Rivian's TM-B electric bike | Hacker News Reader

Rivian's TM-B electric bike

theverge.com

252 pointshasheddan452 comments

This looks like a trendy car company solution to a commuter ebike. The ebike market is quite saturated already. Full suspension is kind of a gimmick on an ebike, my commute goes through some steep slopes, rocks and mud, and my hardtail is hapoy with it. The whole "pedaling to load the battery" is both inefficient (you'll lose north of 70% of energy on the most efficient bike dynamos) and less reliable than having a direct link between your pedals and the wheel. The only advantage I see is not having a derailleur, but your derailleur will still be there when your bike's dead. Belt drive has its fellowship, but I still prefer a chain: I've put >4000km in my commuter with marginal lubrification and maybe 2-3 cleanings a year, it's still kicking, and finding a belt is harder than a chain.

I'm assuming that they will find buyers, either because it looks like a cool toy, or because rivian has fans ; but for all intents and purposes I don't think it's a good bike. It's probably a matter of preference, I'm on my bike whether it's sunny in the summer raining the rest of the year, and sometimes under the snow. It's a convenience. My commuter receives very little attention from me, it just works. I clean the chain just about every time I have to replace the brakes, and that's it for maintenance. Everything that makes it less sturdy is a danger that it will be ledd reliable and more if a hassler, that's why I wouldn't go with unproven solutions like that

It still misses something basic for a commuter bike, a mudguard.

An urban or commuting bike without one makes no sense whatsoever.

It's a $50 add-on on their website.

Mudguards should be default for bikes. It's absurd that when it rains people ride bikes and walk around with a stripe of shite up their back and front b/c manufacturers are too cheap to include fenders (mudguards) on bikes.

The customers aren't much smarter of course - they bought the bike! Anyone fool enough to walk around (twice) looking like that deserves ridicule.

> customers aren't much smarter of course - they bought the bike

You seem to have undermined your argument for selling mid guards as a default.

> Anyone fool enough to walk around (twice) looking like that deserves ridicule

Whatever floats your boat.

>The whole "pedaling to load the battery" is both inefficient (you'll lose north of 70% of energy on the most efficient bike dynamos) and less reliable than having a direct link between your pedals and the wheel

Can't you still run it downhill and regain energy? A lot of downhills in the city can't utilize the gravity all the way, instead having red lights just at the bottom of the hill

> Can't you still run it downhill and regain energy?

That just means you had stored potential energy, otherwise how are you going to get up the hill?

I'm not sure what you mean? You need to get up the hill to get down the hill, but today when I do that the energy downhill gets wasted through heating of my brakes at the bottom. If I could use that energy for easier time the next hill around that'd be really nice.

On moderate descents a bike reaches equilibrium with the air resistance at a low speed, so there's nothing to recover.

Afaik almost all ebikes do not have regen. If it's a hub motor it's often geared with a one way bearing, and if it's mid drive (getting more popular) then you cant have regen as the chain is not back-drivable.

The efficiency gains of bicycle regen is not high enough and there is added drag of pulling a motor along if you are just pedalling normally. Most regard the trade-offs to be not worth it.

There is one Canadian ebike parts manufacturer that's pushing for regen, and their main reason for doing so is that it saves on brake pad wear.

There are some scooters with regen I think. At least I've seen scooter motor controllers with that option. I'm not sure if it's worth it. Maybe in hilly landscape.

I don't know if my ebike has regen or not, but if doesn't, it must be dumping that energy as heat somewhere. With the battery connected, the motor is breaking the bike. With the battery disconnected, the bike rolls as freely as a normal bike. It's very noticeable.

Yeah it’s just heat. Some e-bikes have a clutch to disengage the motor to prevent this motor breaking.

Wouldn't it be much simpler to disengage the battery electrically than a physical clutch? Or is the "clutch" just an electronic?

And where is the heat dumped? Why does the physical resistance disappear when the battery is disconnected?

I’ve had an ebike that had regen (Stromer ST2). It wouldn’t have any effect on the battery, but was great for savings life of your brake pads

I suspect that is correct. There just isn't that much available energy to recover in most bike stops. The point about brake pad wear however is more relevant than you might expect. Bike brakes can be surprisingly expensive and on my e-bike I went through a full set in only 700 miles.

Of course there is the minor problem that the hub was mounted in the rear wheel so it's only good for gentle to moderate braking, but thankfully that is the vast majority of what you do.

Electric generator->battery->electric motor drive train should be fairly efficient. I'd be surprised if it was lower than 80%.

Traditional dynamos are fairly small parasitic loads and not really comparable.

Normal bicycle drivetrains have efficiencies around 95%...

Haven't there been studies showing that a bicycle is the most efficient form of movement available?

Thats called a series hybrid and it kinda sucks. Motors only reach high efficiency at high loads, and you have 2 of them between the feet and wheel. That configuration is bad when the battery dies because you will feel that inefficiency.

> I'd be surprised if it was lower than 80%.

80% is really bad for a bicycle. A well-maintained bicycle drive chain is basically 100% efficient.

Dynamo is the general term for electric generators from mechanical displacement. I'm not talking about the small contraptions that power lights on a bike, these are traditionally even worse in efficiency.

Lets be charitable and call it 90%, it's still going to charge the battery (which is described as a buffer), and that will have a max of 95%, discharge the battery, same, and power the motor, which has likely the same efficiency. You're at. 9.95.95*.9 = 73% efficiency at motor output. You're giving 27% to the gods of thermodynamics, unless you like the extra complex cardio you're getting, I don't really see the point. Regular bike transmissions are not free either, but they're closer to 95%.

Thinking about all that, I don't get why they didn't use a hub motor. Why adding a belt when you could have transmitted the power directly to the wheel?

Your original post says 70% loss, i.e. 30% efficiency. In the context of an e-bike, to me, 70% efficiency is fine. It's a large bike and the majority of the power for the majority of users is likely going to be coming from the battery anyways.

Also presumably we should be comparing the efficiency to other ebikes not traditional bikes. I'm not sure how effective traditional ebikes are at integrating motor + human power together but I'd imagine there are some additional losses.

