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Comment by dagurp | Hacker News Reader

Makes me wonder why there's still no "Tesla of e-bikes" or an established company trying to grab hold of the market.

No need. Ebikes are already highly commoditized and popular and available from many manufacturers.

There was no need for a time to subsidize the development of evokes not work hard to market them as a luxury good to try to get a foothold in the market, as with Tesla.

Ebikes are just a much more naturally highly valuable product and need less shilling. They sell themselves. I mean the amount of mobility and utility you get for the price is unmatchable by any other vehicle

A reasonable quality new ebike around these parts is about as expensive as a reasonable quality secondhand car.

And:

1.fuck riding a bike on the road here, half of Tasmanian adults are the type of functionally illiterate arseholes who'd intentionally drive too close to a cyclist for shits and giggles

2. The weather is crap nine months of the year

So the payback period is way too long.

> 1.fuck riding a bike on the road here, half of Tasmanian adults are the type of functionally illiterate arseholes who'd intentionally drive too close to a cyclist for shits and giggles

I feel like that is most of Australian drivers, however, I am glad I live in Melbourne and not Sydney. NSW roads are chockas and also, they literally try to kill you there, just for passing them while they are sitting banked up in traffic.

> A reasonable quality new ebike around these parts is about as expensive as a reasonable quality secondhand car.

Sure, but not only are you comparing a new bike to a used car, but the maintenance and per mile fuel costs will be much lower, so after the first ride you will already have saved money.

Where are you getting a car for <$2k?

We probably need the exact opposite, retrofit kits to use existing bikes instead of creating a huge amount of soon to be e-waste.

All these new fancy e-bike company use proprietary everything, which means in 10 years (about 5 years after they filled for bankruptcy) you won't be able to fix anything

That already exists.

You can buy kit to electrify your bike on amazon and alix

Van Moof was the Tesla of e-bikes, now we're past that stage and into "everyone and anyone is building e-bikes in a crazy range of shapes and sizes to fit almost every usage and they just keep getting better and cheaper" stage that we're just about to enter for larger Electric Vehicles.

I have absolutely no idea what "Tesla of e-bikes" is supposed to mean, but perhaps you're thinking of something like Rad Power Bikes?

https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/reviews/rad-power-radrun...

https://electricbikereport.com/rad-power-bikes-reviews/

(Not that I personally endorse either Rad Power Bikes or Tesla.)

What does "Tesla of e-bikes" even mean? It is definitely not the quality stamp you think it is:

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/tesla-model-3-is-the-car-...

I simply meant a company that's leading the rise of electric bikes and has a sizable chunk of the market.

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