VanMoof acquired by e-mobility company Lavoie
bicycleretailer.com
bicycleretailer.com
so many electric vehicles are running their own version of the Benjamin Vedder VESC as the primary motor controller. They change a minor feature, stop providing source, and then pretend that it's their own design.
But, even so, it's all still pretty inter-changable. Nearly all BLDCs are controlled similarly. Nearly all PEVs are running hall encoders, and if they're not it's trivial to switch between hall/sin-cos/foc/whatever with nearly any modern controller, just as nearly any controller can be programmed for just about any kind of voltage source, be it lead-acid/lipo/liion/lifepo4/whatever.
Things seem a lot more friendly for tinkerers now than ever in the whole PEV sphere. Improvements can always be hoped for, but same as with every industry : you should probably expect to exchange interoperability and freedom for closely-knit support and homogeneity.
I can't believe anyone desires the experience of the auto mechanic, for anything. Like I know that's something that exists obviously and is something people do, like people go to normal bike shops. But it doesn't make sense.
If people want to buy crappy bikes they can. There's an ecosystem for that. VanMoof's problems are complicated, there are a lot of super low information comments on HN right now. I'm not interested in people's anecdotes, and I'm not sharing any either. All I'm saying is that in my experience, with every product I've owned, the VanMoof approach has been better for me, as a consumer, and that I only hope that they figure out pricing to make it sustainable in the future.
It’s sad to see them fail, hopefully someone else will be able to pull it off. I guess my $20 deposit for their faster e-bike is unlikely to ever come to anything. Maybe I should just get a used stromer.
Manufacturers are experimenting with form factors, perf-to-weight ratios, noise levels, weatherproofing, connectivity features, anti-theft mechanisms, ABS, etc.
Battery connectivity and charging is where I'd personally like to see more standardisation—even if there are obvious form factor challenges. Standardisation here could drive costs down, which would benefit the entire market. Maybe the EU should start leaning in this area.
Some of these batteries can't be re-celled as if they've had a failure, the BMS deliberately goes into a 'permanently dead' mode, so it can't be recovered even if the dead cells are replaced.
It's criminal what's happening in the proprietary eBike space.
You can pick up a kit from ebikeling which includes standard throttles, hub motors (or mid-drive if you're into that), pedal assist sensors and displays.
You can buy one of thousands of batteries with XT60 connectors or solder one to any battery you'd like.
They certainly try. Some bikes are better protected than others and part of the certification process is to verify it isn't trivial to hack the bikes. And if this is found to be the case after the fact certification can be withdrawn, retroactively so manufacturers have a lot riding on getting this right.
Note that in plenty of places nobody cares, but in some countries authorities are strict (and getting ever stricter).
If so, I’d guess the requirement is highly unusual. Normally, the requirements you mention would be enforced by certifying the components.
And no, it's not just the components. The reason for that is that the bike motor, controller and rear wheel + sensor all have to be 'just so' for the speed limiter to work properly. There are some defeat tricks, usually stuff that fools the sensor by doing a neat little bit of Bresenham on the input signal but the smarter bike motors realize this is happening and will happily brick themselves. The latest generation Bosch is afaik not yet hacked and this is not for lack of people trying.
I wouldn’t hold my breath. https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/02/can-we-make-bicycles...:
“Until a few decades ago, component compatibility was a hallmark of bicycle manufacturing. My bicycles are a perfect example of this. Most components – such as wheels, gear set, and brakes – are interchangeable between the different frames, even though every vehicle is from another brand and year of construction.
[…]
Unfortunately, compatibility is hardly a feature of bicycle manufacturing anymore. Manufacturers have introduced an increasing number of proprietary parts and keep changing standards, resulting in compatibility issues even for older bicycles of the same brand. For example, if the shifter of a modern bike breaks after some years of use, a replacement part will probably no longer be available. You need to order a new set from a new generation, which will be incompatible with your front and rear derailleur – which you also need to replace. For road bikes, the change from cassette bodies with ten sprockets (around 2010) to cassette bodies with eleven, twelve, and most recently thirteen sprockets have made many wheelsets obsolete, and the same goes for the rest of the drivetrain including shifters and chains.