Chances are, you can buy a bicycle that is 'made' by whatever your favourite car brand is.

Need a Ferrari bicycle? How about a Ford, a BMW, a Mercedes or anything else?

Chances are that there is a bicycle out there with your favourite car logo slapped on the headtube. And none of them have sold, maybe with the exception of Peugeot, but they got out of bicycles too (albeit to license the brand). Note that Peugeot and scores of other auto companies started with bicycles before adding motors and wheels, so bicycles should be a core competency.

As for Rivian and their bicycle, they will sell a few to people that just want the bed of their truck to have a bicycle in it. Non-Rivian truck owners? They will take a pass.

But as a 'halo product', it should work. They can get the marketing they want from it.

Efficiency here is the NFR that would be like: perfect is the enemy of good.

Think of this an electric bike with optional pedal assist from the human. Efficiency is irrelevant if the range is large enough.

I have a large battery, I ran short of power a couple of times in the past year. These batteries age and if you want to use their range to limit that aging, at some point you'll have to gamble. It's already bad enough to human power those heavy electric bikes, adding more drag doesn't sound fun.

I'm assuming the thought process behind the pedal->generator->traction motor is that you can keep the cadence in the ideal / most efficient range. Problem with mid drives is that (at least for me), I prefer lower cadence which means driving the hub drive at a less efficient range.

I don't hate it, but I'm curious to see what they think their target audience is.

Is it someone that wants to do a "last mile" from their car/train to office? Is it a car replacement? Is it a weekend farmers market family bike?

I feel like all of these require emphasis on different aspects. If it's a last mile commuter, it needs to be light / small so it can fit on a train or car trunk. Probably also needs to be light so it's luggable into/out of the trunk by an average person.

I guess for me, the most interesting ebike idea is that of a "last mile(s)". Something that I can easily pack in the trunk, and depending on my mood, allow me to park ~5-7 miles from work and cycle the rest of the way in. There are bits of my commute near my office that are often at a standstill, and ebiking would be significantly faster to skip those. This is much less of a commitment compared to doing the entire 20mi commute by bike.

I tend to agree with comments that point out that 'modern' e-bikes are really electric motor cycles or the original "MoPed" from the 60's. And they have the same appeal, relatively cheap to operate, fit in between regulatory categories, don't require a garage to store, Etc. E-scooters aren't much better (just worse kinematics). That said, I never thought the Segway was ever going to be more than a 'niche' product whereas I had already lived in a city[1] with thousands of mopeds. To the extent they are embraced by urban planners with reduced parking mandates and their own roadways I think they are a net win for cities, when they terrorize pedestrians on sidewalks, not so much.

[1] Brussels.

Mopeds but with crappier seats. Mopeds at least had decently comfortable seats and could seat a passenger —if we’re considering normal BMI folks.

Moped seats are for sitting, bike seats are for pedaling.

They're not worse, they're different because they need to be.

Are people going to pedal on these things? Mopeds could also be pedalled if stalled -unlike scooters. I mean, sure, I know their form factor is that of a bike --but its locomotion is more similar to that of a e-moped. Unfortunately with very lousy seats. At moped and these ebike speeds you want better seating.

Yes. There are e-bikes that look like motorcycles or mopeds that can be pedaled, but are uncomfortable, and there are e-bikes that look vespa style scooters that have pedals but it's completely impractical to pedal them - the pedal operation is there to qualify under specific requirements to be classified as an e-bike.

Adjusted for inflation the Segway would be close to $10,000 today after taxes.

That price tag and the way overhyped lead up to it's unveiling combined to kill any chance the Segway had. Dean's (RIP, I think) vision might have had a chance if it wasn't the same price as a lightly used new-to-me Kia Sephia.

At even half the $5000+ price it would have found a lot more adoption. Tourism companies still use the shit out of them and once they start dumping them, I bet they'll be the cool thing to have.

Dean Kamen is still kicking

Probably thinking of Jimi Heselden who bought the Segway company and died driving a Segway

Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Heselden

It's Woodie Flowers who passed away

Dean is not dead and has owned a biotech company in Manchester NH for a four decades now.

There are plenty of modern ebikes that are just bikes with a motor. I have one of these for instance (well, the previous generation): https://ride1up.com/product/roadster-v3/

The best description I've seen of using it is "cycling without hills".

The fact that we use the same name for these and "low speed electric motorcycles" is... unfortunate.

Early motorcycles were also indeed just bicycles with a motor.

I think that the Class 1 and Class 2 and Class 3 regulations when properly followed tell you what you are getting. Since this is Class 3, it really is close to a Moped and has a lot more restrictions depending on your area similar to a motorcycle but still allowed on city streets without insurance in most places in the USA, but often has restrictions in parks etc.

The problem is that many other manufacturers have “selectable” class which really is meaningless and doesn’t really tell you what you are buying and often times is really close to a motorcycle. But unlike cars you can easily import bikes that don’t conform to the regulation so many don’t.

If I were buying a bike for my young child I would stick to class 1 or 2.

I agree, the classifications are pretty solid when followed and I'm with you on class 2 being the right pick for most people - But I'd argue they're too complicated.

I think it's also a social issue right now, there's very little general information provided to bikers (ex - most people don't even know these classifications exist, and can't remember them if they do), and not a large enough chunk of the population is biking yet to get a general consensus on "acceptable" behavior.

Couple that with low enforcement, and it makes sense a fair number of people are just clueless.

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Just simple things like "bike speed limit" signs on trails/paths would probably help a lot.

I have a class 3 ebike, and I'd still 100% prefer to ride it on a trail with a speed limit of 20mph instead of having trying to mingle with cars on even moderatly busy streets.

The laws should let bikers understand the desired behavior, and allow them to self-regulate.

Especially given that this isn't in the same risk category as larger vehicles (e-bikes are half the weight of mopeds, and 28mph is very different than 45)

Then give folks tickets. They're too useful to go away - we'll get it figured out.

I think the MPH limit for ebike classification makes sense. But why do they need a 750W limit? Whats the harm in a motor putting out 3000W to get a loaded cargo bike up a steep hill at 8 MPH.

