E-bike industry blames consumers for fires to undermine right to repair laws | Hacker News Reader

E-bike industry blames consumers for fires to undermine right to repair laws

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196 pointsrntn224 comments

Here's my take: you don't really own something if you can't repair it. Manufacturers prefer you don't really own their products: they own it, they service it, you use it, and they charge you for the "experience." It's created a throwaway culture that's an environmental disaster. We need to figure out how to right this course.

My take: you don't really own something if you can't sell it. See: movies, ebooks, etc.

If you combine the two you get what rms has been preaching for a while about software. Turns out it can be applied to a lot Ig.

When people learned "recurring revenue" gets valued at, say, 10x revenue and "non-recurring revenue" gets valued at, say, 1x revenue, everyone decided to make their business look like it's recurring

If they don't, some PE will buy it and do it for them

I noticed that I've been experiencing a visceral backlash against this. There was a video talking about new woodworking products and almost every one had a recurring cost and they talked up how many patents they had. My first reaction was "I'm never buying this because I refuse to get locked into your ecosystem, and there'll be no supplier for these materials once you fold."

e.g. Magnetic hidden screws: https://gfycat.com/bonyinbornheifer

> Magnetic hidden screws

Whoa!

We need to change the tax law to charge property tax on rented software and other media products.

Realized this is a great PE thesis: buy companies that don't have a recurring narrative, but do have recurring revenue.

Example: insurance companies. Warren Buffet like 50 years ahead on this game I think. Fix narrative, sell company, repeat.

To be fair, how many companies has he (or Berkshire Hathaway) sold?

Well, they've made their "you don't own it" at least transparent by only ever selling you a license. This in itself is problematic-ish but still not as underhanded as physical products that you fully own.

They don't make it that transparent. They'll say "read the terms of service, you're only getting a license!" but UIs are plastered with the words "buy", "purchase", etc underneath the title of a movie just as they would be for a physical copy.

Ask anyone off the street what they're buying when they click that button and they'll say "a movie", not "a license to stream a digital copy of this movie for as long as they let me".

>but UIs are plastered with the words "buy", "purchase", etc underneath the title of a movie just as they would be for a physical copy.

1. This argument could have worked if digital stores were a new thing, but at this point everybody knows that when you "buy"/"purchase" something digitally, you're not afforded the same rights as buying a physical object. Therefore the argument that consumers are somehow being deceived doesn't really hold water.

2. What about other stuff you "buy" that you can't transfer? I'm pretty sure you can't transfer air fares or a costco membership, but I don't see people complaining that airlines or costco that they're somehow misleading consumers by their choice of verbs.

> but at this point everybody knows that when you "buy"/"purchase" something digitally, you're not afforded the same rights as buying a physical object.

I do not think that is the case. I do not believe that even a majority of people know that. I also think that it comes across as ignorant to generalize like this.

Everyone is distinct and like everything else, their knowledge will differ between them. If someone does not work in the tech industry, they most likely would not be aware of subtle differences in rules surrounding Intellectual Property especially as it intersects with digital vs physical goods. It simply does not matter to most people until it does.

Right to repair has become an issue, not because it is morally wrong or anything, but because farmers were seeing the difference not only in their bank accounts, but also in their crop yields because they were not able to simply repair a tractor and instead had to arrange for repairs which could include shipping the tractor somewhere which is expensive.

Similar issues have cropped up around not being able to have your car repaired unless you go to a specific repair shop and pay exorbitant prices for the repair.

Also, similar issues were cropping up around phone repairs specifically having the screen or battery replaced which are very common repairs.

None of these industries have tried to make it easier to repair their products. Nor have they tried to make replacement parts more readily available. Nor did they try to notify their customer base about it before the purchase. These are things that unless you have read their terms of service (with these concerns in mind) you would likely not know about them until you were trying to have the repair done.

Having people do things for you has become very expensive. I bought tires for my truck last year and had some other service done at the same time. Cost a bloody nickle and dime fortune. The tech forgot to secure a strut mount and they failed to sell me new tpms monitors that you must replace to get new valve stems. Never again.

It's plain to me why people are buying tire mounting equipment from harbor freight now.

I can justify a $600 wall mount strut compressor now.

Been watching engine teardowns to catch up on automotive tech (haven't been paying attention for about ten years). OMG...you would not believe how complex this shit is now. Ford is shipping engines in the F-150 that have a wet oil pump drive belt. It starts coming apart before 100k. It takes at least $2000 in labor just to get to it. Auto shops charge about the same rates per hour as my senior developer contracting firm.

Their priorities are MPG, power, with the least amount of weight possible and they are really pushing the engineering to get there. No one is going to replace that oil pump belt before it fails and takes the engine with it.

Saw a teardown of the Nissan Titan engine. Jaw dropping reliability where engineers were clearly in charge of the design. They are dropping the truck line after this year. It can't compete with Ford's MPG+power. Chevy is following Ford fast and Stellantis is dropping ICE (expect to see this reversed with Ford leading everyone to hybrid). The electric trucks are not going to make the cut (too heavy and the charging infra is a joke). Tesla Cybertruck is dead on delivery as are the F-150 Lightnings. At best they are personal vehicles for commuting.

Today's auto mechanics are no longer the high-school drop-outs turning a wrench. They're mechanical engineering graduates. They typically know software and hardware.

This is also how you know we're at the end days for ICE vehicles. They're too complex and yet are only 25% as efficient as an EV vehicle. When people start getting the bill for today's vehicles they're going to consider an EV.

People all worried about a $10K battery replacement. Pffft! It doesn't take too many trips to the shop these days to hit that kind of money! Heck, I was recently watching on Engineering Explained where a brake job on a Porsche, now granted that's a higher-end car, but still, it was $2,500. For a brake job! I bought a 2003 Lexus LS430 a few years back (steal deal!) but one of the drawbacks is it's the V8 and changing the starter is $1,500 because they have to drop the engine.

I figure getting a new battery is akin to getting a new engine and $10,000 starts looking like it's really not a bad deal...

Reminds me of my own SAAB story. My first car was a used SAAB 900S, which I bought from a dealer. Luckily, I had also purchased a warranty.

SAABs had a quirky design where the ignition was set in the space between the front seats, on the floor. The ring gear in the starter motor got stripped, and they had to drop the transmission to get to it. That was a $9000 repair in the late 80s. I only had to pay the deductible, which was $100.

Not a bad deal.

I did a $5000 brake job on a range Rover in 2000. The way people let things go I can easily see $2000 going up in smoke with one visit to the shop. EVs are not going to work out unless we double battery capacity and half the weight and charge times.

They will definitely work out when even a minor engine failure on the average new ICE car being sold in 2033 costs over $10k to repair and even the cheapest garages are billing $300 per hour to work on such complicated machinery.

Which seems to be the trajectory every automaker is going down to meet fuel mileage requirements.

>I do not think that is the case. I do not believe that even a majority of people know that. I also think that it comes across as ignorant to generalize like this.

And I think it's pretty patronizing to think that people are too dumb to realize that their digital products are not transferable. Even kids realize their fortnite skins aren't transferable, or that they can't "lend" their friend their copy of minecraft (without sharing the account).

>Also, similar issues were cropping up around phone repairs specifically having the screen or battery replaced which are very common repairs.

>None of these industries have tried to make it easier to repair their products. Nor have they tried to make replacement parts more readily available. Nor did they try to notify their customer base about it before the purchase. These are things that unless you have read their terms of service (with these concerns in mind) you would likely not know about them until you were trying to have the repair done.

I think this example is illustrative how people know but don't care. Hard to repair phones have been around for a almost decade now? Based on a quick search, Samsung Galaxy S5 (released early 2014) was the first phone from Samsung that had non user serviceable batteries. iPhones had non-user replaceable batteries for years prior. Unless you've never had to repair your phones before, and you've never heard of your friends/collegues replacing their phone, I think it's very unlikely that "you would likely not know about them until you were trying to have the repair done". There are still phones with replaceable batteries today, but they're relegated to niche status. What does this tell us? I say it's that most consumers give repairability lip service. They might be in favor of it in the abstract, but will cave the moment there's any trade-off involved, like waterproofing, thickness, or pricing.

It's not patronizing at all, because you should own the digital product and as such, be able to sell your rights to it.

As far as the kids go, they're being groomed to accept that they don't own anything or have any basic rights of ownership. It's a travesty.

You litterally don't own movies or books. You might own a physical (or sometimes digital) copy, but the work itself is not yours and you cannot legally redistribute new copies of it.

The concept makes some sense for many forms of media, but what's scares me is how it has spilled into traditional, physical goods.

It spilled there because people's ownership rights over their digital assets were compromised. Boil the frog.

I like this train of thought but at the same time, my understanding is that technology has always tended toward more complex and harder to repair. Like a modern smartphone for example has way more technology jammed into it than a 1920s factory floor does.

True right to repair must put some downward pressure on technological advancement, and of course even “reparability” is a very loose term that can point to any location along the spectrum of “can open the enclosure” to “can modify the CPU directly.”

Curious if you have any good model for how to think about the trade offs here?

I think there's a difference between not having the skills to repair it and being prevented by some arbitrary barrier put up by the manufacturer. I can't repair my car's engine, but that's just because it's complicated and I don't have the skills. That's different than if the car manufacturer requires that a code that only licensed repair shops have must be entered into the car's software, otherwise when I open the engine casing (I don't know if that's actually a thing, but substitute real car repair words as you please) the car stops working.

A standard that says you can make products as complex as you want, but you can't do things specifically intended for the sole purpose of blocking repairs seems fine to me.

> I think there's a difference between not having the skills to repair it and being prevented by some arbitrary barrier put up by the manufacturer.

I'd go a step further and state that repairability is a design trait. The amount of skill you need to repair a product is the output of a design requirement. Case in point: only a few of us have woodworking skills, but every single one of us can easily put together a Ikea table, because that was Ikea's design goal.

The only reason any ebike might be hard to repair is if the company that designed it wanted the bike to be hard to repair. Simple as that.

This is similar to what Bob Martin (Uncle Bob) has said about software testing - something that is hard to test is badly designed. In this case something that is hard to repair is badly designed. As you point out, you have to design for repairability, it doesn't just happen.

I’m not sure it’s “bad” so much as it’s a dark design pattern. Apple loves that they can sell apple care plans and encourage consumers back into apple stores when their by design not durable phones get damaged.

But this is basically the industry's line. That skill and the right tools are required, otherwise a substandard repair is performed. And for some products that is dangerous.

And the industry will simultaneously complain that it would be too burdensome to make tools and documentation available so someone with the right skills can do it properly.

Documentation, standardization, certification programs and training, and parts availibility. Thats how you move forward.

Who will take the liability and PR losses for those fraction of repair jobs, done poorly anyways, that fail?

