E-bike companies are fighting to stop riders from repairing their electric bikes
electrek.co
electrek.co
Fuck. You. You don't deserve to be operating in this space if you don't understand the consumer you're targeting.
And damn near every silly-con valley company engages in one or more of those. And I hope they die eating their own crap they put out.
I support the 4, not 3 R's: Reduce, Reuse, REPAIR, Recycle. And enshittification is completely opposite of reversing pollution and climate devastation, by forced generation of more enshittified trash :(
>save the planet
Choose one. Or choose neither if you don't choose.
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice"
Of course, logically speaking, if you don't have a planet any more then your growth would stop or possibly even reverse, but that's just me thinking out loud, what do I know?
All that the chinese ebike companies said is that users shouldn't try to repair a bad battery. The article says every other bike repair they are fine with.
Yup, but more than that.
Those suits are deliberately MIS-understanding the bicycle market, and working to enshittify it for their own profit. And NO, it is not a liability issue — legal departments are extremely well-practiced at forcing strongly worded warnings to be stuck on products. "Break this seal, warranty is void, fire and death may result; you're on your ow, do not charge indoors" etc., etc., etc...
Fuck. Them. Indeed.
Do not buy or recommend locked-down crap. If it requires a connection (optional extra services are fine), or has any DRM nonsense, BOYCOTT IT, hard.
It just is not that hard to build your own if you have any technological skill or interest at all, and there's plenty of help.
Not only bikes, either. Cars, computers, phones, anything that I paid money for I now own and will do as I please with it. If I wanna repair it because it's broken and I happen to have to tools and / or knowledge, or improve it simply because I can, or freakin' break it just because I felt like it that's entirely my prerogative. Once it's mine ... it's mine, end of story.
It drills down to the key challenge in the e-bike space right now, which is that effectively no-one (not even the manufacturers) does battery repair. There is no equivalent tooling, parts or manual for bike manufacturer's to provide, because the current approach is just to chuck (recycle) problem batteries.
Certainly we should be consider the safety implications, but we should probably also consider that e-bike batteries not being covered under right to repair laws will not stop people from tinkering with them - we know that because being exempted from right to repair laws represents the status quo. And the less documentation and tooling provided, the more likely that tinkering will be risky.
There's an additional part which is crucial: No DRM-crap (secret APIs, cryptographic handshakes) preventing other companies from selling safe replacements for the original Sealed Danger Boxes.
The price winners will be deadly unsafe replacements, and I can 100% see why you wouldn't want to open yourself to that kind of liability. It only does so much good to find out in court that a random no-name battery caused a fire after your brand gets dragged through the mud for burning down someone's house (and you can't bring their house back either)
There are already epidemics of battery fires in major cities of shoddy no-name bikes because of batteries specifically, there's no way those companies should be allowed to infect the market outside of their own bikes too.
I'd test that idea by checking if it fits broadly across other industries and products. For example, do you feel the same way about brakes in cars and power-supply units in computers?
Would you accept a company like Ford or Lenovo using the "our branding is more important than your property" logic when forcing you to buy parts from themselves and literally nobody else, no matter how well-regarded the third-party parts are?
The problem is, we have reasonably tight control on a lot of other safety-critical supply chains where the only way to get cheaper is to be straight up unsafe. That's why your brake pads don't need DRM.
But the horse is out of the barn on batteries. For a myriad of reasons, lithium ion batteries just somehow flew under the radar long enough that now literal boatloads of fire hazards are landing daily and no one has been able to stem the problem.
Thermal sensors can only do so much for a bad battery design if they're on the bike rather than the battery, this isn't an engineering problem, but the closest thing to an engineering solution is to completely disincentivize 3rd parties from making batteries over a certain size as far as your own product goes.
What I mean is that with a rigorous check any battery no having a CE mark (here in Europe) or other type of certification then it can’t be imported. I believe there is a world where reputable battery brands make all sort of battery for Ebikes, vacuum cleaners etc that fit the device and have an appropriate mark. No need to have a price tag like the bike manufacturer just a plain good battery maker.
My understanding of Right to Repair is that it would give anyone access to the same tools and parts as authorized repair centers to replace the packs/modules. That wouldn't change the risk of using a deficient third-party replacement part (which is the culprit the article suspects) or converting an authorized part to your own unverified design ("tinkering").
What special tools, skills, and experience is required to unscrew a battery pack?
How is this a legit strategy, to artificially make a product difficult to repair then claim it needs to be excluded from the law? Didn’t right to repair gain traction from exactly this type of garbage? Ie John Deere, phones with heavily glued batteries that then show fake warnings in the OS etc.
An e-bike fire is no joke. If you don't know what you're doing, you can easily turn a li-ion pack into an incendiary device. Aside from the safety issues, there's a huge reputational issue for the industry. I don't like the idea of restricting the right to repair, but I really don't like the idea of sharing an apartment building with some guy who replaced the cells in his e-bike battery pack because he watched a YouTube video and figured that it can't be that difficult.
It’s generally bad policy to leave it up to landlords on whether or not something should done or banned for safety reasons. Their default mode is to do nothing.
When I need to replace the battery in my car, I don’t open up the battery to replace the plates and acid. I buy a new battery (from a brand and store of my choosing) and recycle the old one.