My opinion is been that 747’s, cars, trucks, bikes, E bikes, an even pedestrians should be regulated on kinetic energy - basically their ability to do harm to others.

My fear is that without it, regulatory arbitrage will turn every inch of land that doesn’t have a building into Death Race 2000. Cars are not allowed on sidewalks to protect friends? No problem - here’s an electric motorcycle disguised as a bicycle. Hi

> a motor putting out 3000W to get a loaded cargo bike up a steep hill at 8 MPH

Probably two reasons to avoid this. Practically, it's more expensive because not only do you have a 3kW motor but everything else must handle the increased demands. It just gets more expensive all around just for a niche case equivalent of "everyone needs a truck to carry 16 sheets of drywall and 12 2x4s".

The second is that regulators were reasonably pragmatic. Top speed, peak power, and weight are good proxies for safety, rather than having to regulate every aspect of a bike's operation like with cars. Bikes are spending most of their time on flat ground on city streets where huge power/torque are not just unnecessary, they're dangerous. Already plenty of e-bikes are going all out (governors are easily bypassed) on sidewalks and bike lanes where the others have 100W "motors". In my otherwise very civilized part of the world, every day I ride I almost get run over by assholes on full blown motorcycles speeding on the bike lane because it's faster. I have never, ever seen one get a fine. Nobody can do enforcement of safety at rider level especially for very lightly regulated and unregistered vehicles.

Your first point feels like it should easily be handled by regular market forces, ie no one can produce one in a price range anyone would want to buy.

I would suggest that the only good reason to have a peak power limit in law on the engine is so that if you unlock it/chip it you can't blast off at 60mph. But at that point you're breaking the speed limit either way, so I'm still not convinced a peak power limit is reasonable.

I have a powered bike that limits the speed to the lawful limit, but the engine has 500w instead of 250w, meaning my bike is better at getting up hills than my wife's. I don't think this should be illegal, and if I want to pay for a stronger engine, that is reasonably up to me.

That nobody is enforcing the speed limit on bike lanes is an enforcement issue, and it doesn't get solved by having unnecessarily tangential laws. And I'm certainly not a "deregulate everything" person.

> should easily be handled by regular market forces

I think we've heard this blurb so many times it should be a joke to be ridiculed by now. It usually prefaces a story about some abusive, exploitative action.

> But at that point you're breaking the speed limit either way, so I'm still not convinced a peak power limit is reasonable.

That's why I said that enforcement at rider level is impossible. The burden to check if someone removed some governor is so high that it might as well not be regulated in any way. Or you heavily strengthen and give an even broader mandate to LEO, and I hear that's what everyone wants more of these days.

So the easy way around this is to regulate the manufacturing or sales. You limit the power of the motor, you implicitly limit how fast the bike can realistically go, and how much weight it can carry at speed. This makes things a little bit safer. If you need more, choose a different vehicle. You don't buy a Fiesta and then shout in the wind that it's not allowed to have 18 wheels and carry 35t.

> That nobody is enforcing the speed limit on bike lanes is an enforcement issue, and it doesn't get solved by having unnecessarily tangential laws

I get that you really want something but this isn't an argument. The laws aren't "tangential" they are very much on point, trying to keep a balance between usability and safety faced with practical reality. Not the wishy-washy "the market will handle it" or "I should get it because I want it and anyone stopping me is stupid". The law allows every kind of vehicle for every need, under the appropriate conditions. You just think your conditions for your needs come first. Some people ride like that so the "tangential laws" exist to protect others from them.

The “market handling it” would mean liability lawsuits followed by mandatory liability insurance, with insurers installing telemetry devices on an ebike to decide how much to charge you or even just drop you as an uninsurable risk altogether.

In other words enough people would have to get hit and killed that there would be a huge series of lawsuits. In that scenario those people are still dead.

“The market handling it” is why there are hordes of cars with purposefully loud mufflers blasting past my house at many hours of the day. My state chose to make it illegal to build something like that but it’s perfectly legal to sell the parts. So the market did what the market does.

> The “market handling it” would mean liability lawsuits

Amazon and Temu sell so much illegal and dangerous junk and no lawsuit changed this. People still get hurt or killed by battery fires, malfunctioning products, intoxication with all kinds of chemicals.

> followed by mandatory liability insurance

People complain that they have to wear a helmet. They won't be fine with mandatory liability insurance. The level of bike theft shows that bikes are notoriously untraceable, it's very hard or prohibitively expensive to enforce this.

> with insurers installing telemetry devices on an ebike

Raises costs, requires cloud services and connectivity, and the owner can still hack the antenna off or shield it and the bike is now permanently offline but with no way to detect that on the street.

Amazon and Temu aren't allowed to sell cars, because we still regulate our cars somewhat, so the cars that are sold in America and Australia and other places have to meet certain safety requirements. The manufacturer is also 100% liable for things like recalls or safety defects, regardless of which dealer sold it to you or if you bought car used.

You can say people "won't be fine with mandatory liability insurance". That's what it's "mandatory". If you get caught operating a vehicle without one, you might just well lose your vehicle and have it impounded on the spot, have to pay a hefty fine, and have to prove you have insurance before you're allowed to drive again.

Insurers can and do detect if your telemetry stops transmitting - for example, State Farm offers a substantial discount if you transmit telemetry. If you sign up for this and then yank the device out, they simply charge you a higher rate.

We also have things like "helmet laws". You can't (for example) operate a motorcycle in California without a helmet. If you do, you'll get pulled over and ticketed and are stuck being unable to ride it away until someone either brings you a ticket or you go for a nice long walk and get one yourself, with a high chance your bike gets impounded from the side of the road.

I don't know why the attitude persists that the government can't regulate things and enforce laws. They certainly can.

Sorry but your post is all over the place. It's not nice to introduce random things in a conversation and force anyone who wants to respond to you to address all that randomness.

> I don't know why the attitude persists that the government can't regulate things and enforce laws. They certainly can.

