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Comment by tpm | Hacker News Reader

> You should be able to use motors, batteries and contollers from any brand interchangeably on your bike.

There is no way this (one standard for everything) will happen, because it doesn't work like this either in the car industry or in the bike industry. That said, the number of standards in bike industry is somehow manageable I think, and for some bike types (like road bikes) you can build a completely standard bike with every component easily interchangeable. However this is not the case for the motors and batteries. The price of the components is a different issue still.

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> because it doesn't work like this either in the car industry or in the bike industry

This is... not entirely true, there's heaps of standardized components in both industries. Think batteries, brake pads / brakes, springs, all the nuts and bolts, the OBD port, tires/wheels, airbags / seatbelts, and on the bike side, think cables, saddles (saddle pins), tires/wheels again, gears, pedals, etc etc.

While you probably can't fully repair one car with the other, there's plenty that has been standardized by the industry and legislation.

Yeah but there are several standards for each component. Like for bikes (which I understand more) there are the 622mm wheels (700c - 28" but also 29" which is confusingly the same rim diameter but wider rim), 635mm wheels, and then 26", 27.5", 24", 20" and some smaller ones. Not sure what size wheels are used on fat bikes... And then you have QR axles and thru-axles in 100mm, 130mm, 135mm, 142mm and 148mm sizes and some other and usually 15mm or 12mm diameters (except the QRs that are 5 or 9mm). Equipped with either rim or disc brakes, for each brake type the rear (and sometimes front too) axle size will probably be different. Then the rear wheel has a freewheel on which the cassette is fastened unless you use a internal gear hub (like Rohloff).. so the freewheel is one of I think 2-3 different Sram types, 2-3 Shimano ones, 1-2 Campagnolo and maybe some other. And so on. So there are certainly standards. Lots of them.

Many standards would be fine (and to be clear, very much needed). They just would need to be open so that a third party manufacturer can build a motor or a battery that they can just plug in to the system.

Yes that would be great, but instead what is happenning is that with each new electronic component the system is closed down further. With the increasing popularity of wireless shifting (Di2/eTap) and e-bikes this will only get worse I'm afraid. I don't even know if we can realistically hope for some sensible regulation.

Wheel and bottom-bracket mount mid drive motors are quite standard.

Companies like Bafang and Tongsheng (not just these) sell motors that can go on any normal frame or in any normal (sufficiently strong) wheel and are compatible with standard drivetrain components. They accept and 36V or 48V (or anything 24-56V with some software tweaking and possibly lower power) power source.

It is not too late to have standards here, we just have to stop buying the shimano, bosch and yamaha nonsense (even if they are technically a little better right now).

We don't need every part to work in every bike, but we do need a few parts like the small-block Chevy V8: reliable, well-built, and reasonably easy to kludge into just about any donor vehicle.

Are Bafang kits still a good deal for bike conversions?

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