Disc brakes, which are now on almost every new bicycle, all have different axle designs, meaning that every vehicle now requires proprietary spare parts. Disc brakes also required new shifters, forks, framesets, cables, and wheels, making such bicycles incompatible with earlier designs.”
I bought a -cheap- beater for a family member a few weeks ago for the grand sum of $80. It is an excellent bike by a prime brand manufacturer, it needed a little bit of work (roller brake service, one new spoke, some grease and a new rear light) and it's as good as new. I fully expect it to outlive me, and probably everybody else in this house if it is taken care of as well. I regularly see bikes from the 60's around here that are still in very good shape.
The bike industry lives by: theft, bike accidents, kids growing up (kids are really rough on bikes) and cracks in frames. Everything else is fixable if the bike is of a reputable brand.
Crap bikes not so much those have the weirdest parts.
Bottom brackets are an example where we're coming back to sanity. The pressfit junk they pushed on us was for ease of manufacturing and low cost. Consumers realized they were worse, and they started to avoid those. The manufacturers have caught on and started putting threaded BBs back in, as they ought to.
We've mostly got a set of semi-reasonable standards. In the MTB world at least, 148 rear hub width is almost ubiquitous, and 15mm front axles with boost spacing are effectively it outside of downhill applications. 6 bolt rotors of various sizes are essentially standard.
The majority of the pain is where the big manufacturers (SRAM and Shimano) are battling it out: hub and chain/shifting standards. That is admittedly painful right now, but you can chalk most that up to corporate greed.
All in all, I don't get the concern here. With a little bit of consideration of compatibility in a couple areas you can mix and match brands pretty easily on most of the bike.
I will admit I do prefer a threaded BB, but I also think it’s an overstated issue.
Then again, my frame is steel and I run a pretty high end Wheels Mfg BB. Maybe I’m insulated by that.
There's lots of other ways to address PF issues, I think it's just that consumers know about the issues and prefer to avoid them if possible.
From what I've seen said by bike experts on YouTube, pressfit is actually superior, because it saves weight, and is (maybe) still used on top-end racing bikes for this reason. The problem with pressfit is that it requires very precise manufacturing, and apparently most mfgrs just can't make a proper round hole in carbon fiber. Threaded BBs are more practical because they allow for sloppier manufacturing tolerances.
Of course, threaded is better for end users who want to do their own repairs, since it doesn't require special press tools like pressfit does.
The issue (according to the YouTube experts) is that for mass-market bikes, the manufacturers have somewhat poor quality control and manufacturing tolerances (as far as drilling holes apparently). For a press-fit BB (bottom bracket), you need an extremely round hole, accurately sized for the BB to press into (hence the name).
For a threaded BB, this isn't an issue, because those aren't pressed in. Those have an aluminum threaded part that's bonded into the hole; the hole doesn't have to be super accurate, just good enough for the aluminum part to fit into properly and get glued in. The aluminum part has the threads and perfectly fits the BB, and since it's machined out of aluminum at some other factory, doesn't have the problems with tolerances that the CF parts have apparently.
I'm nowhere near an expert but I think most small (or steel) bike brands never moved off english threaded bottom brackets so I think that's mostly a major manufacturer issue. The brakes are frame dependent but calpier and cantilever arms are fairly simple/available or flatmount if discs (ignoring that Shimano just kind of decided they didn't like post mount). Finally, if you're comfortable with (ratcheted) friction shifting then most drivetrain compatibility issues are covered.
The components themselves tend to be pricier since they're targeting a niche market but there are people serving it.
I love how much people hack this stuff to overcome corporate shenanigans!
(Seriously, the complete bikes they sold are literally more expensive than any car I've ever bought. Not that I wouldn't like one, they're even roughly the style of bike I like, but I wouldn't use one enough to justify it. Their parts though, they're heirloom quality solid performance.)
There's a ton of custom and semi custom manufacturers out there of parts and frames, some of which are even affordable. A quick perusal of the Radavist will give pointers galore. Some of them even do production runs to make frame prices under 2k.