Who said anything about government regulation? The latest part of the thread was about "the market" handling it, you yourself even said "with liability lawsuits", now you talk government regulation which is the opposite of that.

> Amazon and Temu aren't allowed to sell cars

Who said anything about cars? We're talking bicycles and other things people want to stay unregulated. They sell bad products and "the market" didn't handle it, not with lawsuits or regulation or enforcement. So many ebikes were catching fire in my complex while charging that the administration banned even storing ebikes in the underground parking or the individual storage units. The importer of the bikes (Amazon store?) was of course dissolved by that time.

> because we still regulate our cars somewhat

Who said anything about car regulations? That's exactly what people don't want with bicycles. Look at this discussion, people want to pretend even mopeds should still be called "just bikes" so they stay unregulated. The whole point of a bicycle is to be a simple unregulated vehicle with minimal capabilities. Not multi kilowatt motor vehicle that can carry heavy loads up a hill at speeds that most people barely cycle on the flat.

> You can't (for example) operate a motorcycle in California without a helmet.

Who said anything about motorcycles? You can operate a bicycle without a helmet because people weren't fine with mandatory helmet laws. Just like it will happen with "mandatory liability insurance and telemetry" for bikes. It might happen when we all live in a dystopia where everything you do is tracked, or for some bicycles that aren't really bicycles (mopeds and higher categories).

Whoever wants powerful motors or high carrying capacity should stop calling it "a bicycle" and call it a "moped" or "S-Pedelec". These already require insurance and a license plate. There are enough categories here [0] to cover all needs. Pretending everything on 2 wheels is a bicycle does cyclists a disservice and is like calling my car "an umbrella" so I'm allowed to take it everywhere with me.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_category#EU_classifica...

If you’re hauling two kids in San Francisco you really come to appreciate how weak 750W actually is.

> Nobody can do enforcement of safety at rider level especially for very lightly regulated and unregistered vehicles.

I don't particularly buy this. I think we've spent very little time and effort actually trying.

I also think that the lax enforcement as it currently stands is a pretty practical take... My read is that ebikes (even the class 3s) aren't actually out there killing people in crashes all that often.

Of the folks who are dying on bikes... the majority of the deaths are still happening due to collisions with motor vehicles. The second largest cause of death is the rider dying due to lack of helmet usage coupled with the higher speeds.

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Basically - I agree we should improve social patterns for not being a dick on a fast bike in mixed-use spaces.

But if we're talking about actual benefit to safety... the problem is still the cars and not the bikes. At least for now (again - it's shifting because e-bikes are just useful as all get out).

You don't need 3000W, 1kW is plenty. I have a Yuba Mundo (one of the biggest long-tail cargo bikes) and my Bafang motor tops out around 1kW and it's plenty even for the biggest hills here in Bloomington (which is quite hilly).

Doing some quick math, if your bike is using 3kw to climb a reasonably steep (15% grade) hill at 8mph, we can calculate the weight it must be carrying, which ends up being about 1,200lbs

To answer your question, the limit on motor power exists as a proxy for limiting the weight, speed, and acceleration of ebikes within safe limits, since having an ebike charging uphill at 20mph with 500lbs of payload would present actual safety risks. Trying to regulate payload/speed/slope combinations directly has practical problems (police officers don't really want to stop delivery drivers to weight their cargo), while regulating motor power is much simpler.

The problem I see with the e-bikers is that they just can't ride even at 20 mph. They don't fall off the bike because it moves fast enough but otherwise they are completely inept: break with the rear wheel only, can't stay in the lane, can't corner, don't signal turns, don't warn when passing etc.

20 mph is a moderate speed for a road bike, however, you need to ride a lot to comfortably get to this speed and as a result, when you get there, your skills are adequate. A roadie riding 20+ mph is not going to enter a blind corner in a left lane or skid out trying to maneuver around some trash on the path. Why should we punish people who bike for exercise? It's not like e-bikers are going to wipe much less at 20 mph, your 100 lbs "sauron" without front brakes is going to skid even at 10 mph.

It depends on what you mean with an e-bike, most e-bikes are pedelecs.

That means they don't have a throttle which is what a motorcycle or moped has.

You have to pedal to get an assist, this can either be a hub drive or a mid drive motor which have different characteristics (that's another story).

> most e-bikes are pedelecs

I think the "most" is overstated; I've been shopping for a year or two, and most of the ones I see have throttles.

Must be an American thing? I have never even seen anything else than pedelecs.

I see lots of "sit down" electric fat bikes; they're all throttle assist. Many of the smaller wheeled models are as well.

In the UK they have to have pedals to be legal.

Globally, an average of 79.35% of e-bikes used are pedal-assisted types, which allow users to cycle faster and with less physical effort.

Less popular among e-bike users are throttle-assisted and speed pedelec bikes.

Percentage of pedal-assisted e-bike users:

78.06% (Europe)

79.56% (United States)

81.17% (Asia)

References here: https://laka.co/gb/e-bike-market-statistics#:~:text=e%2Dbike...

In pretty much all of Europe e-bikes with a throttle are considered a type of mofa/motorcycle (depends on top speed) and come with all kinds of additional rules, such as needing insurance, mandatory helmets, having to drive on the road, license plate requirement and at type of motorcycle driving license for the fast ones.

Here in the UK, only pedelecs are exempt from road licensing laws, so the throttle bikes aren't legal to use on public roads. Additionally, they have to stop providing assistance at 15.5mph or so. However, it's common to see riders illegally using throttle based bikes (e-motorbikes really) on the roads.

The comments you are agreeing with: there's a lot about mopeds and drivetrains and Class 1/3, and yet nobody sees that this piece of shit doesn't even have fenders?

Yes, the bikes in the pictures do not have fenders. However, if you look at the press coverage, there are lots of studs on the frame for adding everything from cargo racks to front pannier wine bottle holders. That makes me unwilling to dismiss it out of hand. It is pretty clear that for this launch they were going for a 'look' and no doubt some designer at Also chose what configurations they would show.

My daily rider is a Trek Verve 2 (not electric) which Trek has a 'beauty shot'[1] of which features it without fenders. That said, mine has fenders because I don't like getting muddy water thrown up my back when I go through a puddle.