Why are ebikes different? Why are people having to replace the cells in the pack? Because the manufacturer has made it impossible to get a aftermarket replacement battery pack.
So I’m saying the solution is for manufacturers to build their products in a way that makes it easy and safe to replace the battery (without lockin), instead of intentionally building products that are difficult/unsafe to repair and using that to claim the product needs to be excluded from right to repair.
That vendor lockin and difficult-to-replace parts were a significant driving force behind right to repair, yet ebike manufacturers have successfully used artificial difficulty as a reason to exclude their products from the law.
do you have some references? I would love a little hub motor for the hills.
If it's not, then I agree that the proprietary shit has to go.
Quite often it also needs an activation code or the BMS will kill output on a draw >5-10A after a few seconds
BMW have been doing this for over 20 years.
Many of the things we teach people in primary school really only serves the purpose of making them familar with the subject so that they can be more savvy consumers of expert help in the future. The loss of exposure to things like shop class seems to be resulting in waves of people that think it's okay to outlaw repair because they don't understand it themselves.
The argument about danger always falls short. Not having repair manuals and software available affects skilled repair technicians too, and if you provide them then skilled technicians can perform repairs just as well as the manufacturer can. Manufacturers don't have a monopoly on technical skill.
Industry lobbyists taking naming tips from the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea.
I wonder why there is no push to build the lythion AA/AAA equivalent. The cells are already quite standardized, so we need to bundle a few of them in a plastic container, with some support electronics. Some standard form factors for small and big devices should do. I'd love for my UPS and my bike to have the same batteries.
This seems a standard EU workbook: Give the industry 2 years to come up with something, with the threat of eurocrats dictating a standard if they fail.
Many battery packs (power tolls, Tesla, and more) are just a bunch of cells ganged together with a battery management controller inside a plastic shell.
The problem lies in the connectors/controllers being proprietary.
At that point, these problems go away. The bike companies are worried about getting blamed for apartment fires where innocent kids die. It's a valid concern; ignoring it means you aren't going to win this fight.
Of course regular E-bikes need a battery with a slick form factor, but a longtail or a bakfiets could fit a big rectangular box somewhere in the cargo space. Are there electrical engineering reasons why I've never seen this done?
The water resistant ratings are not up to the challenge of "car replacement" or even letting your ebike get rained on. Their ip rating is for puddles, light rain, a quick fast pour every now and then. The display on the handlebars has such an IP rating and really Doesnt belong on the handlebars as-is. Also, there is no point: the display can be put in a triangle bag where it is protected from elements Aand not a distaction. No important info is really shown on the display, except maybe battery.
The protocol for water ingress is gaskets and seals which fail and heavy grease that sticks. Instead, ebikes need oil fill ports and thinner lube. I use a rear hub ebike (because i can have a nice crank, pedal at my cadence, far more repairable) and i drilled a hole in the shell to allow sewing machine oil and wd40 to be added without disassembly. This takes water out, cleans the insides and also can fling oil everywhere because i never tapped and plugged the hole but whatever. The electric hub holds sufficent oil, no need to plug really.
The spokes NEED to be tensioned right. Loose and too tight apokes brake fast. You need to be able to true your wheels, your bike weighs more and will need the extra attention at least initally. The readybuilt ebike wheels(you know, with the motor in the hub) have sticky nipples and need TLC/lube when first unboxed so they dont stick and become useless(your wheel would be broke if so).
disc brakes suck. Like 90% of disc brake users just got roped into a heavier braking system which they dont need. I stop on appalacian hills hauling my 3 year old with rim brakes, and they help keep my bike light. Kool Stop braking pads are not a "poisoned offering" but standard brake pads on new Cannondale, trek, etc WILL deatroy your rim multipules of times faster than Kool Stop pads. Blame money.
About the batteries: dont use a battery that is safe up to 18amps of discharge on a 21amp motor controller, you will shorten your battery life or catch fire. Li-ion batteries should never be purchased from someone advertiseing incorrect mah or s-p(ex. 12s3p) specifications,, like on ebay, because its like the seller is saying, "you accept being lied to and not knowing what you are purchasing"
LiFe batteries are more heavy but last longer and can discharge well.
If you live in a hilly area, you pull a trailer, are older then a ebike is a decent idea. It is better to be a fast cyclist and a good bicycle handler than just have a good ebike because the motors often give you 500-1000watts of power and if you can generate 500-800 watts yourself then you have quick transport. Its in bad taste to only use the motor.
Go with a 160-165mm crank so you are less likely to hurt knees from jerky/tourqey efforts, they also spin faster cademces which is better because ecyclists pedal slower than non ebike
When something breaks on your bike replace it with something more resiliant, otherwise keep the lowcost parts because cheap stems, brake bosses, seatposts even are worth keeping provided they work for you.
No, disc brakes are a godsend. They don't touch your rims at all, and they actually work in rain, mud, etc.
>The water resistant ratings are not up to the challenge of "car replacement" or even letting your ebike get rained on. Their ip rating is for puddles, light rain, a quick fast pour every now and then.
All the ebikes where I live work just fine in the rain, and with being left outside during typhoons.