Personally, I like the look of the Crust Lightning bolt, but it's seriously pricey to import to the EU, so maybe something more like the Brother Mr. Wooden is next in line for me.
If I'm going to pick a fancy niche frame I don't want to afford I'd opt for a Jones LWB space frame. I'm actually a recumbent rider so the more likely expensive cycling purchase would be a velomobile.
Somewhat unrelated I also kind of hate how popular aluminum has become (or at least was when I last bought a road bike). Since all the mass produced frames are aluminum, the only options for a steel frame were more exotic models and thus expensive. In retrospect I wish I had just bought a steel hybrid frame and built a bike myself, but I was rather busy at the time, and it probably still would have been more expensive since so many of the parts are non-interchangeable.
It was a tossup between that or a Lynsey, and I snagged a close out color of the Niner for 1/3 of the quoted price of the Lynsky at the time, and that included a carbon fork.
I’m actually overhauling it now with an entire group set after riding the last one since 2016.
Interesting fact that relates: the first couple years of the RLT Steel shipped with a fork that is 15x100 thru axle; nowadays the gravel/cyclocross market has settled on 12x100.
So I ended up getting a set of New Old Stock (NOS) 29” wheels from that same era that are 15x100/12x142 and 22.5mm wide. Perfect for my bike, but vanishingly hard to find now as a set due to the oddball matchup.
Pretty pricey, but I also got a bike fit and some other stuff and wanted a frame to just be done with it and ride. It’s served me well, and has many years of life left!
Random side note: I just realized this is the second time in two days I’ve responded to you (other was regarding a 7 seat vehicle). HN can be quite a small place!
Except it was being compared to a $700 bike (not frame, assembled bike), by the person with whom I share financial decisions.
I'll ride any bike (even experimental ones) but no carbon forks for me.
I am using almost exclusively DT Swiss 350 hubs and some of my wheels have been in use with quick axle, 15x100 and 12x100 frames. I even converted some 12x142 wheels to 12x148 (boost) mountain bike standard with the Boostinator kit from Wolftooth components.
These days, I'd say #3 is the only really valid reason for most people. Steel bikes are generally heavier than aluminum however, but it is possible to get them close if you use a high-grade cromoly steel, but then that removes most of the cost advantage.
> Scientists have calculated the lifetime carbon emissions of a steel bike at 35 kg CO2, compared to 212 kg CO2 for an aluminum bicycle.
[1] https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/02/can-we-make-bicycles...
Steel (IIRC) needs a lot more energy to melt than aluminum, however I think aluminum requires more energy to extract from ore. Also, IIRC, aluminum needs more energy to weld just because it conducts electricity so much better, even though it has a lower melting point.
https://thescienceof.org/spider-man-washington-monument/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPVzP2Jfdgs
I think for bikes the opposite matters, with aluminium at required strength you will get a very stiff frame.
Something like an ARM of the bike world.
So while I'm sympathetic to your idea in principle I think that in practice it would be really hard to get Shimano to play along with this, they have historically been real jerks about IP and have themselves been the subject of lawsuits involving unfair competition. I still use their products because I think they are value-for-money the best on the market but their corporate tactics suck.
SRAM 12s cassettes are incompatible with the 11s freehub but Shimano 12s is still compatible. You will need new shifters, so you’d just buy the whole upgrade together.
Rim to disc is obviously incompatible but Shimano’s levers, rotors and callipers have all been forwards compatible so far on road bikes.
Even upgrading your cassette to an incompatible standard is usually just a case of buying a new freehub body for your rear wheel (Shimano -> SRAM XDR). Ideal? No. Affordable? Yes.
The biggest complaints usually come from bottom brackets and even here, changing is usually possible and affordable. Looking at Shimano, I’ve just upgraded my 2016 road bike from an older generation 105 crankset to a newer 4-arm crankset and didn’t need to change the bottom bracket.
Things like forks, seatposts, handlebars can be an issue because they’re becoming more proprietary on higher end bikes. I’m not convinced this is an issue that affects your average commuter, however. I just bought a bike where this isn’t an issue, for example.