So my take here is that yes, this is a rather 'bougie' e-bike with pretentious design presentations, but if the engineers did their job correctly I expect you'll be able to equip it with fenders and other gear that you find essential on something you ride.

[1] https://media.trekbikes.com/image/upload/w_1200/Verve2Disc_2...

The one thing about e-bikes that I don't get is: why the chain?

https://www.voromotors.com/products/emove-roadrunner-v3-seat...

This thing has 500W hub motors, no expensive derailleur, no chain to maintain, just tires and brakes. The hub motors have internal gearing. I love mine for getting around LA.

Torque, electric motors need gearboxes just like everything else

This doesn't address the question "why a chain" though.

Many motorcycles have grunty torque, gearboxes, and no chain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Shaft_drive_motorcycl...

The BMW R 100GS Paris Dakar was the bee's knees for crossing the Tanimi Desert: https://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/model/bmw/bmw-r100gs-pd-89...

Shaft drive is more expensive to produce, tends to be a little heavier, and usually has more friction loss.

Shaft drive delivers power better, wears less than a chain, easier to maintain.

Swings, roundabouts, and tangential from answering why "Torque, electric motors need gearboxes" doesn't answer the progenitor question "why chain".

My bike vendor likes chains. They wear more easily, but are easy enough to maintain and change. Basically everything old school bike like has maintenance/repair advantages.

I'm not sure I agree, but more when compared with belt drive and internally geared hub. But then again, I believe him that those are hard to repair when they fail (even if they are sturdy until then).

I also prefer shaft drive over a chain. Much less hassle and if not punished, can be almost maintenance free. A chain is easily worn and can even rust away just sitting there.

Not really if you just keep it lubed. I have a BMW shaft drive bike, and I have to change the rear end oil, the driveshaft oil, the transmission oil and the engine oil every year. My Honda just needs the chain lubed, adjusted, and engine oil changed. You check it every 600-1000 miles or so, but I can adjust and lube the chain in about 5 minutes.

Yes, the gear reduction is done in the "gearbox" in those. Some bikes use chains to do the same.

If you have elecreic hub motors there is no room for these between the hub motor and wheel.

So, we appear to agree, there could be a shaft or a chain between the gearbox and the wheel.

Ergo, the existence of an off hub gearbox neither forces nor requires a chain to be used to transfer power.

The arguments for why use a chain Vs why use a shaft are not predicated on the existence of a gearbox.

Shaft drives are less efficient than (clean) chain drives. Chains are just really, really good (outside of extremely dirty conditions).

Chains wear down, as do gear wheels.

They both have their pro's and cons, I've a few hundred thousand km's across the globe each with both shaft's and chain's.

Thank you for expressing your personal opinion though.

Everything wears down.

Chains are objectively more efficient than shaft drives -- it's not my personal opinion.

The two major downsides for chains are maintenance and longevity.

The main benefits to shaft drive are longevity and ease of maintenance.

That's objectively more efficient to those that travel a lot in harsh conditions.

Opinions are almost always personal.

That thing you linked to is not a bike, it's a motorcycle. It should be licensed, taxed and insured like one.

That isn't a bicycle. It's a scooter.

So the difference is having pedals? Even if said pedals are just acting as a throttle and not actually making you put in any effort?

Almost all ebikes use a torque sensor in the bottom bracket, meaning you do have to put out some effort to get full power from the motor.

Bicycles have pedals that can propel the vehicle forward by pedaling, yes.

I think the chain makes sense you want to let the rider pedal. If you don't, hub motors are the obvious way to go.

"The rider pedals a generator, which replenishes the battery, "

The chain is probably to keep unsprung weight low. Hub motors are not the best for comfort.

Why is that? Do you want sprung mass to be heavier or unsprung mass lighter?

I see how lower unsprung mass could be easier on the tyres but I have no idea how it could impact a rider who's isolated by full suspension.

Sort of both, lower unsprung mass means the wheel moves more easily up and down without the rest of the vehicle doing the same.

Unsprung weight.

The answer I was looking for! I was looking for the trade-off

Almost all bicycles and ebikes don't have suspension -- all of the weight is unsprung.

The chain is to connect the pedals to the rear wheel as you might expect, assuming you want to be able to pedal.

I see the rivan thing has a toothed belt rather than chain.

If I understood the article correctly in this case the pedals are not physically connected to the wheel, it states the pedals run a generator that charges the batteries. So for this specific bike it would actually be possible to remove the belt (save for the other disadvantages of a hub motor).

This Rivian bike is bizarrely "pedal by wire" - there is no physical connection between the pedals and the rear wheel.

Instead the pedals work as a throttle to set the speed of the motor and to charge the battery while you ride, reducing depletion speed. It also harvests energy when braking.

If the battery in this bike dies completely, or is removed, you cannot pedal to move it at all. The "toothed belt" (gates drive) connects to the motor, with no link to the pedals.

In theory this design could have been done with no chain/gates drive using hub motors and still work much the same, given all the pedals are really doing is turning a dynamo-contraption to charge a battery.

After seeing yet another brutal accident of an ebike yesterday, I suspect regulation is coming, including requiring drivers to be licenced the same way motorcycle operators are, vehicles registered the same way, and liability insurance required.

Same here, a local woman was recently impaled by an ebike. I doubt they'll require licenses but they will start banning them on busy bike / pedestrian trails.

And mandatory helmets (even when it's not mandatory for normal bicycles).

Maybe for minors. I don't see the US enforcing helmet laws on adults.

This is already the case in Europe. We have:

Pedelecs up to 25 kmh, motor only supports pedaling, max 250 watt

- Regulated like bicycles

S-Pedelecs up to 45 kmh, motor only supports pedaling; and e-bikes with a throttle

- Need helmet (specific ones, not any bike helmet)

- Need license plate

- Need insurance

- Need small motorcycle driving license (included in car license)

- Minimum age 16

- Can't use bike paths

When school ends, I often see middle and high schoolers riding cheap (and extremely fast) e-bikes through the neighborhood, frequently blowing through stop signs and generally breaking every road rules. So it's just matter of time before it all gets over-regulated.

and by a cheap bike I mean something like these "bikes":

https://www.amazon.com/Electric-Suspension-Motorcycle-Batter...

https://www.amazon.com/Qlife-Adults-1500W-Suspension-Motorcy...