To that I say the burden of proof is on them to prove significant danger to the public.

Automobiles are probably the most dangerous product ever produced by mankind. We have a whole century behind us during which people were allowed to repair their automobiles. Independent mechanics are still commonplace today and many non-professionals still choose to repair their own vehicles.

That sets a precident. Manufacturers should at least have to prove that indpendent repairs of their product represent a more significant threat than independent automobile repair. Otherwise, their arguments about safety should be dismissed.

My take is that the tools should be available and the product not locked down such that only 1 blessed supplier or repair place can service. So long as competitors can arise in the repair space beyond the manufacturer, then there’s a sliver of hope that pressures against monopoly repair.

This only induces product design that is remotely repairable, vs always discard, at high enough price points that refurbished or secondary market can command value.

I struggle to see how lower priced items could have “be repairable” as some enforceable tenant absent a standards group which always trend toward incumbents and reduced innovation.

I watched an interesting YouTube short last night from a guy who replaced an iPhone 14 back glass, but after doing so was no longer about to take photos with flash.

He was able to determine that the problem was because he didn't take off the wireless charging coil and put it on the new replacement glass. He did so, and no longer had any issues.

Companies have become (possibly have always been) hostile to the end user. There is no reason an exact same part should cause malfunction. Specifically if it's an OEM part. Apple is notorious for serializing parts and locking them to a particular device. Their reasoning isn't terrible: security reasons. But the WIRELESS CHARGING COIL?! If that has any security level ramifications, it's at government level espionage. By which point, they already had your device to replace the part. And it should have long since been considered compromised.

I believe you are conflating "things should be simple enough for your average consumer to fix" with "I should be able to have a professional who knows what they are doing replace a part", and not have to pay an arm and a leg to have a manufacturer send out that professional. See many of the horror stories of John Deere.

Louis Rossman is an excellent example of a professional I'm referring to. The man can seemingly work miracles. Apple seriously does not want him to. They fight him tooth and nail to make it hard for him to fix Apple devices.

Apple does care about government espionage, especially for journalists, human rights activists. But if a government can hack a device, so can criminals or people trying to make a quick buck by 'refurbishing' the phones with fake parts.

I can't take anything Rossman says serious since his 'miracles' can't be performed at scale. Apple doesn't fight him, they simply have different priorities.

If you have lost physical control of your device long enough for hardware to be replaced, you should consider it compromised and untrustworthy if you are working at that level of attack risk.

And they absolutely could be done at scale. If more people were in the field and had the know how, it could absolutely be done at scale. In many of his video he remarks that it's difficult for him because he can't source parts, because Apple refuses to sell them to him. He has to go to eBay to buy parts for many devices he fixes.

> True right to repair must put some downward pressure on technological advancement

I don't agree. True right to repair means that there are no intentional barriers to you repairing things. Complexity isn't such a barrier. When new tech requires new skills to repair, it is still possible for people to learn those skills.

Smartphones are a good example of this. There's nothing inherent in a smartphone that prevents home repair -- it just takes a different set of skills to do. What prevents home repair are intentional barriers such as digital signing of components, abusing the DMCA, making custom components unavailable, and so forth.

> digital signing of components

I'm okay with cryptographic requirements as long as it's a potential vector for an attacker.

What do you think about things like the use of glue? It makes things harder to repair, but certainly not impossible. And a well glued device can feel better in the hand than one that flexes and creaks and is almost certainly easier to manufacture.

I'm more bothered by things like solid state storage being soldered to the motherboard. That's a component that will fail eventually. Usually long before the device isn't useful.

Also, short OS support cycles need to be ended. Any device that connects to anything else should require a ten year security update cycle. If the manufacturer does not or cannot fix the device in that window, retailers should be forced to accept returns for 100% refunds.

> I'm okay with cryptographic requirements as long as it's a potential vector for an attacker.

Yeah, I'm not. I don't for a moment believe that it was implemented to prevent this, considering that it's an attack vector that is incredibly rare. It was implemented to prevent anyone but Apple from repairing things. The cost/benefit ratio of this is extremely unfavorable.

The glue thing is problematic to me, but for environmental reasons rather than reparability reasons. It does make fixing things more of a pain, but it doesn't prevent fixing things.

Solid state storage (as well as other things, such as soldering in batteries and such) being soldered onto the mainboard is similar. It doesn't prevent replacing those components, but it does make it more of a hassle. I think that it would be better to make consumables in a device so that end-users can easily replace them without electronics skills would be ideal, and I do hope the industry finds a way back to when that was standard. But, strictly speaking, that speaks to convenience of maintenance, not the ability to perform maintenance.

In the automotive world it is not that simple. Ford has been building increasingly complex engines to reach design goals related to power output, mpg, and weight. Those have nothing to do with serviceability which has suffered tremendously. The cost to service has gone through the roof. On top of that they require more frequent general servicing or they literally blow up. The net yield is going to be engines failing or vehicles discarded earlier.

The reason they are doing this extreme engineering is to prepare for the hybrid fleet. I don't think it's going to move needle at all for climate change (a lot of the development is gov funded). They are engineering extremely complex gas engines and aluminum bodies to save weight for the batteries. Lots of throw-away stuff is showing up to the party.

No one is going to be hanging out with friends and drinking beers when they try to replace the timing chain on these trucks/cars. The job is ridiculously complex and fraught with pitfalls and gotchas. Dealers and independents are getting software dev hourly rates now.

Complexity is a barrier.

There is a difference between building something easily repairable and actively preventing it from being repaired by not offering parts and serializing components just because.

I am replace the angle lid sensor on my Mac. But then the angle doesn't work simply because Apple says no.

How much of this is because this is what VCs want?

Really, if this is going to change, it stops here, in this community.

>>you don't really own something if you can't repair it.

Exactly! (add to that, "sell it")

EBikes seem like a very ripe opportunity for open source solutions that could be even better than many packaged products (most of which seem to me to be insanely mass-heavy; a bicycle should be lightweight).

All that's really needed is a battery, motor, controller, and mounting for each. The control scheme could be anything from a simple throttle to tracking pedal pressure.

Indeed, a quick search turned up two OS efforts [0] and [1], and it seems there should be many more — maybe others can post any they know about so as to build a list resource here?

[0] https://hackaday.com/2020/02/23/an-open-source-ebike/

[1] https://opensourceebikefirmware.bitbucket.io/

> Here's my take: you don't really own something if you can't repair it

What if the bottleneck is the "owner's" repair skills? See cars.

I wonder if this might be closer to what you mean "You dont really own something if it's not repairable." Of course, "repairable" has a lot of gray area but that's a separate issue.

I think the ability to take it to an independent repair facility almost as important as being able to repair something with your own hands.

Sometimes there are specially pieces of equipment required in order to service something. Not to be confused with deliberate sabotage by a manufacturer hiding reset functionality behind undocumented interfaces, cables and unbelievably expensive software.

1) Good design can - to a certain degree - allow most people to replace parts. E.g. headlight bulbs or modules, which are held in place by 0-3 screws and a simple electrical connection. Similar things with door seals or floor mats. Many parts can be made repairable by low-skill users if they are just accessible and not glued in. Unfortunately many designs work against that, perhaps on purpose. This is also a massive accessibility issue for disabled and elderly people. Think lower grip strength.

2) Anti-repair design stops people from developing skills in the first place, similar to how kids who grow up on fixed-software devices often cannot hack the devices to develop technical understanding.

I think it's a matter of substituting "you" with "any person competent with the necessary non-specialized tooling", where competent means "able to follow a service manual", and obviously "non-specialized" excludes expensive brand-specific one-off tools.

Cars are a mixed bag, because on one hand you have OBD2 and lots of parts can be easily ordered, and on the other hand you have un-obtainable parts, manufacturer-specific code and special tooling (even when there is no business putting custom stuff). And they are also becoming less repairable and have a lot of mechanic-hostile design (it's a meme in the industry).

I have some insight in that because I have actually started repairing cars as a hobby, including non-trivial stuff.

I think "can" is being used in the sense of "may". "You don't own something if you may not repair it". I don't possess the skills to work on my house's circuit box, but the only thing stopping me from trying is that knowledge.

Poor example! In my country (UK) only a qualified electrician with up-to-date certifications is permitted to work on my house fuze-box.

Not even the homeowner? I can understand requiring a certification to do paid electrician work, but it seems a bit unreasonable to say you can't do work on your own home.

There are limits to what a homeowner can do without having their work signed off. For example adding a whole new circuit to their fuse box wouldn't be allowed. However, it is possible to have your work signed off by the building regulations authority. Even a full rewire could be done this way, obviously it needs to be compliant to be signed off though.

It’s not a separate issue. I’d sacrifice my right to repair if that makes stealing less profitable.

State controlled subscriptions, with cost-free repairs.

This should be a threatened backstop if the market fails to meet this need. The latter is preferable, of course, and should be incented.

State-scale purchasing could be a huge leverage to keep manufacturers on message.

.gov to Apple: "We expect a full public service manual repo and parts ordering service, and until one appears, not one government employee gets an iPhone provisioned."

A particularly recalctriant Apple could say "Here's the iPhone 18G with repair specs but other intentional degradations". It would be fun watching the government respond to someone responding to their orders with the equivalent of a "kick me" sign, and then watching as real consumers go up and ask for the 18G because they're more interested in being able to fix the damned thing cheaply and easily than four more frames per second in Genshin Impact.

Sounds exactly like insurance, which is yet another scam.

This is just about the laziest unimaginative solution. What drove you to this solution? Do you have such low interest or investment in the problem so you would prefer some larger entity like the government just hand wave away this problem?

With how many examples exist of the government getting involved at levels of industry they clearly don’t have the expertise for and how everything gets batshit expensive when they get involved or how many examples you can draw from communist countries, a normal person would get the hint that this kind of blanket regulation is toxic and evil and would stop being proposed as solutions.

What are you talking about? This whole thread is discussing how private enterprise is failing consumers. Meanwhile, countless examples exist of government-run entities and non-profits that are well-liked and less expensive for consumers.

I don't think a large-scale repair entity created by the government is the answer to this problem, but it's clear you have a bias towards business, and in the repair industry, business is the problem and we need a government solution. I don't understand why anyone ever has your attitude. Any organization can be run poorly and its leaders susceptible to corruption, whether that be a government one or a private entity. You have to understand the problem to offer solutions and in many cases, a profit motive simply does not provide the best outcome for consumers.

That's why they don't get involved in the industry, they get involved in something they do understand, administration. If you offer a product that you claim is too complex for anyone but you to service that's fine, we believe you. We won't tell you how to build your product, but in exchange that means your product is legally designated a subscription service with an initial deposit for the cost of the appliance.