What van Moof tried to do is the playbook of every crappy startup: to graft on future revenue onto an initial sale. Every trick they could employ to bind the customer to them they pulled and that's exactly what did them in. The bike industry from a bike manufacturers point of view looks completely different than from a bike parts manufacturers point of view. The amount of knowledge required to build a bike is a small fraction of the amount of knowledge required to build all the parts. So most manufacturers will select parts to achieve a certain price point and quality level, add their own frames (or even outsource the building of the frames) and slap their label on it. And even then they sometimes get it horribly wrong, for instance the 'Stella' brand (a mailorder brand in NL) seems to be incapable of designing a decent bike in spite of using quality parts. Bad chainlines, cracked frames, weird rake angles, I don't think there is a beginners mistake they haven't made yet.
Van Moof could have been just as successful as Brompton, who make a relatively niche bike that is expensive but has an excellent reputation. Instead they wanted to be Apple, but without the incremental progress that got Apple to where they are today. It's an example of premature scaling: some strategies only make sense if you have achieved a certain scale. You can't leapfrog that process by deploying those strategies early, it will just bite you.
I had this happen to me - the people in the store said that they don't carry six-speed shifters anymore.
Meanwhile my bike mechanic said, with visible irritation, "Just use a seven speed and lock the last gear."
It's also been discussed here extensively:
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35534418
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34981363
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34968743On the lower end you still get square taper bottom bracket, threaded 7 speed cassettes, etc.
Also for the most parts, availability of replacement stuff is still high for years because the big transmission manufacturer know they get as much money selling replacement parts than new bikes and groupsets. They have no incentive to abandon old parts/standards completely.
A secondary reason is that they don't seem to make Huffy's for people over ~ 5' 10".
(The $500 bike will probably handle better too, but not 5x better, and I'd recommend getting something more expensive if you can afford it.)
Examples of $100-$200 adult bikes: https://www.walmart.com/browse/sports-outdoors/huffy-bikes/4...
The cheapest repairable "large" adult bikes at a bike chain that is common in SV have a starting non-sale price of $500: https://mikesbikes.com/collections/bikes?sort_by=price-ascen...
Anyway, my point is that if the eBike people prevent you from repairing or customizing your bike by using non-interchangeable parts, then they're asking to be disrupted by low-end landfill bikes.
However, if high-end eBikes go the same way, then they will be even worse.
My (cheap department store) bicycle had a sudden critical failure that caused my front wheel to lock, throwing me over the handlebars. That's the main reason I'll never buy one of those again.
Of course, that was in the early 90s, and I'm open to the possibility that cheap bikes have improved since then, but it was an abrupt lesson about getting what you pay for...
I might be overly pessimistic about the $500 bikes though; I’ve never owned one in that price range.
Everything in it is solid quality; Shimano hubs, aluminum hoops, micro shift drivetrain, threaded BB, decent headset and fork.
Unfortunately not. I thought the same but they usually come with very old parts where the manufacturer only makes that grade. Stuff like a 7s cassette: to get any better you need to drop £300-1200 and install an entirely new groupset, for example. Even upgrading your wheels starts from £300.
It’s only around the £1000-1500 point where you start getting into the realm of upgradable complements that are worth doing.
That's a silly exaggeration, they'll all last 5+ years at the rate most people ride their bikes.
If you leave them outside, the non-standard and irreplaceable bearings will seize in about a year.
If you ride them regularly, then the cheap non-standard chain, freewheel, or brake pads will wear out much faster than on a normal bike.
I use my bike almost daily in all weather conditions, and it is only stored indoors at home. Chains and brake pads are wear items and are not too difficult to replace - just like tires.
I believe my previous one lasted me about eight years, and I only replaced it because the gears wore out and it wasn't viable to replace those. My best estimate is that it lasted 15.000-25.000 km, which isn't too shabby for a €200 bike.
But just looking form the pictures it seems the walmart bikes also have shimano gears. Wonder why thread-OP things they are not replaceable.
Today I will get my internal gear with belt drive bike. Lets hope that last for a long time.
