What If Apple Made an E-Bike?
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
The way most people use E-Bikes is as an unlicensed motorbike. Every city is full of food gig-workers who need a super cheap motorbike they can ride on the pavement. That's what they are for.
If Apple made an e-bike, they'd have to follow regulations. Most people don't want a legal e-bike. They want a motorbike they don't have to insure for a very low cost. They want to go at 20 miles an hour without pedaling.
Apple can't make an e-bike, just like they can't run a pirate movie website.
Not just food delivery, but even allegedly recreational users abuse them. In the urban area where I live there is a network of paved trails that are well-used by walkers, runners, and cyclists (dozens of paved miles with some bridges or underpasses to ease crossing major streets). Even though motorized vehicles are prohibited, I'm told by the former director of the regional park district that e-bike users are able to flaunt the law because of ADA (disabled) access rules, apparently they can pretend their e-bike is just like a motorized wheelchair or scooter for a disabled person.
They often zip by pedestrians from behind, squeezing through two-way traffic, never ringing a bell when passing, at relatively high speeds. I strongly believe they should have to display a license plate and be insured, and wear a helmet too. I've also considered how I might be able to carry some kind of stick or rod projecting out to my left as I walk on the right, so that they have to give me a few feet of clearance to avoid hitting it.
Bells are a problem because they make passing less safe at closing speeds over 2mph as people tend to react very unpredictably. When used at 0 closing speed people often interpret them as aggressive. I find the safest passing strategy on mixed paths is usually to slow to walking speed with 3m clearance until there is a grassy area or wide driveway/road/similar to pass with a wide berth, and to use the freewheel to make a bit of noise so it's not a surprise.
I think the solution (in addition to reducing the number of overpowered and fast vehicles) is probably a PR campaign of some kind to encourage some kind of predictable behavior (one ring means 'please do not move I am passing owly with 2ft of clearance' or similar)
> I strongly believe they should have to display a license plate and be insured, and wear a helmet too
That's just conceding that shared paths and bike paths should be more like roads, and then punishing the few people doing the right thing.
Actually enforce the laws that already exist, and if that's not enough make ebikes more like bikes (smaller, lighter, slower). I'm here for more LEVs (whether number plated or not), but they're not bikes, they do not belong on pedestrian paths, and adding pedals to one doesn't make it a bike.
200W or 250W power limits (as the real upper limit, not the horribly flawed test process euro standard bikes use that makes it more of a lower limit) and 15mph motor-speed limitations based on real physical design instead of software. If that's not enough, reduce the power further or make it scale down with speeds above 5mph.
For example, there is a sort of 1 way system around Liverpool Street Station, and a motorbike will sit in the permeant traffic jam just like a car, spending 10 minutes crawling around it. A cyclist, or an e-bikist, will cut through the market square outside Spitalfields market to the other side. Google maps will tell them to do it. That is not a legal cycle path.
You will do a lot of stuff on an e-bike that you wouldn't feel right doing on a motorbike.
My point though wasn't really about the legalities of cycling - this is a business and technology site. It was about the disadvantage very large companies have because they need to follow the law very carefully. Probably should have written that.
To me "pavement" would be anything that's paved. I took it to mean streets because of the context of gig workers.
Many things are illegal, yet still available for sale. Just look at the whole "performance parts" market which bypass EPA regulations as a small example.
Or... if you want another example the Reliant Robin.. Designed to get around license/insurance requirements. A car which you only needed a motorcycle license to drive?
So it'll be price-competitive, you think? Because the e-bike I'm riding cost $3K EUR, and that's before inflation decided to take a run for the double-digits.
Frankly, this is something right up there with "Apple is going to make a car", "Apple is going to make a TV", only this author at least admits it's only a "what if?". I can't picture Apple ever doing this. OTOH, 20 years ago I wouldn't have guessed they'd make a music player, either.
Then they'll release a pro version that's 150% the price. The bike frame will be 8mm in diameter. Who asked for that? Everybody, after that.
Those are rookie numbers. One the bougie bikes scale that's like a second hand non-electric pino.
Gotta pump those numbers up.
It isn't just this e-bike fanfic, in years past, there have also been highly popular articles exhorting Apple to make a better TV, or even an electric car.
Why? Apple has never made built anything more ambitious than...a phone. And once it succeeded there, it went on to turn the phone into a walled-off services platform. Apple today isn't a gadget company so much as another boring SaaS vendor.
Apple Park is more ambitious than iPhone. They should have a subscription service for building corporate headquarters and corner that lucrative market. "Welcome to iHQ."