So the interesting thing about this is the ... peddle-by-wire drivetrain? So unlike a normal e-bike, when its battery dies it turns into a stationary bike.

I love ebikes and generally like what Rivian does, but in a very competitive market it's hard to see the appeal of this.

If I may also peddle my opinion, this e-bike is a fresh innovation and it's easy to see how revolutionary it is. What very competitive market has regen, 180 newton-meter of torque, programmable power curve, shape-shifting? This e-bike is incredible. These days, who lets their iphone battery die?

> a pun

Eyyyyyyy

Why should we care for "revolutionary" when the design that has been working for centuries is cheap, widely understood and universally available?

> Why should we care for "revolutionary" when the design that has been working for centuries is cheap, widely understood and universally available?

Because some designer wants to feel good about themselves, better than all who came before.

If wankery is what they they are after, maybe they should go design "revolutionary" sex toys.

You might be stunned at what the boffins have come up with. Or perhaps horrified.

Horses complained about this when the Model T came.

Horses were not cheap nor universally available. And cars had the obvious benefit that they did not leave literal horse shit around the city.

This "revolutionary design" does not offer any significant advantage over the existing systems for e-bikes. A regular e-bike without power is a just a regular bike. You can adapt a regular bike into an e-bike for < $600. Any run-of-the-mill mechanic can figure out how to work on a basic bike. This one will probably require some "certified Rivian expert" to work on it.

Only irrational neomania can justify being interested in this "revolution".

Wow I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. If so then nicely done. If not then bro do you even bike?

A phone can get charged with random 5V outlets and you can walk around with a 200g battery to make it last two days.

The bike won't fit any of that until there's hot swappable batteries sold everywhere, and when it's dead you'll be pushing it back home.

When it's dead, you can order an UberXL and toss this in the back? Cheaper than a tow truck...

Also, 100 miles is a lot on a bike. I think they got rid of this design requirement by just making the range longer.

You could lean up against something and pedal to get a bit of charge back in the battery, then you just need to pedal it home like a regular dead e-bike, no?

I don't think the pedals are attached to the drivetrain. They look like they are literally just to charge the battery. So this bike is just dead when it's out of batteries? Unless I'm missing something.

I agree with you, but I'm not clear how it relates to what I said. You charge the battery back up slightly by pedaling, and then it's usable again. You just need to pedal hard enough on the way home that you charge it more than it discharges. Though I don't know what the various efficiencies are.

There is no way you can charge an ebike battery by pedaling fast enough for it to actually get you anywhere in a reasonable time.

you can use your phone charger with this one too

Just don't think of it as an e-bike.. Think of it as an electric scooter with a built-in, manual charging solution. The question then seems to be how well it compares against other electric scooters?

> So unlike a normal e-bike, when its battery dies it turns into a stationary bike.

Maybe you pedal the generator on the kickstand for a minute to give it enough charge to operate the electronics, and then away you go working hard like on any other e-bike that's out of charge? I don't see why it couldn't move.

"E-bikes" are much more efficient than electric cars, but they're just electric scooters with governors at this point, and only called "bikes" for regulatory reasons.

I have a friend who hates any electric bike not "pedal-assist". His opinion is they are electric motorbikes - that happen to have pedals as a backup option, usually not used.

And if anyone said "lets ride motorbikes with pedestrians" they'd be looked at funny.

I'm seeing more near misses each week AND in 20 years I'll be old enough to feel real vulnerable...

Everyone is vulnerable regardless of age. There absolutely need to be regulations around how these ebikes are allowed to go based on their power output.

> based on their power output.

and mass!

I ride a motorbike. I'd argue speed is the limiter.

Some of these electric bikes are quite speedy - capable of mixing it up with flowing traffic. So classify them as being motorbikes.

If they can't go that fast, or are "assistive only" (require large fraction of rider pedal input up to a set speed) then legislatively they are a "normal bike".

The thing is, we already have the rules around each style of bike. It's just a classification thing.

Many electric bikes are masquerading and hoping no one looks too closely. So, just look closely. And hold actions responsible.

Okay but cars first obviously, right? Considering they kill orders of magnitude more people.

Yes, it should be illegal to drive cars on sidewalks, too.

E-bikes are shockingly dangerous, although at least the only kill their operators and other pedestrians, unlike cars and trucks which spread the carnage around to everyone.

> Everyone is vulnerable regardless of age.

Yes, and people who are slower and more fragile and take longer to heal are more so than others.

Depends which e-bike. Mine is very much a trad bike with a small motor tacked on https://www.savvycycling.co.uk/e-bike-database/e-bike-archiv...

You're right -- that's a bike! It would be completely serviceable without the motor (albeit heavy), which I guess is how I define it.

In the next sentence:

"It features a new pedal-by-wire drivetrain called “DreamRide” developed in-house. The rider pedals a generator, which replenishes the battery,"

So uh, keep peddling?

Yes, the motion->electric->motion circuit is not as efficient as direct pedal but you are explicitly not stranded.

If that worked well though, why pack a large battery in the first place? My suspicion is that pedaling provides a small percentage of the energy needed to move you and the bike and your cargo.

A traditional bicycle chain drive is something around 98% efficient - particularly if you're using internally geared hubs or a single speed with the chain line perfectly straight. What's a typical consumer alternator efficiency? Maybe 85%? And then a few steps for losses in the charging circuit and then again at the motor.

Not even napkin math, but ballpark I would think you're looking at having to pedal about 20-25% harder to accelerate the same rate compared to a chain, with no supplemental energy directed towards charging the battery (though I would assume al the energy goes through the power management system anyways).