This statement has no relevance to ebikes.
Also, there are niggles like belt drive requiring a different frame. You have to be able to put the belt through a gap in the... do we still call it a "chainstay?"
I've been shopping for a used bike. Life was so much simpler when I had no idea that Shimano and Campagnolo drietrain components were so incompatible and that incompatibility flows through to the way the rear wheel is built.
> VanMoof will abandon its in-house retail store model, instead using third-party retailers to sell and service bikes, opening up new markets around the world for potential buyers.
No, customers will have a harder time maintaining their bikes. They will visit bike shops that will quote X and then charge 1.5 * X, and you're going to be waiting in a line with 10 people who ride their bikes once a month.
Batteries are all 48v lithium, with protection circuits built in. Motors are all 3 phase brushless. Controllers just take DC input, and output to a 3 phase motor.
Most take pwm input for torque or a magnetic pedal sensor.
The resulting bike feels 'cheap' due to all the parts not working well together (for example, they always jerk a bit when pulling away because the motor has no position sensor)
Sadly, though, I don't think off-the shelf e-bikes will likely ever head that way unless there's a sea-change in consumer behaviour.
Even regular old human-only powered bikes have been getting increasingly proprietary, at least at the middle to high-end of the market. It's not dissimilar to the increase in tech for cars, making it more challenging for DIYers to get their elbows dirty without involving some business related to the manufacturer.
DIY e-bikes are pretty easy; although they often require a bit of assembly. The assembly is not particularly hard, certainly no harder than building a simple gaming PC.
DIY ebike kits usually operate with standard, off-the-shelf bikes and bike parts. Even more poignantly, the kits are typically best on used bikes that followed common standards for a long time. The bike industry has worked hard to make us think hub-drive motors are the lesser option. They have some serious advantages for most commuting and general cycling (MTB'ing is a place where mid-drive motors excel), including more available power, lower drivetrain wear and the ability to use regenerative braking.
I built an e-bike recently around a late 90s MTB. The only complicated bit was figuring out the cable routing and hiding some of the bird's nest of wires well (some 3D printing took care of that).
In our conspicuously consumerist milieu, where form is often valued over function, bikes like the VanMoof offer a (deceptive) look of simplicity and elegance.
To my mind, that's a perspective we have to shift. Things should be easy to reason about, easy to fix, easy to customize—it's really the right-to-own (right to repair?) by another name.
Van Moof always struck me as targeting the 'hip' crowd without taking into account the whole eco system that a bike manufacturer operates in. Change too many things at once and the end results are predictable.
I'm with you that they should keep charging the same higher prices for ebikes, just saying the price differenciation is already there.
Unsurprisingly it seems the markets are heavily split by region/country. I assume your comment is about the US market, and I'm kinda glad cheapish bikes are getting the spotlight and more love overall, as it's a neat gateway into biking.
In regions where biking has been a commodity for much longer (like Vietnam/Japan/Korea etc. in the SEA area), if the whole drive train is not electrified the front hub will be used for powered lighting and they won't bother with a disk brake. Which makes sense as they're not expecting people to go anything fast, efficiency is already down with the dynamo hub, and those will easily weight 20+ kh anyway, and they wont to get the price down wherever they can. Same way forks are super cheap, brakes themselves are lower grade (rear brake will often be a ribbon brake) etc.
On the other hand those country also have a huge chunk of electrified bicycles that will have complex drivetrain, high quality parts and of course disk brakes and they'll be services by bigger shops and certified people, and not your random small one-man shop at the corner of the residential street.
Another issue comes with the actual battery and motor, because if you don't get a bike with a system from Bosch, Shimano, or Yamaha, chances are you're on your own for support. Bafang etc are much cheaper but the onus of support is on the vendor directly -- a bike shop can work with Bosch to find and fix problems, but for the Bafang gear they have to deal with whatever (possibly fly-by-night) vendor resold the gear, because Bafang won't help much.
Most ebikes still use standard derailleurs (usually a 1x drivetrain).