And so to make it so your products don't all go to the landfill when they break each product requires a state-administered/regulated subscription service which is charged based on some fixed percent overhead and the rest going directly to the cost of repairs. And every repair except intentional destruction is included in the price.

This isn't making things more expensive, it's effectively a transparency law so that consumers understand the real cost of the goods they're buying and manufacturers can't hide it behind expensive repair bills.

And they are very efficient

This would require dismantling a large part of capitalism itself. Since this approach makes more money, it's always going to be preferable to businesses, and notably, shareholders, which almost all large businesses are beholden to.

>Here's my take: you don't really own something if you can't repair it.

I agree, however ; e-bikes ARE different from BIKES.

I have been a daily biker for decades. (I literally just rode 5 miles ten minutes ago) - I have worked in bike shops, my first design in Autocad Class in 1990 was a bike, I just sold my original 1986 Gary Fisher (the inventor of mtn bikes)(controversial) -- blah blah, so I have SOME bike cred..

I have a current e-bike that is a modern awesome thing, and I love everything about it.

An Orbea Rise H30 - I love it, but it has flaws, and ALL ebikes have THE SAME FLAW.

THEY REQUIRE A POWER GRID TO EXIST

THEY REQUIRE A BATTERY RELIANT ON A GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN

THEY DO NOT PROVIDE A MECHANISM FOR LONG HAUL CHARGING (hauling a solar panel capable trailer/pannier/whatever that can adequately recharge off-grid, such as in the Yukon)

THEY CANNOT BE SUBMERGED IN WATER

THEY REQUIRE A POWERBRICK THE SIZE OF YOUR FANNY PACK

THEY HAVE A FLIMSY 'SEAL' TO COVER THE POWER PORT - if that breaks off (twig, brick, tree or foot) - your F'd SEE: SUBMERSION.

THEIR SUPPLY CHAINS ARE FAR MORE COMPLEX

THE MOTORS ARE FROM ALL OVER THE PLACE - AND QUESTIONABLE MFRs

DEALER RELATIONSHIPS SUCK (orbea and mikes bikes parted ways, santa cruz and others are bidding btwn various bike vendors, and a bunch of other financial complexities in the bike industry -

mikes started out in marin area as a "youre local bike buddy" and now they are fuly in the MBA corporate quagmire of catering to their market balanced by their own economics...

Vendor hostility and preferential treatments abound (just like any industry)

But the majority of bike frames come from Taiwan, and the high end components are from majorly Japan, Italy, France, Germany, CHINA - and I would put US at same level technically, but a tier 2 on prestige.

(I have had people ask me if the e-bike motor was from china, and if so - no-buy. They only want Japanese (shimano) or German (bosch) -- no random china...

But what I find odd, is not the motor - but the battery...

THE BATTERY INDUSTRY IS THE PROBLEM

(A, AA, AAA, C, D (why no B) -- (the battery industry is the biggest threat to global anything)

Where the heck am I to get a battery for an ebick thats custom molded to my stem in my 100 year old bike?

But can I pedal my stupid legs through the ruins of MIT on a bike I made from BAMBOO? Yep... Build me a battery from the rubble of your lab?

If you were at all aware of the supply chain shortage of bikes in the pandemic, I did some research on that and found a lot of details on whom were to control the supply of bikes to the US (most went east coast (size of "market on east coast" - vs, the value of supply on bikes on the west coast -- (this is anecdotal, but the west coast spends more on bikes, but the east coast is higher volume due to pop dense)

Anyway... Let me see if I can find that write up on the supply chain...

> (A, AA, AAA, C, D (why no B)

No B now because very few people use battery powered vacuum tubes any more. B batteries were mainly used for vacuum tube plate voltage.

I remember in the early '70s as a kid building a Radio Shack one tube radio kit [1] and using a Radio Shack 22.5 V B battery [2].

I think that was the last time I ever encountered a B battery. By the '70s tubes were on the way out in consumer electronics. On that page I linked with the Radio Shack kits there are 6 radios and only one of them uses a tube.

[1] http://my.core.com/~sparktron/pbox.html

[2] https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/flipbook/1970_radioshack_...

A bit unhinged, but whatevs:

THEY REQUIRE A POWER GRID TO EXIST: no they don't, solar panel if this is that important to you.

THEY REQUIRE A BATTERY RELIANT ON A GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN: Tesla absolutely manufactures batteries in the USA, and virtually every major economy now recognizes national battery manufacturing ability is a national security issue. Lithium sources exist domestically. Sodium ion chemistries as good as LFP used in the current gen of ebikes is in mass production. Sulfur chemistries will probably come in 5 years.

THEY DO NOT PROVIDE A MECHANISM FOR LONG HAUL CHARGING: Uhhhhh.... okay, there are people that have made "charging trailers" for ebikes and don't even need to pedal. If this very fringe requirement is necessary, do that. You can't even bike into the Yukon wilderness FYI, where ... all of civilization is lacking.

THEY CANNOT BE SUBMERGED IN WATER: ok, neither can cars, etc. Yes, don't throw your vehicles in water.

THEY HAVE A FLIMSY 'SEAL' TO COVER THE POWER PORT - if that breaks off (twig, brick, tree or foot) - your F'd SEE: SUBMERSION. :: semilegitimate long term parts replacement concern I guess, but ... probably DIY'able.

THEIR SUPPLY CHAINS ARE FAR MORE COMPLEX: Bikes have frames, handlebars, seats, brakes, cranks, chains, derailleurs, cogsets, wheels, hubs, rims, spokes, and all are very frequently sourced from companies all over the world. Adding "motor, battery" to that isn't some tipping point of complexity. Compared to an ICE ... anything (lawnmower, etc), ebikes are very simple.

THE MOTORS ARE FROM ALL OVER THE PLACE - AND QUESTIONABLE MFRs: Yeah.... there is a bit of concern about disposable electronics here. But if enough of one brand is made, then the junkyard strategy of finding a crashed/broken second model and cannibalizing works here. Also, most electric motors aren't perfectly manufactured to application, they are of a more general spec (one of the advantages of electric drivetrains). So if you want to swap out the motor... probably can.

DEALER RELATIONSHIPS SUCK: it's a wildly evolving marketplace with a potential customer base in the billions.

"Where the heck am I to get a battery for an ebick thats custom molded to my stem in my 100 year old bike?" --> likely you'll slap in a battery that is about 1/3 the size and 3x the range. If you want to, you'll figure it out. Current batteries are pretty standardized in form factor and spec, even in the EV space (1865, 2170,4680)

....

EVs are fundamentally simple: battery, motor. I think there will be an explosion of people that get back to knowing how to do basic repair and adaptation on electric motors as part of the EV revolution.

I really like the idea of a front or rear motor wheel that you slapped into a regular bike, but in-frame motors are probably cheaper to put in / design in the beginning and more plug and play for consumers.

One of the beauties of ebikes is that if the battery fails ... you just bike without power to get home. The cost for these will rapidly plummet in the coming years to probably $500 or so. Tire flats are a bigger concern than anything.

> EVs are fundamentally simple: battery, motor.

Playing devil's advocate: unless it's a simple single-speed motor, there's another important component between these two, the motor controller or inverter, and that component is where most of the complexity is located.

Totally true, but controllers are relatively interchangeable for these types of motors. A BLDC motor like almost all of the e-bike manufacturers have settled on can be controlled by any BLDC controller.

If manufacturer X goes belly up and I need a new controller for my Manufacturer X bike, I can use one from manufacturer Y. Of course I might need to replace the controls, but If I can access the DC power source, and the three windings on the motor, I can make that motor spin with a variety of available controllers.

The same is true for a lot of bike parts; If a fancy click shift derailleur kicks the bucket after manufacturer support ends, you can get a different one. You may have to replace the handlebar controls, but the whole bike isn't bricked by any means.

This is not what I meant...

An bike will not last N years... how do we define N?

I want a bike with minimal physical BS skills to be able to last 150 year.

PERIOD..;.

Lets make a bike that lasta !150 years without N global BS?????

Can you help or shall you be negative nancy?

The FTC already debunked this claim years ago (which the article states). Calling out manufacturer propaganda shouldn't even need to be a thing we have to do...

https://www.ftc.gov/reports/nixing-fix-ftc-report-congress-r...

Which part particularly debunks? It appears ambivalent to me. For example, pages 20-21 seem to conclude that "The use of 18650 cells with the same form factor but different internal chemistries creates the risk that a replacement 18650 will have a different internal chemistry from the original 18650, placing individuals and independent repair shops at risk of inadvertently causing thermal runaway events." As a person who already had to flee one structure fire caused by a DIY hoverboard battery, I am sympathetic to this line of argument.

People don't need the right to repair to do stupid things and make stuff go on fire.

But if the hoverboard manufacturer had released the proper specs for their batteries and the safety procedures they undoubtedly provide to their employees and service centers. Then maybe the DIYer would have made something safer.

By keeping safety-critical details like the correct battery chemistry to themselves, they actually encourage people to do stupid things. Getting access to these informations is a big part of the right to repair movement.

Lithium Ion should be replaced ASAP by safer chemistries so we can sidestep this issue completely. As far as I'm concerned this should have never gotten as far as it did and manufacturers that produce crap batteries (of which there are plenty!) should be held responsible.

Apropos: not rare at all to open AAA brand battery packs to find burned out wiring, burned out circuit boards, signs of combustion that somehow didn't go outside of the case. Take no risk with these things, even with the good ones: in case of doubt place in fireproof container and deliver to a recycling station that knows how to handle them safely. If you have no experience with these then do not try to repair a pack because the risks are nothing to be trifled with.

Finally: cheap stuff containing 18650's should be avoided like the plague, if the device is cheap then that means the components are even cheaper. Only use devices that use quality cells, that haven't been recycled and that have only been used within spec.

Your fire insurance policy protects you from monetary loss, but it won't revive you or your companions...

Li-ion is a very big umbrella of battery chemistries, and within can have broadly different safety and stability profiles.

More important is that Li-ion cells are no joke, and are not equivalent to ‘AA’ or ‘AAA’ battery formats. You can NCM, NCA, LFP, Cobalt chemistries and blends within - not even accounting for differing mAH and charge/discharge capacities. 18650 is simply a form factor.

Better labeling, specing, regulated and certified repair processes are just a start for solutions as it is currently a Wild West.

However, statements like ‘Li-ion should be replaced ASAP’ do not factor in that… lithium ion as a platform is not going anywhere and has essentially won at least the next half century for 18650 type form factors and applications. Moving away is not a reasonable solution.

Lithium Ion without further designation refers to Lithium Polymer or plain Lithium Ion cells such as this one: https://eu.nkon.nl/products/sony-murata-us18650-vtc6.html

Other chemistries are usually indicated by a different designation, such as LiFePO4, LTO and so on.

