarm and block the wheels if moved although it's useless unless it also phones home. I move them when people park them in our apartment building's courtyard which is private property and against the TOS.

iphone theft is still incredibly routine. The anti-theft features are not a sufficient deterrent

What is anti theft drm?

The ability to click "I lost my iPhone" and be confident that no thief can just erase the phone and use it himself.

It normally involves ensuring the device has secure boot, non-rollbackable firmware, tamper-resistant storage for a 'when I last talked to my server' timestamp, and network connectivity to be able to talk to a server to get the lock/unlock status.

So results in untamperable lockdown next time it connects to icloud?

It's more than that. To factory reset an iphone, you _must_ be able to log in via the current apple account. Regardless of whether the owner has marked it as lost or not. The lost mode simply allows you to remote wipe the phone to reduce the risk of hackers getting in somehow.

Pretty much, yeah.

It also forces the phone to not allow various offline use (like erasing it and setting up a new user)

Neat, thanks all.

Folding bike :)

An ebike costs usually less to replace as a car catalytic converter which are stolen more. I wonder if there will be similar solutions. Around my part of the world, bikes are usually insured against theft, for one.

But doesn't insurance usually pay for the catalytic converter?

As evidenced by the fact that ebikes are wildly popular in Japan where theft is minimal (most people have nothing more than a wheel lock)

Theft is a problem for all bikes, for sure, but my ebike[1] cost me less than many road bikes do. I live in Chicago so theft is definitely a concern, but the ebike has replaced roughly 80% of my public transportation trips since Covid came down.

[1] Propella 7S

you dont need to own an ebike. Bike sharing is already available in many cities and really awesome to use.

What if there isn’t one nearby?

Yeah, that's what I found to be the biggest problem for these citybikes (rental/bikeshare). If I need to be somewhere on time then I cannot rely on using one of those ebikes because there might not be any available.

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