For internally geared hubs, Nexus or Alfine IGH are the most common, and apart from getting the cable tension right, don't need any specialist equipment (though the Alfine 11 speed hub is apparently somewhat tricky because it has to be packed with grease).
Most IGH still use chains, belts are less common. Newer chains are rated for ebike use but that generally just means they're more robust.
Belt drives do need to be tensioned properly but again, this doesn't requires specialist tools nor does it require a huge amount of specialist knowledge for a bike mechanic that is (there's literally an app for that). Enviolo, Roloff and other gearbox style systems are specialist equipment and not what you would normally expect a regular bike shop to do intricate servicing on.
Also, internally geared hubs have been around for almost a century and both IGH and belt drives are used on regular bikes. You would expect bike mechanics to be able to deal with them easily.
So by and large, they really are bikes with motors. Yes, there are some things that are more complex but the majority of things are basically the same
My LBS, which is familiar with Gates belt drives, uses for tensioning a rather old-looking metal contraption provided by Gates. Definitely a specialist tool. The phone app for tensioning a belt from the frequency of the twang it makes, is only for end-consumers. Shops are supposed to use the dedicated tool.
You mean, a mountain bike only with an electric motor? Because that's what you just described, minus a battery and motor. Hydraulic brakes have been on bikes for years, there's no more "specialist equipment" required than saying that a third-hand tool for caliper brakes is "specialist equipment". IOW, hydraulic brakes are bicycle brakes in a lot of cases these days. Internal gears? I'm approaching retirement, and multi-speed, planetary gear hubs are what I rode when I was a kid; nothing special there. As for the chains and sprockets, well, your local bunch of amateur racers will put out more wattage than the measly 250W + rider output that an electric will put out, and they use the same chains and sprockets that you do. (I'm not counting electric motorcycles with a "bike" label that put out 1000W.)
So, yes, they are "just bikes" with an electric motor. The exception might arguably be the mid-frame motor ones that require the frame to be designed with the idea of mounting the motor, but even that's just an implementation detail: the rest of the bike is the same.
Suits also aren't a new invention, but I wouldn't ask my bike mechanic for a bespoke suit. Most bike mechanics aren't used to working with electrical components. I wouldn't expect them to know about charging circuits, battery life, motor efficiency, etc...
What a weird rage-bait comment for HN.
I think when the VanMoof came out it was sleek and easy to use in a field of much more clunky eBikes. Now, if you want something that looks good on the road and is easy to operate, you have a lot of options, including ones from familiar bike manufacturers.
Suddenly VanMoof no longer had such a differentiating factor compared to everyone else.
It turned out to be a lot less reliable than I had hoped, and there were issues with the hardware AND the software. Making it super frustrating that it was all integrated.
Software
- If the bike wasn't used for a few weeks it would turn itself back into "shipping mode" and I would need to reset the bike with a pin.
- Settings were forgotten almost every time the bike went to sleep, it would reset the sounds settings so turning it on or unlocking it would always play the cheesy sound effects no matter how many times I turned them off.
- For the first year or so the app would regularly log me out. And the design of the app at the time made it look like you were chatting with a bot so it would take longer to login than needed. Thankfully they redesigned it.
- The integrated back wheel lock will now only unlock if I move the bike a few inches, any additional inches and the lock re-locks itself.
- The bike would randomly show an error code and drop power. Vanmoof replaced the battery and onboard computer but I have had it occasionally show error codes since and am nervous it'll turn into a brick at some point.
Only then without the toddler...
What in particular do you service on the electronics of your cargo bike?
Sorry for the confusion I meant I can do all the service on the bike except the electronics. Things like brake pads and tires that wear down easily. On the Vanmoof it's a little more challenging to remove wheels for security - which I used to appreciate because I've had even little things like a mount for a light taken off my bike... but now I prefer it to be easier to service and just carry around more locks.