Sorry but that just isn't right. The battery you listed is an just an NMC battery , the listing pages are just lazy and don't list it. There isn't just a plain lithium ion cell. Also lithium polymer just means that a polymer electrolyte is used instead of a liquid electrolyte.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery

That's pedantic. They're sold that way by the truck load and anybody that buys them for DIY purposes knows that this is how they are designated. People are buying based on the working voltage nominally 3.6V, Lithium Ion chemistry, battery capacity, form factor. Not on the internal details of the battery, which are not normally listed in sales documentation on consumer oriented outlets anyway.

Yes, you can go into the details of the exact chemistry, the packaging, the manufacturers specs and so on but for bulk DIY purposes this is the reality. The detailed chemistry obviously has some implications for safety but because you will have no idea what is in a pack unless you open it (and plenty of times the cells are unmarked) you just have to assume the worst. That's the safest.

> People are buying based on the working voltage nominally 3.6V, Lithium Ion chemistry, battery capacity, form factor. Not on the internal details of the battery, which are not normally listed in sales documentation on consumer oriented outlets anyway.

Lithium Ion chemistry is the internal details of the battery. Which denotes the type of lithium ion battery, there is no generic lithium ion battery. It will fall under a certain category (Ex LFP, NMC, NCA).

The same battery you linked on other websites is called out as NMC: https://voltaplex.com/sony-vtc6-18650-battery-us18650vtc6

Sure you can go buy unmarked cells on ebay but any reputable website should list the battery chemistry on their website or have a link to the datasheet. It is no different than buying any other electronic component.

I've refurbished many packs and built my own, for cameras, e-bikes and laptops. I've yet to find anybody other than myself to be interested in the exact chemistry of the batteries involved. What they're interested in at the highest level is whether it works, and second to that how much it will cost them. I'd be happy to bet that most people that use these batteries would not be able to figure out what exact composition a cell has nor would they care.

It is very clear to me that there is a vast gulf between DIY and professional application, and for the latter I'm 100% sure that everybody there would be able (and should be able) to make the distinction. The number of hobbyists that can do so is going to be very low.

For maximum cringe, have a look at this youtube video and spot the potential problems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAoCK3QNLng

And that's one of the very best.

> Lithium Ion should be replaces ASAP by safer chemistries so we can sidestep this issue completely

That would be nice, but so far there are no good candidates that have anywhere near the energy density of Li-based cells. As far as I understand it, besides material degradation and overcharge/overdraw, the energy density itself poses a risk. So even if we had that miracle cell chemistry it would be still pose a fire hazard when subjected to mechanical stress. The stored energy has to go somewhere.

That's true, there are some inherent risks that are hard to mitigate. But those are roughly equivalent to say a gasoline fire or something like that. They are not due to handling the stuff or working on it. Though in fairness: working on an ICE car, especially the fuel supply system is not without risk.

> Lithium Ion should be replaces ASAP by safer chemistries so we can sidestep this issue completely. As far as I'm concerned this should have never gotten as far as it did and manufacturers that produce crap batteries (of which there are plenty!) should be held responsible.

What should they be replaced with? I'm curious to know what alternate chemistry you're proposing for my e-bike battery.

Usually, the safer replacement for Lithium Ion would be LiFePO4. Although I don't know how good performs in e-bikes (I guess it should be fine, as they're used in cars and other stuff...)

It works just fine for that application. But: it is a little bit more expensive for the same capacity, and unfortunately the voltage is a little bit lower so it isn't a drop-in replacement.

Isn't it also quite a bit heavier?

Yes, about 50%. So for the same amount of energy you need a larger and heavier battery. Typically the largest capacity Lithium Ion in 18650 format is roughly comparable to a 26650 LIFEPO4. And then there is still the voltage difference (nominally 3.2 for LIFEPO4 and 3.6 for Li-ion).

50% heavier is kind of a problem for E-Bike applications, although maybe not on the low end.

The 50% or so difference is when both batteries are new. From what I've read Li-ion degrade faster than LiFePO4, so the difference becomes smaller over time (and might even reverse, but I don't have actual data).

Interesting!

Yes, it is, otoh on the weight of the whole bike it isn't a huge problem.

> otoh on the weight of the whole bike it isn't a huge problem.

Why do you say this? Non-ebikes can be sub-16 lbs; ebike battery packs can weigh, like, on the order of 50 lbs. Ebike users sometimes need to lift the bikes (up stairs at home, or on/off transit).

Battery pack weight absolutely dominates the design and utility of ebikes; any double-digit percent factor is very relevant (IMO).

> on the order of 50 lbs

A really large e-bike battery is 4kg. Nobody is riding an e-bike with 50 pounds of batteries. Even the battery pack on a Zero FX, an electric motorcycle, is only 42 pounds.

Huh, you're right. I wonder why the hell people are building 75 lb ebikes if even the large batteries are so light.

That's because the motors are pretty heavy as well, and once you have that much torque available you'll need a frame and rear hub that can handle it too. My biggest e-bike is about 30Kg including a 2.2 KWh battery. Not quite 75 lb but getting there. The basic machine is a Riese&Mueller charger with a Bosch speed pedelec motor and the usual complement of brakes, gearing and bunch of bags. I don't mind the weight, but I've yet to find someone else that likes that bike. It's a bit of a pain to move around with the motor off but once you're on it and riding it's just like any other bike only more powerful and it lasts for a really long time on a single charge.

I don't know either. I think part of it is that some e-bike customers are not otherwise bike buyers and go for the niche of huge-wheeled quasimotorcycle. I recommend keeping e-bike weight under 50 pounds because it is the design limit of the bike carriers on American buses and on Amtrak. There are plenty of e-bikes under 40 pounds even.

I mean: relative to the total weight of an e-bike using one chemistry or another.

A bigger issue is that batteries are often placed in very bad spots (such as riding high on the rear pannier).

Standardising the batteries so the connector imposes a certain level of safety would seem like a better solution than making it harder to repair. You can also discourage e.g. self made batteries through insurance policies like you do for cars and homes, i.e. you're not covered if you use a non-certified battery.

18650 cells are not like AA alkaline batteries. There are dozens of companies making them around the globe (maybe hundreds), and there are thousands of varieties all with different characteristics.

I've spent a long time in that community, and a golden rule is to never mix cells - even cells of the exact same type because they're often binned to be matched to be even closer in operating capacity. Also, and more relevant here, mixing old and new cells is also a big no no due to changing characteristics during aging and use.

You can't just pop open a battery pack and replace a bad cell. I mean, you can, but if you cause a fire that kills someone, you should go to prison for negligence.

I'm talking about replacing the battery as a whole, currently there are many form factors and you can't be sure you'll be able to get a new battery when the performance of the original one starts to degrade. If manufacturers would be forced to make it replaceable for X years at reasonable cost, either by providing replacements or by adopting an industry standard, that would fulfill the "right to repair" IMO.

You then want to extend that to the other main parts like the motor or the controllers, so you're not left with a piece of junk when one component fails. Just like for normal bikes.

It's not about repairing the battery by amateurs/diy enthusiasts, but the ability to replace the battery with another, compatible. It's not that hard to make sure that new battery meets the required parameters and has compatible connector, so any claim that only one, unique, model of battery can be used is BS. Instead of making stupid excuses producers should clearly specify what are the required parameters and if a battery meets these - should be allowed.

I don't think we should sacrifice the innovation and development of an entire industry on the backs of a tiny vocal niche of people who claim they want to repair their own batteries. If there was some standard form factor the entire last decade of the e-bike industry would never have happened. We'd be stuck with the Yamaha/Bosch/Shimano-style battery pack sitting inside the triangle, and we would not have the superior integrated systems of Trek and Specialized.

This isn't about about repairing batteries (eg replacing individual cells). Almost no one wants to do that, and that isn't the primary problem with reparability when it comes to ebikes. People want to be able to replace the battery, and do other repairs on the system themselves or with non-authorized repair shops, using high quality 3rd-party parts.

Many manufacturers make this difficult or impossible on purpose, and apparently they also have lobbied to change legislation to continue being able to do this, using battery fires as an excuse to cement their parts and repairs monopoly. It's that simple.

Let them innovate where they provide value - in the bike mechanics and drivetrain. But all their batteries are basically the same, built with same li-ion cells from same group of producers. The only innovation here is a proprietary chip making sure you buy only original replacement.

OK, so now "right to repair" extends up into the component supply chain?

Why should it not?

Was curious about the organization behind this. It's called "People for Bikes" and the board* is made up of big bike co execs.

https://www.peopleforbikes.org/board

I think this is more a case of "regulatory capture" (or in this case "lobbyist capture", I guess). When your goal is the promotion of cycling infrastructure, the goals of cyclist and bike companies are aligned, so you might not think too much of your lobby group being run by the corporate interests you agree with.

Right up until you get to an issue like this where suddenly those formerly aligned interests are no longer aligned. Except now you've given these group the legitimacy to claim to represent the interests of cyclists, even when it's now going against them.

To be honest I think this is more an issue of an org that can be constructed nearly whole cloth by one or more corporate entities and be basically designed from the word go to misinform the public, somehow. Be it the more Machiavellian end of the spectrum where you want to convince people a bad thing is good actually (a lot of climate stuff fits this, looking at you Koch) all the way to this kind of thing. The scale of the lie is an interesting data point, but nevertheless, we as a society have apparently decided we're okay being lied to at scale. That's... weird, right?

Like even if you say companies should have the right to lobby (which frankly I'd disagree with but I digress), why are they allowed to do it like this? Where they astroturf a "citizens" group to trick people into parroting their propaganda?

Freedom of $peech is a broad umbrella. And at least in America, we are incredibly business friendly while being rather cavalier regarding consumer protections.

At the same time we are an incredibly litigious society, so you end up with a perverse situation where laws, regulations, and bureaucratic inefficiencies choke up the efforts of businesses and nonprofit organizations (and even local governments), but individual consumers still regularly get fucked with absolutely no recourse. Other than shelling out for a lawyer and taking someone to civil court themselves.

Lobbying is it's own can of worms as a system with perverse incentives and ethical quagmires. But good luck getting any traction trying to change the way that works.. anyone in a position to make changes to it stands to benefit from this way of doing things (and has probably been indoctrinated into believing it is an effective and equitable system in any case). At least our brand of political corruption is (mostly) out in the open and "on the books." Businesses and NGOs get tax write-offs for their lobbying expenses, so there is plenty of documentation.

That stuff always infuriates me. I have no problem with an industry forming a group to advocate for their interests but when they deliberate misname themselves it makes it clear day one that they have no intention of honesty.

similar: OpenAI

If they were as advanced as pharmaceutical or medical device companies, they'd just pour money into a "consumer/patient's group" that they'd completely control the administration and priorities of, and make sure that no one is allowed to be a candidate for the board without their opinion vetting. This is better.