However you get some gain in that you don't have to select a gear ratio, and that the electric motor provides torque efficiently at any rpm you can realistically expect on a bicycle. If it has an adaptive resistance level it will probably be more work (energy) but for many non-cyclists feel much more intuitive and simple

Lance Armstrong can sustain about 450 watts. Rec cyclists maybe 1/4 that. E-bike motors are 250-500w. So not a small percentage but also not enough to be sustainable unless you are a world class athlete.

I think the idea is to disconnect pedaling from road conditions.

When you’re biking, it’s preferable to pedal in “safe” zones (protected bike lanes, trails etc.) while relying on the battery for eg intersections and when sharing the road with vehicles. With a regular bike you have to pedal harder precisely at these zones which makes it a little scary. You can also pedal on fairly flat ground/use all that energy to climb up a steep hill quickly without pedaling etc.

Exactly.

My government says the trigger (accelerator) is bad and made it illegal.

In usage, however, I feel WAY safer being able to accelerate (from standstill) through intersections. I once had a chain break at an inopportune moment while doing that - scary! Now my rear hub motor means there's no danger anymore.

Wow. I assume you're being serious but it sounds like you shouldn't be on the roads. Stating that a trigger accelerator makes you feel "safer... there's no danger anymore" (not sure when the answer to bicycle safety is going faster...) doesn't help the rest of us.

I kinda agree with them. Being able to accelerate more like a car makes it easier/safer to merge with cars

Did they make it illegal, or did they say that this now pushes you into the 'powered vehicle' category and the need to meet the requirements that come along with that?

The government says my throttle is entirely legal. I just have to get a number plate, insurance cover, and take a riding test and get a licence.

Oh, and it’s a serious crime if I cause an accident and try to flee.

Are you doing a bit? I’m worried I’m about to be the joke ruiner :) The battery is included so you don’t have to pedal. When the battery is out, you can pedal. The only thing I can come up with is you think it is literally impossible or extremely difficult to pedal an e-bike when it is out of battery. it’s not fun but the incremental battery weight is as if you gained 20 lbs, not impossible.

Edit: oh I see above there’s subtle confusion building over the thread that this is a new feature of e-bikes, as of this Rivian marketing. it is not.

charging by pedaling is just for range extension. obviously you aren’t breaking the laws of thermodynamics on an e-bike.

I'm pretty sure its regulatory. As long as the rider has to pedal to get the bike going, it isn't classed as a moped with restrictions on being used on trails and such. Yet having pedal power mix with electric assist power is complicated, so this might actually be an economy compromise.

Note that China, who doesn't have the same regulatory burdens we do, they got rid of pedal assisted e-bikes for their own market long ago because they make the unit more expensive and less functional (or you see pedals on some of them, but they are never used, most people use them with throttles only).

It depends on how fast or hilly the area you’re traveling, but either way, that’s kind of the whole point? If it didn’t it would just be a bike.

I would hope they designed it where you can keep riding. It seems possible. Pick some charge level (say 20%) and provide less and less power assist as you approach that. Once you hit 20%, a control system tries to keep it about 20% charged. Basically you enter a mode where the battery becomes a buffer (between the pedal and wheels) rather than a power source. The bike would feel sluggish, but it wouldn't stop working.

You'd have to pedal rather hard (equivalent of riding 21.7 mph) to provide 250W of power[1], which is the minimum for most ebike motors.

1. https://a2zcalculators.com/science-and-engineering-calculato...

"rather hard" is really underselling things. Without considering generator->motor losses, 250W is a lot of power, even for a larger (>80kg/176lbs) rider. For basically anyone who doesn't train on the bike, this is an unsustainable effort.

Even a floor of 100W would rule out smaller/less athletic riders.

176lb is below the average male weight in the US by around 25lbs :(

Constant 250+W would force you to always travel at high speeds. That’s just not how E-Bikes operate.

Even 50W is a fairly significant boost for casual riding.

And once you are up to speed, you coast. Even on a normal bike. With the battery as a buffer, the ebike could easily bump you up to speed and use 250W or more for just a little while and then 0W for stretches.

You don't need to sustain 250W pedalling.

My reasoning that it's probably doable was based on efficiency.

What is the end-to-end efficiency of the generator, electronics, and motor combination? If it's 75% efficient, then you need to pedal 33% harder than normal[1]. If it's 66% efficient, then you pedal 50% harder.

Unfortunately, I can't find real data, so those efficiency numbers are guesstimates. Electric motors and generators can be very efficient, and I would hope that they'd use efficient ones for an application like an ebike.

As a point of reference, pumped hydro can be 70-80% efficient[2], and that involves a motor, a generator, and mechanical losses. That's not an apples to apples comparison, though.

---

[1] Where normal means a 100%-efficient link between pedals and wheel. Actual bike chains aren't, but they appear to be 95% or more.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit...

Maybe they figure you pedal to charge it up before it’d go again -like a windup torch. It’s energy wasteful but who knows what marketing forced the engineers to do.

When a normal ebike dies you are left with a 50-60lb bike probably not with the gearing you’d want.

an emtb with the assist off feels like you’re pedaling out of a black hole.

That’s still a pretty huge gap from 50lbs of dead weight. This is a horrible and expensive ebike idk why HN is trying to defend it.

I’m not defending it. I’m just saying the idea of pedaling an ebike when it is out of power is not really a meaningful capability. You are best off calling an uber and throwing it in the back instead of suffering.

Well then the normal ebike should spend another pound to add better gearing.

Once I put myself onto the bike I don't care all that much whether it's 15lb or 50lb.

>> Once I put myself onto the bike I don't care all that much whether it's 15lb or 50lb.

This is a really dumb thing to say; it makes absolutely no sense. ALso you typically don't "put yourself onto the bike" but rather pedal it.

If you can't figure out what I mean, maybe don't be so confident it's dumb?

I'm not talking about pedaling, I'm talking about sitting. Because now my weight combines with the bike. The difference between 215 and 250 pounds is not that impactful.

Edit: There are some differences in weight distribution, but I clearly don't mind those because they exist while the bike is powered too. The issue at hand is the pedaling, and that depends on total weight.

Reading this back my wording looks a bit contradictory, so to be extra clear: "put yourself onto the bike" is the part that isn't about pedaling. Pedaling comes in later.