I think Van Moof could have made it if they had been far more strict on QA and designing for reliability from day #1, bikes are as you correctly noted operating in a hostile environment and you need to design for that. Bike electronics are hard (super easy to mess that one up), batteries are hard, software is hard. If you then add a bunch of custom stuff you've set yourself up for failure. I did not do DD on any of the Van Moof rounds but when evaluating what bike to buy I looked at their bikes and decided that I did not like what I saw and went for a Riese & Mueller instead, which has served me extremely well (12000 km and counting, not a single failure in the field other than a broken spoke which was easily remedied, and likely the result of bumping the bike with another one in the garage here). Van Moof had their shot, they failed and I doubt the buyers are going to make this work without a total departure from both the business model and that bike design. They should make a deal with Bafang, Shimano or Bosch or some other experienced manufacturer to make their custom parts for them in return for some margin, the bikes are plenty expensive to leave enough room for that and they can pay for that from the reduced warranty reserve. As an added bonus they get certification thrown in as long as they don't change the wheel diameter. Then they can focus on the software (which had plenty of problems).
In contrast, VanMoof bikes come with a service of "bike hunters" that do this for a living and have better records about bike ownerships and so have established relations with law enforcements. Bike thieves quickly learned that stealing VanMoof bikes will only lead the cops to their stash.
[1] https://www.oeffentlichen-dienst.de/wirtschafts-news/46-news...
When I put the airtag in, I was pretty certain I'd lose a bike _and_ an airtag: got proven wrong!
Off the top of my head:
— automated gearbox (which was one of the most often breaking parts, but when it worked was magical)
— it had a "boost" button which gave you a little bit of extra power whenever needed (riding uphill, starting from red lights etc); my understanding is that those are now more common, but were pretty unique when S2/S3 generation was introduced
— no external batteries (a downside if you don't have a way to charge it, upside if you do because it just looks nicer)
— a lock integrated into a frame, that unlocked with your phone
— anti-theft features like the mentioned insurance thing, but also a built-in Find My network support for the newer models, and the bike itself has a "Lost Mode" which pings the nearby cell towers
— built-in display for showing you battery status, which gear you're on and your speed
I really like mine _when it's working_ (it had to spend few months in the shop waiting for parts), _because_ it's such a sleek and integrated product.
I probably wouldn't have bought another one even before the bankruptcy, because of the reliability issues; but when I bought mine (early 20201-ish?), nothing on the market at the time was even close to matching the complete package of VM.
Cowboy was the closest to it, but I really missed the multiple gears and the boost button when I test-rode one. I was also very annoyed by them nickel-and-diming on things like kickstand on a 2k bike, but that's a different issue.
https://www.reddit.com/r/vanmoofbicycle/comments/166as7v/mcl...
I knew about the BikeyApp, and getting the encryption keys downloaded before I went to go buy the bike, but unfortunately, before I could stop the PO, he deletes the bike from his VanMoof account because I now own the bike, and he wanted to release it so that I could register it to myself. So I own it now, right? Wrong... Even though I now "own" the bike, I cannot register it because I don't have the original manual for it (the PO lost it), which has a special QR code printed on it to register the bike.
The PO, who has a receipt for the bike, cannot get VanMoof to transfer the ownership to me, so the bike is parts (which is a risk I was willing to take). I'm going to strip the craptacular electronics from it and just make it a regular 4spd pedal bike.
The funny thing is I was able to get the controller powered up and guess what? The bike was defective from the factory... the controller throws charging over-temp errors regardless of it being hooked up to anything, even dummy loads. This apparently is not an uncommon experience with these bikes from the forum posts I've read about them.
Also, as an aside, f* having to carry a phone to use a bike. This thing might look cool but it's a garbage fire of bad decisions fueled with VC money.
Income from future repairs to bicycles already sold.
Reading https://www.vanmoof.com/en-NL/terms-and-conditions#t&c-secti...: payments from customers who leased a bicycle.
I think it is genius, the bikes are expensive to buy, but $100 a month lease including maintenance is very popular among Big tech (especially if your company pays for it).
https://support.vanmoof.com/en/support/solutions/articles/44...
They could very well be losing substantial money on that. Leases only work if the quality of what you lease is high enough that you won't be bleeding to death on the availability guarantee. Financial lease insulates the lease provider from that but if it is operational lease then whoever inherits the leases might be in for a very hard time.