So you like the power structure, but wish for at most a change of heart to overcome the incentives - keep wishing

Companies fighting against right to repair is an ecological disaster.

I take pride in repairing everything at home, and god I hate how hard they try to stop me.

The hypocrisy of our societies that want us to consume "ecology products" and associated marketing infuriates me. Just stop buying things!

"Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" was never going to be compatible with our economic system.

Thus, our new slogan. "Buy Green!"

The R's have been shortened into meaninglessness probably because they don't comport with capitalism _so hard_.

To do better by the environment, first you REDUCE what you take from it; in our society, this means don't buy things unless you really need. If you have to acquire something, REUSE it as much as possible. Repurpose, mend, repair. Only when you've practiced both of those fully and you no longer need the object should you try to RECYCLE.

Recycling is literally the third best thing you can do can do to minimize your impact. It's also the first least-worst thing you can do for the environment.

I am always annoyed by how hard I have to work to buy things that last/won’t need replacing because they break

I'm going to hop in here and add that it's hard to find things that work, as well.

Like right now I'm looking for a carpet cleaner that works as well as a professional model (or the professional model). Consumer models just seem flawed. In particular, even when they are meant to vacuum wet things, they internal that end up wet aren't cleanable. So I end up with internal mold and the suggestion that I clean it out with a wire. Disassembly instructions are multiple pages long, and still present the problem of cleaning curved plastic pipes.

I just to buy the same thing I can hire someone to use that will clean up after 3 dogs, and can itself be cleaned.

Great point, and I feel the same thing happens with software. Consumer products are stuffed with hostile attention-stealing software, telemetry, overcomplicated, ads, etc. Professional stuff is actually designed to work. (e.g. TVs, printers)

yes, and they're fighting against what made their products popular in the first place.

bikes work because they are cheap, and you could change any part with a standardised spare in under 30 minutes and keep going.

Nowadays for ebikes ? brands like Shimano have "generations" of motors, each going with specific batteries (with baka yoke features and no other engineering), crankset, tooling, and accessories, so that you have to buy a whole new bike for every defect when they stop making parts.

I won't be getting a new ebike, I'll convert a conventional bike next time.

This industry is shooting themselves in the foot for short term profits.

> brands like Shimano have "generations" of motors, each going with specific batteries (with baka yoke features and no other engineering)

And the different gen batteries even look and fit the same, the first time you figure there is something fishy going on when you try to insert your old spare battery is when you try to turn the thing on!

E-bikes really need open standard interfaces for components. (Feel free to have multiple, and even a way to propose new ones, as long as they are open) Regulators, please step up.

I'm sympathetic to the argument that you shouldn't be allowed to do something so dangerous it not only threatens to set your own house on fire, but also your neighbors.

But it seems to me the solution to that is forcing manufacturers to make it easier to repair. Less chance of things going wrong. Which, I assume, means more standardization, even if maybe that also means less innovation.

I've never repaired a bike, or a battery, so am open to having my mind changed.

Yep working with big li-ion batteries is dangerous and should be done with proper equipment and safety measures, but claiming that nobody can do that but the producer is BS. They just make sure nothing else is compatible so you have no alternatives. Same with electric tools - is every lawn mower so unique that it can't be powered with another brand's battery? It could, but to prevent that producers add proprietary authentication and such. They even make new generation of tools incompatible with previous gen batteries, just to be sure you're not accidentally reusing anything.

Would you say that people categorically shouldn't be allowed to tinker with their cars, lawnmowers or other gasoline powered devices?

Gasoline is WAY more energy dense, WAY more likely to cause a fire, WAY more likely to spread a fire by virtue of being a liquid, needs specialized firefighting training and equipment, and causes cancer even when it isn't on fire.

Most people don't particularly care if their neighbor has 165 kilowatts of gasoline sitting around (5 gallons). I don't know if that is because we have been conditioned to ignore the dangers of gasoline and gasoline powered devices, or if we are overreacting to the dangers of Lithium batteries. Just for reference most electric cars do not have 165 killowatts of storage.

The reality is that battery packs aren't often "repaired". Good practice dictates that you really want all of your cells to match in terms of age and usage. Cells normally need to be welded together by a single purpose battery welder, so if you are hand-building a battery pack you have invested significantly into the equipment and know-how. Home repairs of "batteries" likely are just dismantling the casing, removing the packed cells, and putting in a new cell pack.

I think you misread my comment!

I think I understood it.

My point was that we regularly undertake things that are regularly just as, if not more, dangerous than tinkering with batteries. This fear-mongering from manufacturers is silliness designed to let them get away with consumer unfriendly designs and regulation under the guise of safety.

Repairing a bike is something that I learned in middle school, and working with batteries is something that I would trust a high schooler with a few hours of training with.

In your clarification, I still don't see anything I disagreed with.

I have an E-bike, I'd repair everything but the battery. The battery I have is expensive at about $1K. So I can see why the 'working person' may want to have a crack at repairs on their own, but it's risky.

With bikes, there's a tradeoff with weight. If the batteries were repairable. I could see them getting heavier to make them more friendly with clip in joints and lots of inbuilt safety. Rather than the sealed for life style that they currently exist in.

Anyway, I'm happy to send my bike to a mechanic. It;s money in the local economy. Though I did get a car service that was cheaper than my last bike service. Which was kinda wild in retrospect.

IMO batteries need to be standardized, documented, training and parts available and certification programs for repair. I should be able to take my battery to a certified technician/shop and have it serviced (bad cells replaced, battery management board replaced) without having to worry about it.

That's an excellent plan.

For the particular case of e-bikes, if they have a right to repair, do I also have a right to not live in the same apartment building as some guy who exercised his "right to repair" his e-bike battery? It really seems like factory refurbished battery packs are sufficient accommodation for consumers and the external risk to the public from YOLO DIY bozos is high enough to blunt this "right".

Yes you have that right, you can even go live in the middle of the woods if you are so inclined.

No, they really have that right. Messing around with e-bike battery packs without the right tooling, and without knowing what you are doing is a large risk, much larger than other DIY risks.

I've built a 2.2 KWh pack and spent weeks preparing for the build and did that in my own house in a spot right next to a door just in case I f'd up. Which I didn't, but I was fully prepared for that. You should never do something like this in an apartment building, any more than you would start a metal welding shop or a chemical plant in your living room. The risks are not compatible with shared accommodation.

Right. But right to repair requires providing access to parts, tools, documentation and software to products. Right to repair does not actually grant the right/ability/means to individuals to tinker with their batteries and put everyone in their apartment building at risk - they already had those.

There could even be a reasonable harm reduction argument that providing proper parts, tooling and documentation would actually reduce the risk. I could see reality going either way on this.

But in any case, arguments from safety should be directed and focused on actual risks. We have laws and building regulations for this reason. As you say, you wouldn't start a melding shop in your living room, but we don't ban anyone from just buying a welding machine.

People don't generally use their welding machine inside shared accommodation, their kitchen or their living room. Guess where your average DIY person is going to try to rebuild their battery pack? Will they have their safety set up properly?

Seriously: on the scale of 1 to 10 for risky things you could do I think DIY e-bike battery repair should rank higher than parachute jumping.

I agree that DIY battery repair is quite dangerous. But my point is that we should regulate and control the danger directly, instead of indirectly and very imperfectly by just grant ebikes an exemption in right to repair laws, especially as there are plenty of none battery components that (motors, controller boards, actual control inputs, etc) do not carry nearly the same safety concern.

Finally, the degree of access required by the NY law is broadly summarized as "same level that an OEM would/does provide to dealers or authorized repairers". E-bike manufacturers could easily (and quite reasonably, based on safety concerns) limit that to whole battery packs (because for exactly the safety reasons you noted, basically no repair shop is going to want to do cell level tinkering).

I think e-bike exemptions would be acceptable to me under the condition that the manufacturer would have to supply refurbished packs (new cells) for a token fee.

The apartment building should have proper equipment to mitigate the risk, and one has the right to know it's there, or find another apartment building better suited to their concerns.

No apartment buildings that I'm aware of are set up to deal with a 50 cell battery fire.

Then we should be outlawing the act of messing with a battery pack in an environment that cannot handle a disaster. Giving companies a pass to make non-repairable junk and/or charge an arm and a leg to repair or replace components is completely unnecessary and contrary to what a healthy society needs.

I don't doubt at all that you are already liable in that situation. But that doesn't mean that it is a good idea to do this. Most people that start on a project like this will have absolutely no idea of how dangerous this is. They will see the 18650's and will make all kinds of assumptions based on their experience with other batteries that have nearly the same form factor (say AA's) and think that this is equally dangerous.

There's a middle ground between "no right to repair" and "you can legally modify volatile Lithium battery packs in a multi-tenant building".

NYC has had over a dozen e-bike related fire deaths year to date, almost entirely killing bystanders. One guy was modifying battery packs in his kitchen, ran out the front door with his arms on fire and his whole family burned to death. A shop in Chinatown was letting dozens of customers charger their batteries overnight in the store and the fire killed tenants upstairs.

So we obviously need right to repair on electronics, but people questioning if we need carve outs for things like battery packs are not Unabomber luddites.

I have some home power tools that use lithium battery packs and they are extremely rugged and overpackaged for safety reasons compared to what I see on these e-bikes. That may be another avenue of regulation is simple minimum standards to thermal runaway resistance and containment in consumer grade lithium battery packs.

> A shop in Chinatown was letting dozens of customers charger their batteries overnight in the store and the fire killed tenants upstairs.

And this bit even has nothing to do with right to repair! People will do stupid shit that puts innocent bystanders at risk. That's just life. We should put into place measures that disincentivize that sort of behavior, of course. But giving companies a pass to make hermetically-sealed, unrepairable garbage is not how to do that. Ensuring that customers have detailed documentation and access to affordable, well-made parts so they have the ability and understanding of how to safely do repairs would be a good start.

Let's keep them away from kitchens and matches then.

Does your kitchen burst into flames unprovoked while you aren't home? Lithium-ion batteries are unstable. In this analogy they are self-striking matches.

Have you heard of gas stoves? Or grid electricity?

Either occasionally sets something ablaze unprovoked.

(As much as I hate this as a city dweller, the compromise solution may be simply to ban work on certain types of batteries in multi-tenant buildings and dense residential areas - making it so you effectively need to own a home outside of the city, with a plot of land, to do this. Or perhaps just enforce existing rules better, because I bet that the potentially dangerous activities are already not legal to perform in a regular flat.)

Or require licensing, like is required in a lot of places for gas or mains electricity work. I don't mind some licensing required to ensure people doing repair work have some minimum level of competence at the task, it just need to not be in the control of the manufacturers. Right to repair for most people is about the right to go to a repair shop of their choosing, not doing the repair themselves, in practice.

There are already spaces available to perform repair work in most if not all cities, look for maker spaces or tool libraries

Gas stoves are a great example, because in most countries you don't have a right to repair. And it's not manufacturers making it hard, it's the state putting you in prison if you get caught doing it.

Same for electricity to a lesser extent.

RE RrR - but you have the right to call in any certified technician to fix your stove. This fulfills what RtR is about - not that everyone does their own repairs themselves, but that they can either do or outsource it to someone in their local community, without being beholden to some outside commercial interests. This enables local repair businesses to thrive and develop expertise. Etc.

As for electronics, if batteries are becoming such a problem that we end up comparing things to gas stoves, I'd vote for regulations mandating standardized, interchangeable, interoperable battery packs. That is, isolate the directly dangerous bit - batteries and charging circuits - and make those work like propane tanks or gas stoves, while everything else in the device should be end-user tinkerable.

Another reason why bikes are as locked down as they are is because to be certified bikes have to confirm to a whole pile of regulations and two of these centers on power limits and speed limits. If a bike is hackable it could easily lose certification and that means you can't sell it any more, in an extreme case it would be applied retro-actively (though there currently is no instance of this the certification requirements as written are open to that interpretation).

Yes and you're not allowed to do your own electrical work unless you get a temporary license and pass inspection so I'm not really sure if this is the best argument. Also at least in my state there are no 3rd party gas lines for this reason, the only people allowed to install or do maintenance on them is the gas company that is defacto state controlled.

I don't think there's anything in my house that is as dangerous as a large lithium battery and that's before counting that hoverboards and ebikes that do nothing but put stress on them unlike say a laptop that just sits on a desk.

> you're not allowed to do your own electrical work unless you get a temporary license and pass inspection

That's heavily dependent on jurisdiction. In many places you can do your own electrical work without any kind of license (you can pull a permit by simply acknowledging that you are responsible for the work), and the inspection does not adequately cover all the safety issues that could arise.

For minor -- but still potentially dangerous -- things like replacing an outlet or light switch (or, hell, even a mains-connected light fixture), you don't need to do any of that.

> I don't think there's anything in my house that is as dangerous as a large lithium battery

For some reason we accept that many of us have, either in our basement or in a closet, one or more devices that continuously set a fossil fuel on fire in order to heat our homes, heat water, or dry clothing. Many of us even have a device that exposes that fire to the open air in order to cook food. Those devices do have some impressive safety features (well, except for the gas stove, oof), but they also have some pretty impressive failure modes. Not to mention how bad it is for your health to be inhaling the particles a gas stove spews into the air, even with an exhaust fan.

I'm not pointing this out in order to claim that lithium-based batteries are safe or are no big deal. But we accept all sorts of risk in our homes already, and batteries don't strike me as meaningfully different.

You're not required to negotiate with your electrical company to do your own electrical work, you're required to deal with the state. No one is proposing that unlimited home battery experimentation be added to the constitution. They're proposing that safety legislation shouldn't be outsourced to private industry, which is only concerned with safety to the degree which it affects profits, and is motivated to disguise profitable decisions as safety decisions.

I'm not entirely sure why you think I disagree with this addition, this is how I would like the system to work in the case where manufacturers make products they claim is only safely serviceable by them or some other professional.

Obviously they have, so please don't degrade the discussion like this. Lithium Ion packs are far more dangerous than gas stoves or general use of electricity. If you don't recognize that fact then maybe I should send you my safety notes regarding lithium ion battery packs? This stuff is so unstable that I'm kind of on the edge of believing that we probably should have never used this tech to the degree that we do, and as these systems get older you can expect more and more of them to develop issues.

If you have materials to this effect, please share with the class. Your statement of "lithium ion packs are far more dangerous than gas stoves or general use of electricity" seems a bit far fetched.

From casual review, it appears that the greatest risk for fire in households remains: cooking equipment, heating equipment, smoking, and inadequate electrical wiring (extensions cords, overdrawn circuits, etc.).

This leaves off other majors like kids with matches, candles, flammable liquids, etc.

Note: This is not to say that LiIon batteries are safe and beyond reproach. The Toronto fire service had 29 battery-related fires in 2022, up from 11 in 2021. This compares vs. 254 "cooking equipment" fires, 158 "open flames / smokers" fires, and 77 "electrical distribution" fires (2019 figures). This suggests lithium ion batteries are a source of domestic fires, but not a major one (~2% of causes).

> Your statement of "lithium ion packs are far more dangerous than gas stoves or general use of electricity" seems a bit far fetched.

I wish. I've installed distribution panels and gas gear and none of that comes close to working on a sizeable Lithium Ion pack in terms of risk.

If you don't believe me that is something I can not help but there are other commenters in this thread who back that up, surely the people that actually did this stuff have some relevant experience?

The stats are what they are because of the relative distribution of e-bikes vs gas stoves and such. What should worry you is that the number of e-bikes is still relatively low vs the number of gas stoves.

As for sharing the document, I'd love to but there is no email address visible in your profile, could you supply one please?

Unfortunately I don't disclose emails through public forums for privacy reasons. If you can share the title of the document it may be indexed somewhere on the web?

As for the statement, as a professional I do tend to believe other professionals. Ultimately the statistics don't lie: lithium ion related fires are a minority of current household causes. To your point, that may change over time particularly where larger installations (e-bikes, solar system batteries) are involved. I'll pitch that the regulatory regime is more than capable of catching up and enforcing change if the degree of risk starts to go up. We already see fire departments commenting on it, so it won't be long before we start seeing guidelines and restrictions on battery sizes within homes.

Ok.

I haven't published it yet, and will probably do so in the near future so if you read HN regularly you'll see it sooner or later.

Looking forward to it!

I have far more lithium batteries on my desk than I do gas appliances on my entire property.

I'm not an outlier either. Most of us carry at least one fragile lithium polymer battery on our person at all times.

I understand that larger packs like those on my bicycle are more energetic, but I'm still not convinced that it is more dangerous than something as mundane as the grill on my patio, and the stats seem to back this up.

The point is, though, that both are pretty safe as long as some standard safety protocols are followed. Should you be allowed to spot weld 18650s on your kitchen counter? no. But you also shouldn't be building experimental grills in your living room either, or playing with gasoline.

Hi, could you please share your notes with me? I've put my email in my profile.

yes, of course, I will send it.

Edit: sent! should be in your inbox, happy reading.

This is changing the subject. The point being made is that electrical devices and infrastructure burst into flames a lot, and burn houses down.

Battery fires are horrible, and we should be regulated to protect our neighbors from them just as we regulate other electrical devices, explosives, flammable or noxious chemicals, and home wiring. That does not mean that we should allow private companies to dictate how we use or repair the products they've sold us, even though it could absolutely include legislation to forbid us from experimenting with certain batteries under certain circumstances or without certain licensing.

> Lithium Ion packs are far more dangerous than gas stoves or general use of electricity.

How much of that is due to tech being relatively new?

Gas has some impressive failure modes too; in fact, every now and then I hear in national news about a residential apartment building having to be torn down after being structurally damaged beyond repair by a gas explosion in on of the flats. That's on top of fires and carbon monoxide poisoning. Gas is relatable in its ubiquity and danger, in ways lithium ions aren't yet.

> If you don't recognize that fact then maybe I should send you my safety notes regarding lithium ion battery packs?

I'd actually love to read those. I am personally afraid to play with lithium ion batteries, though a little less than I am playing with propane tanks. Maybe your notes would help me recalibrate. My mail should be in my profile.

> How much of that is due to tech being relatively new?

None. The power density + basic chemistry and the way in which packs are manufactured are pretty much set. Without a change in any of those we won't see any major safety improvements. My hope is on a safer basic chemistry becoming mandated.

> Gas has some impressive failure modes too; in fact, every now and then I hear in national news about a residential apartment building having to be torn down after being structurally damaged beyond repair by a gas explosion in on of the flats. That's on top of fires and carbon monoxide poisoning. Gas is relatable in its ubiquity and danger, in ways lithium ions aren't yet.

Yes. True. But: yet.

> I'd actually love to read those. I am personally afraid to play with lithium ion batteries, though a little less than I am playing with propane tanks. Maybe your notes would help me recalibrate. My mail should be in my profile.

Ok, will mail this to you right away.

edit: sent.

Lithium batteries are only stable in a narrow range of conditions. Most chemistries self-heat during use, BMS often lack a charge stabilization cool-down timer, and true cell impedance monitoring is rare in fast chargers.

To be blunt, if you are running LiIon/LiPol outside the 4'C to 54'C range, than you can be sure the bathtub-curve* will not flatten. i.e. given enough users a fire event becomes a certitude.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve

One mitigation is a metal cabinet on a concrete floor. You may think this is unnecessary for large lithium battery banks, but as cells degrade they become more problematic.

Have fun, =)

The solution here (and for most things) is education. These big bike companies (and any company selling large LiPo batteries) should fund battery safety programs for kids as part of the general fire safety lessons they already learn, as well as publish repair and safety guidelines for consumers. They should also offer low cost battery refurbishment and swaps.

We also have rules about welding car gas tanks, and for similar reasons.

One of the virtues of bikes is how easy they are to service or modify at home. It's great to tinker with motors, wiring, switching, transmission, and brakes. Unfortunately, LiON battery packs have invisible failure modes that involve burning down the building.

And most car gas tanks are no longer made of metal.

The problem here is that there's not good alternative to Lithium for now. LiFePO4 (commonly seen as LFP) chemistry is a little safer, but also less energy dense & heavier. It's unclear to me whether or not these downsides rule out that chemistry's use for bikes as space and weight can often be at a premium.

Agreed, and yes, this is a problem. I'm hoping for Lithium Titanate to become more affordable, I think it is one of the most promising candidates.

I forgot about that chemistry! I’m excited about it as well. It still seems to be unobtanium for my use-cases :)

You can get the cells but they are still too expensive and the form factor doesn't help either, but I'm hopeful that this will be resolved.

While true, this hasn't changed the fact that you can still weld plastic gas tanks.

Yes, but I would only do that for a car for which no tanks are available any more. If you can still get a NOS one then you probably should, unless the leak is very small and on the top of the tank (where it rarely is...).

They have a spot where you can leave a review on google if you feel so inclined.

I don't trust that these groups will reduce waist or risks. I hope someday there's a standard 36/48/52V battery that has a cost of $0.25 per wh. If you slightly oversize your battery AH requirements, 5-6 life years is typical with even heavy use.

Better yet, merge the electric lawn care batteries with bicycles (easy and safe if you're into DIY and match the load to the C rate the battery can provide). There's already DRM on my lawn care tools but luckily i can still power a bike off the batteries because the DRM is on the tool side (it has an extra 4th pin looking for a specific PWM pulse).

Most of the fires are coming from bottom of the barrel factories that recycle cells into questionable packs with questionable BMS systems.

In California, Senator Eggman et al. have introduced SB-244 Right to Repair Act [1].

It's currently sitting in the suspense file in the Assembly's Appropriations Committee [2], where it could die unless the committee decides to pull it out so that it can be put to a vote.

It currently only has a few exemptions for video game consoles, alarms, and select other equipment.

If you live in California, I recommend calling the Assembly Appropriations Committee at (916) 319-2081 and asking them to pull SB-244 from the suspense file and pass it so it can go to the floor for a vote.

[1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.x... [2] https://apro.assembly.ca.gov

If your product can randomly catch on fire, your product is dangerous and should not have been sold at a first place.

Depending on how you define "randomly", you might have just decided no more phones, laptops, etc. Bad batteries can sneak into even the best supply chains and cause fires.

This is an incredibly cynical move by the e-bike industry, and I'm really sad to see an industry org claiming to represent REI, Santa Cruz, etc. peddling this crap.

What they're asking consumers to do is send them a battery that they paid anywhere between $300 and $1000 new, which 99% of the time has had one BMS pod (10% of the battery) fail because one cell failed and took the pod with it. So they'll recycle this 90% good battery (95+% if you count the enclosure and BMS) - which means basically ship it hundreds of miles, melt it down, throw away the enclosure, and extract the raw materials. This is devastating for the environment.

Meanwhile the consumer will buy a new one. Quality batteries are produced in Korea and Malaysia, while the hardware for the enclosures and BMSs is produced mostly in Taiwan and China. Preventing the proper reuse of these components is not just environmentally devastating, it's bad for the American economy.

Now, it's true that consumers should not try to fix these batteries without extensive training. They are hazardous to disassemble and require specialized equipment to work on. If you mix cells and don't understand how BMSs work, you can easily start a fire. But it's not rocket science, and all the manufacturers are using pretty much off-the-shelf components. Repair is generally safe as long as you replace all cells in a parallel pod using healthy cells that are otherwise compatible and have matching charge/discharge curves with each other and with other pods in the battery - and use a quality BMS. This is not something that a typical consumer should do, and it does require monitoring equipment to confirm the health of the battery. But this is currently a huge unmet need that should be filled by local shops that train techs and create local jobs, not by melting down batteries en masse.

Conversely, by trying to prevent safe routes to economical and environmentally friendly repair, the industry is encouraging people to dangerously hack their batteries to save hundreds of dollars.

They aren't 100% wrong, sketchy battery repairs can end in fire, it's just the nature of lithium based batteries. They need to be charged and discharged appropriately.

The solution here is not locking out anyone but the manufacturers, the solution is standardization and training.

If there was one standardized battery management board, or a series of standards, and one standardized way of putting together these batteries (which there mainly is) then there could be a training program w/ certification. Take your battery to get serviced by someone without certification that's on you, take it to a certified technician and it goes up in smoke that's on them and/or the certification board.

Indeed, it is ridiculous that there are so many different battery makes and models out there when the cells themselves are highly standardized already. This is something the EU is addressing as we speak though.

So, here is my take. I've built my own battery pack, a pretty big one (170 cells of the largest capacity available), and it has served me well. But: I'm not your average DIYer and have spent a ton of time reading up on the do's and don'ts of pack construction, made a smaller one first to experiment with and have researched pack safety until my eyes hurt.

My short take is that if you are someone who wants to revive their e-bike battery pack after it fails and who does not have extensive experience yet that it is going to be much cheaper and safer to just go out and buy a replacement pack from the same brand. I've seen multiple packs that had burned out wiring (usually: balancing wires, but also the main current carrying conductor), burned out BMS boards. Rarely did I open a pack that had been in service after developing a fault where the fault could not have potentially propagated. That it did not was in most cases sheer luck. Even for brand name gear!

It is super easy to mess up with these. Drop a pack, drop a sliver of wire or interconnect ribbon, misplace a tool and you have a thermal runaway on your hands which you will not be able to stop. Doing this in a facility that is not set up for it (say, your kitchen or living room, especially if it is in shared accommodation such as an apartment building) is super dangerous.

If you're going to do this anyway, prepare to spend a grand or so on tools and a good month or so on creating a safe setup. After that you might as well go into business. I'm all for DIY stuff, but this isn't one of those.

Finally: manufacturers could help with this: they could design their packs to be more reliable and easier to repair. They also could stop price-gouging the consumers on the packs, which is one of the reasons people want to repair them to begin with. But the packs are so chock full of DRM and other nonsense that repairing them properly is specialist work and they are so expensive that there will be a number of people that will try to repair a pack themselves anyway. Just disassembling a pack is not without risk.

If you go down this route feel free to drop me an email and I'll send you a document that I have been working on for a long time to make working on these safer. Some ground rules:

- replace all cells at once

- weld your connections (NEVER solder them)

- use only the same cells

- use only cells that have all been charged to the same voltage

- make a thermal scan of the pack after the initial build during high speed charging and discharging to make sure you don't have a cell in there that somehow stands out (it will surely fail)

- if you drop a pack or a cell consider it lost, even if it seems to still work

- only use A brand cells from a reputable vendor

- do not use recycled cells

- only use the original BMS

- Make sure none of your sense wires are crossed or loose enough that they can cross

- spend as much time on the mechanical part of your build as on the electrical part

hth

Old TVs were dangerous as hell to repair.

So we had a solution: TV repair men!

The issue isn't so much that consumers can't fix these things. The issue is that even skilled technicians can't.

Manufacturers are saying, rightfully, "Its too dangerous for consumers to repair"

But they are also saying, wrongfully, "Therefore only we can repair it!"

They are creating a false dichotomy so they can corner repairs.

Old TVs were easy and safe to repair after some minimal training. I learned to do it from a pro when I was 16. As long as you properly discharge the tube and the bigger caps, it's safe to work on.

Battery packs are much worse because they cannot be completely discharged before you work on them, i.e. you have to work on them "hot" while they're still storing energy. It takes more training, more tools, and a dedicated facility to do it safely.

And when they go they make your average TV failure look like a picnic. Though, to be fair, an old tube could do some pretty bad stuff if mechanically damaged.

And I guess the TV tube was also more likely to just kill the person working on it, not random people who live in your building. (Still not a great outcome, but better if the only person who dies is the only person who actively consented to the risks.) A lithium fire is gonna spread pretty quickly.

Quite. The hard part is to realize - up front, hopefully - that all of your normal firefighting instincts aren't going to work and have a good chance of making things worse.

Yes, it is clear they are arguing for their own book. But they do have a point: as currently shipped these packs are dangerous. But I would expand that to 'dangerous to use', and not just 'dangerous to repair'.

But they could make them less dangerous, they could also make them much less dangerous to repair. But with a pack costing roughly 1 euro / Wh they are stupendously overpriced and a major source of revenue. And most bikes have one or more pack replacements during their lifespan. So it's clear why they would want you to buy another, at the same time they are playing the safety card for disingenuous reasons.

A safe to repair pack would have cell modules that could be replaced individually and with sense wires that are bonded to the case in such a way that they can never end up crossed and squashed.

Leading causes of pack failures:

- breaking interconnects / bad welds

- water ingestion

- shorting out sense wires

- impact damage, or dropped pack

- electronics failure

The problem is that by making them repairable they open themselves up to legal liability.

A phone battery goes bad... it's a few ounces of solvent to burn. An ebike battery goes bad, and it's going to be near impossible for it not to take the structure with it. That's a massive liability.

You can buy replacement batteries on amazon for phones and powertools. You don't know where they come from, and I avoid them for this reason. I've seen batteries from reputable companies combust just sitting on a shelf. The idea that any company would sanction anyone to buy shady grey market and use them with their product puts them in the path of unavoidable financial ruin.

Pretty much all liability laws include various forms of "the manufacturer is not liable if the fault happened because the customer (or some repair shop) messed around with the item". It's already the kind of thing which people do frequently, arguably the lack of proper spare parts and documentation makes this more dangerous, not less.

Building or repairing a multi-cell battery pack with multiple cells is on par with doing a motor swap on an ICE car.

I created the ebike subreddit and have been part of the community for 10+ years. I've had a lead acid battery blow up in my face. I've fucked up and had to run out the front door and yeet a 18650 out on yard before it popped. Yeah, yeah yeah, maybe I'm unlucky or maybe I'm incompetent, but I wasn't a noob in either of these cases.

I believe in ebikes as a valid alternative to cars and a wonderful thing overall. It would be an ecological disaster if apartments started banning ebikes or the government started to heavily regulate them. And if we're not careful, that's where we might end up.

> It is super easy to mess up with these. Drop a pack, drop a sliver of wire or interconnect ribbon, misplace a tool and you have a thermal runaway on your hands which you will not be able to stop. Doing this in a facility that is not set up for it (say, your kitchen or living room, especially if it is in shared accommodation such as an apartment building) is super dangerous.

What's your point? Changing your own break pads or hydraulic fluid can very easily leave you with a runaway 2-ton vehicle on your hands which you will not be able to stop. This is also super dangerous for you and the people you share space on the road with. It's still neither illegal to do nor do car manufacturers refuse to sell you either pads, rotors or fluid.

And the same is true for home reloading rifle rounds, messing with rodent poison or common cleaning chemicals.

At some point you have to trust people. Slap some warning stickers onto things, rely on the news to really drive the point home after the first person burns down their kitchen.

> Changing your own break pads or hydraulic fluid can very easily leave you with a runaway 2-ton vehicle on your hands, which is also super dangerous for you and the people you share space on the road with.

Yes it is. But just handling brake pads or hydraulic fluid by itself does not have the potential to harm you and a lot of others, neither does working with them and presumably you know how to bleed your brakes and test them. Most people that have worked with and on brake systems are in agreement that this can be done safely. Most people that have worked on e-bike battery packs are in agreement that this is a risky affair at best. That pack mentioned above is a one-off. I would never sell it to anybody else. At the same time I would have absolutely no qualms about selling someone a car on which I've worked on the brakes. Brake systems can - and do - fail but modern cars have multiple cylinders, and have mechanical backup for failed vacuum assist. So it's not as if a failed brake immediately translates into people dying though it definitely does have that potential.

A fuckup with a 40 or 50 cell e-bike pack is pretty much guaranteed to cause a serious fire. You're essentially dealing with the DIY equivalent of a live grenade, it isn't going to go off with the same bang (fortunately) but when it goes it will keep on going until it runs out of stuff to burn.

> They also could stop price-gouging the consumers on the packs, which is one of the reasons people want to repair them to begin with.

This is a huge piece of it, stop ripping us off! This has been going on for decades -- from NiMH battery packs for power tools, to laptop batteries.

I assume a big difference in the danger aspect with the bike batteries is their size/capacity? Less to go wrong with a 2AH cordless drill battery, than a 20AH bike battery?

Cordless drills usually (but definitely not always) use LIFePO4 so should be a little bit safer. Here too: be careful of cheap stuff.

But a 50 cell 36V 625Wh e-bike battery is an entirely different beast and when it goes you're going to be very sorry if you are nearby. Individual cells that go are already very impressive, a large pack is going to very effectively spoil your day (if not your life).

What happens exactly when a 625 Wh battery pack "goes"? Does it explode? Does it burn fiercely for several minutes?

625 Wh is the energy equivalent of a few ounces of gasoline. That's certainly enough to do some damage, especially if it gets misted to an explosive air/fuel ratio, but not something that most people would be afraid to handle.

That's precisely what is so deceptive. Compared to a lead acid battery of equivalent capacity the dangers are far higher (though to be splashed with acid can ruin your life quite effectively as well).

What will happen - usually - is this: one cell will go bad, into thermal runaway. Maybe it had a bad interconnect which vibration fixed and now the rest of the cells in parallel will dump a few hundred amps into it or maybe the pack was subject to a fall, who knows. But let's assume that one cell only got damaged. This cell is in close proximity to the rest of the cells in the pack but typically they'll have between two and six closely spaced neighbors. Those in turn will start to go up after which there is a geometric expansion until the whole pack is gassing out and possibly already burning.

Elapsed time from first symptoms to violent explosion/fire is on the order of 10 to 20 seconds at best. And once it gets going your best chance of stopping it is to immerse the whole thing in a very large volume of water or to bury it in a large amount of sand. The vapors are not going to be pleasant to deal with, anything combustible that it can come into contact with will likely burn.

Some examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlQumRetMf0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKn8MLG9slA

So naively I'd think that fusing the cell interconnects so that "a few hundred amps" cannot pass would be a way to deal with that, but I guess if it were that simple it would be done.

This is done in some packs, but this introduces a new risk: now, once a fuse is blown the pack will be asymmetrical and that in turn will put more strain on the remaining cells in that particular block of parallel cells. So likely that is a stay of execution rather than a solution. Another problem is that cells can develop higher internal resistance than their brothers causing them to overheat. In general, pack construction is a very delicate interplay of mechanical stability, thermal stability and electrical properties. Get anything wrong and it translates into risk, and it isn't always obvious that you've done something wrong.

Even the big manufacturers mess up. That's a pretty good sign that this isn't an easy problem.

So I think I'm agreeing with you these large battery packs sound almost too dangerous to be sold as consumer products. Are there any other examples of consumer/household products that can fail so dangerously and that have not been recalled or banned?

There are things such as space heaters, heating pads, kitchen appliances, etc. that have been known to start fires, but at least if you're in the room with them you can probably react and extinguish them if you have water or a fire extinguisher handy.

I don't know anything that comes close to this. Just recently someone gifted one of my children a battery powered toy, I checked it and decided that I couldn't tell the difference between that toy and a purposeful attempt at arson...

The big thing that stands out for me is that the perception of the risks (impact / likelihood) is entirely unlike the real risk. For most other things those are much more in line. And that's why people get caught out.

Nobody thinks twice about leaving their e-bike charging in the kitchen overnight, or to take it into an elevator or in an extreme case even a bedroom (1 room studio, no storage space). Stairwells are another such spot. I charge mine outside under an overhang, and only do so when I know it isn't going to be anywhere near freezing.

> I'm all for DIY stuff, but this isn't one of those

After my own research, I absolutely agree. I was quite disappointed.

> They also could stop price-gouging the consumers on the packs, which is one of the reasons people want to repair them

Totally true. These prices are seen as an essential profit center when they're actually contributing to the problem. There are other ways to differentiate for a premium without worsening safety.

It's stupid to DIY this stuff unless you really know what you're doing and are willing to put in the proper effort, and there should be more warnings about this. However, companies are doing the opposite of reducing the motivation for it. I don't know if we need something as extreme as price controls, but in my view, if the industry isn't going to step up then they should be forced to somehow. There is way too much risk of massive property damage, maiming and/or death.

Do e-bike batteries generally need REPAIR or do they more likely just get less effective over time in a way that's not really fixable? Not arguing against repair here, just trying to understand the landscape. Is "fixing" them swapping out cells?

Yes and yes. E-bike batteries consist of 40 to 100 cells. Typically one cell fails prematurely and compromises a pod of 4 to 10 other cells that are connected in parallel with it. Replacing the whole pod is safe as long as it's done properly (removed and re-welded without damaging the enclosure or shorting anything out) with like cells that have identical manufacturer, specs, actual capacity and charge curves to each other and to the rest of the battery. Ideally they should be matched with cells from a donor battery of the same "vintage".

The vast majority of the time, the remaining 90% of the cells in the pack have a lot of life left. If multiple pods have failed simultaneously (which is very rare), that's a sign that they're all starting to go and all cells should be replaced - which may still make sense, as the enclosure and BMS are often half the cost and perfectly functional.

The problem is you really do need to match the cells by actual capacity and charge curve, and that requires specialized equipment. If you don't, a good BMS will shut down the pack, and a bad BMS will allow it to catch on fire. Given the financial incentives (many hundreds of dollars to replace a pack), people will try to fix a pack in hacky ways. This is why it's important to provide the right tools and training for local shops to develop economical ways to service batteries and to educate people about the hazards involved.

This is all good stuff. I'd like to add one small bit: most BMS are not capable of balancing packs that have become significantly unbalanced fast enough, and if they're really out of whack you may have a problem. A good BMS will allow this situation to exist but will de-rate the pack (you'll be charging to a lower overall voltage), a bad BMS will still allow the pack to reach the full working voltage but this will result in some pods to be under their maximum voltage while others will be over.

And that's a serious risk: a battery that is just fine at 4.2V may well go ballistic at 4.35 so even a small offset can cause real trouble. That's why those sense and balancing wires are all important. Keep in mind that they are not fused whenever you work on a battery and carry full voltage.

Could you go down a rabbit hole a bit on this part of your response? "[Manufacturers] could design their packs to be more reliable and easier to repair."

What is it, if you were a state or local government, that you would force on the industry?

Also, what happens to the remaining "good" cells when you recycle rather than repair a battery? Are they kept in tact?

You could build a pack out of modules, the logical unit is the 'pod', the block of cells that are set to operate in parallel, typically there are three electrical connections (all the joined + contacts, all the joined - contacts and a sense wire connected to the +) the + and - are usually passed on to the rest of the string except for the topmost + and the bottommost -. Those are brought out using wire. You could allow a pack to be split on the pod boundaries. That would allow for one relatively easy unit of repair. You'd have to know which pod to replace but that is something that you might be able to figure out using a DVM.

Another thing they could do is to allow for a complete reset of the BMS instead of bricking the BMS as is now done. This would also take care of capacity drift, which causes a lot of trouble with older packs where the reserve becomes an ever larger part of the total pack capacity and which can render a fully functional pack effectively useless.

I would not bother with the right-to-repair on this one but demand that for an e-bike to be certified that there would be a cost+ arrangement to deliver a refurbished battery to the end user, and that this should happen at least twice during the life of the bike. This because the batteries are by far the weakest spot in the chain, they fail at a rate much higher than motors or controllers. And the life of a bike should be defined as no less than 20 years.

Finally, when you recycle you could break up a pod into its constituent cells fairly easily, test them, discard the ones that are not passing a testing regime and then to match the cells and recreate new pods. But unless this is done at a very large scale it is probably more cost effective to just discharge the batteries, grind them up and to recycle them completely. That will give you brand new cells at some loss of material.

I hope this answer is what you had in mind.

Yes, absolutely, super interesting. Would it ALSO be a good idea to standardize battery specs? If so, which?

That's always hard, you don't want to give any manufacturer an edge but at the same time you also don't want to force everybody into buying a new bike. It may be possible to create an adapter that would accept modules for the new system. I'm imagining something like a stack of supersized 'D' cells. Packs would then combine these in the quantity needed to reach the required voltage. Doing that reliably and with very low contact resistance will be a major challenge.

The garden and powertools world has a working model for this:

https://www.powerforall-alliance.com/en/

With a lot of the major brands already subscribing to the concept that's a really nice move forward, and I'm looking forward to Bosch extending the concept to e-bikes, there really is no reason why they could not. It will make batteries more likely to be stolen though, so that is another angle that will need work.

> stop price-gouging the consumers on the packs

Are their margins even that high? It looks like a Bosch 400Wh pack is ~$650 which is not super far off the cost per joule of cordless tool battery packs.

Both are ridiculous. The cells themselves go for $4-$6 each, there are usually 40 in that Bosch pack so that's $160-$240 in cells at retail pricing.

That could merely suggest that cordless tool battery packs are also wildly overpriced.

> Minnesota recently passed its own right to repair law, and while also watered down to exclude cars, medical equipment, and game consoles, it did at least manage to include e-bikes.

This part makes me wonder how the industry will deal with Minnesota and others countries that have a right to repair.

Will the manufacturers avoid selling their bikes there ?

Will they produce “special reparable bikes” there ?

Will they just sell the same sh*t illegally regarding that law ?

I've been putting off electrifying my priority bike because I figured I would just buy one eventually, but I don't need two bikes, and now I feel like modding my existing is the morally right move forward.

What I don't get: If they're really worried about battery fires, why do the lobbyists always ask for category exceptions for "bikes" or "cars" and not "batteries"?

Because it's just a figleaf for their commercial interests. They could easily solve this but they like their $.

Many producers put a great effort into making sure you can only use their battery for replacement, even if it's obvious that any battery with correct voltage would do. Batteries should be interchangeable just like in cars- nobody sane would claim that using different brand of battery increases risk of car fire. Just set some standards on voltage and power limits and agree on common connector type, this should be done many years ago.

Mostly, but not quite: there are a ton of crap battery manufacturers that produce cells with the right form factor and nameplate ratings but that are complete junk.

Right to repair and a phone's ip67 rating can't coexist

Yes they can. Right to repair wouldn't mean that gaskets, o-rings, and silicone must cease to exist.

Only a matter of months before vamoof goes vamoose.

VanMoof goes VanPoof

The e-bike industry is a scam!

The bike is a 200 year old invention, these people really are fooling consumers into thinking they have re-invented the wheel.

Some e-bikes go for 20,000$, that's the same price of a new Ducati Panigale which has 400 lbs of material in it, including a 220hp motor which rotates at 17000rpm.

It's either a scam or poor engineering, some people claim that the pricy e-bikes have 'a lot of carbon fiber on them' , but centuries of work showed that if you are struggling to propel yourself forward the low hanging fruit is a more powerful motor which is way more helpful than lowering the weight by half an ounce at the price of hundreds of dollars of carbon fiber.

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