The context is the weight of the bike when it has no battery - i.e. you're going to need to push it. You're not sitting on the bike in that situation.

The comment is about how a normal ebike is bad to ride with a dead battery specifically because of gearing and weight.

As in, if not for those problems you would keep riding and not push it.

So my response is that you should just fix the gearing (or buy one with good gearing), and 50lb isn't an issue for riding.

So both issues are resolved, and you could keep riding a normal design just fine. This means the design of the Rivian is a real detriment.

This is an electric motorcycle with pedals. The presence of pedals that only-technically contribute to motion is a regulatory-dodge not an intended feature.

As long as it only moves if you're peddling, it passes the regulatory test.

I don't think this is true, class 2 e-bikes are allowed a thumb throttle up to 20mph

I stand corrected. I did not know that class 2 allows for throttle-only operation.

This is a Class 3, so it needs pedals to hit 28mph. It also has a throttle up to 20mph for class 2 operation.

That's not how the regulation works. You can't have a multi-class bicycle. It can either have a throttle, or it can exceed 20, but not both.

Apparently Californa requires a label for what class the bike is[1]. I have never seen such a label on an e-bike and I've seen a lot of e-bikes in CA.

1: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio... (312.5.c)

There are just a lot of illegal Chinese electric motorcycles on the roads in California. That doesn't make them e-bikes though.

It’s got double the range of any e-bike I’ve been around. On a full charge you’ll get very uncomfortable long before you reach half capacity. I think the pedals are only to fit into a certain vehicle category and perhaps to a lesser degree for range-extension. The expectation is that you keep it charged via an outlet.

It is a trope at this point. I think Rivian has done a pretty good job here, but the trope is that the non-bike companies wanting to implement their technology, also feel the need to reinvent the bicycle part of the bicycle. Ignoring the decades of learning about what value a bicycle actually provides, and treats it like a technology problem.

Bikes are simple for a reason, they're light for a reason, they are maintainable for a reason, their ergonomics have been refined over decades, and so on.

I don't think non-bike companies shouldn't have a crack, it's fun to see new takes on it all, but bikes have been "disrupted" already by a dozen different forms of transport, they stick around in their current form because it fits well into the gaps the other modes leave. There's no big new problems to solve with the bicycle aspect, just pop your cool drivetrain into a regular bike and you at least get to keep the broader market of cyclists as customers.

I’d rather electric car companies building bikes than cyber trucks, though they are in the same vanity category.

While this is true, I've dealt with a sudden battery failure on my old model ebike (a kalkhoff from 2018 or so) and I can tell you that without any motor assist the bike might as well be stationary. It is quite heavy.

808Wh battery and 100 miles of range. These two numbers track with each other and are roughly believable.

OTOH, with a battery this big, a generator powered by the pedals, and regen braking this thing has to be heavy. I'd expect it to weigh at least 80 lbs. More likely 100. The fact that their "specs" say nothing about weight suggests they're embarrassed about the weight.

Regen braking is how you can tell this was designed by a moron. The energy balance simply does not favor regenerative braking on a bicycle, especially a bicycle that flippantly ignores aerodynamics like this one does. A bicyclist loses roughly all of their energy to air resistance. It's not a truck. There is not substantial potential energy to be recaptured going down hills.

Not a big cyclist but is that still true for lower speed city riding (typical to flat european cycling prone countries), hillier SF, or mountain biking?

It seems obviously true to typical racing or distance scenarios. And i notice the wind even at lower speeds on e-bikes in SF.

But between their quad scenario and what I imagine as the urban car replacement scenario it doesn't seem as obvious.

Yes, it is true at all speed and under all conditions. The system simply does not have the mass that would give it a great deal of gravitational potential energy, and it reaches a power equilibrium with the air at low speeds. Example:

100kg rider at 15 kph = .24W-h kinetic energy. At this speed there is probably roughly 11N of air and rolling resistance, so the steady state power is about 3W-h per km. If you go 1km between stops, or more, the amount you can expect to gain by regeneration is extremely small. It could perhaps extend your range by 5%, generously.

Let's say 130kg (80kg driver + 50kg bike) going 30km/h (e-bike limit) is ~1.25Wh.

Does that assume no pedaling though? In my experience the pain of starts and stops dominates the joy of steady state pedaling. Presumably the 3Wh/km is free/"exercise" or some portion. Whereas the .24Wh (re-gainable w/ some loss) is all sweat and pain imo.

If I'm understanding the math, maybe that scales the regenerative range extension % by your tolerance for pedaling?

The difference is that humans (unlike motors) have pretty low max power limits.

I assume this comment in relation to the starting from a stop being unpleasant?

If it's w.r.t. effect of low max power on low cumulative generation, I agree it does seem like a little silly to arbitrage your power generation this way. But maybe the tradeoff is worth it in some circumstances in their view?

Or maybe it's just a low cost addition as other commenters say.

What do you mean? The regenerative braking only kicks in when you engage the brake lever. It's not going to add much range but it's free, I don't see any downside to including regenerative braking.

It isn't free. How could it be free? It requires at least an electronic control system and a pressure sensor.

It was already going to have some sensor for, say, the brake light.

Are there popular e-bikes without electronic motor control?

It's the same control system that operates the motor. The motor is just being used as a generator.

I'm not sure which pressure sensor you mean, like in the brake lever? E-bikes with hydraulic brakes already have sensors for power cutoff (and in this case for brake lights).

3-phase motors are controlled by torque commands into the driver. Give it a value and it generates requisite voltages to fill the gap between current state and desired state. Give it a positive value and the driver spins up the motor, give it a negative and it artificially spins down the motor progressively by commanded amounts. So especially off-throttle regen is completely free. IIUC.

If you engineer it properly, it doesn't add _any_ weight or complexity. All you need is a bit different arrangement of power transistors and some software.

Why existing bikes don't use it? Because you need software or a more complicated controller, and the amount of regenerated energy is indeed not that large.

You're going to have a difficult time pulling a lot of energy out of the back wheel as you're slowing down. The more you decelerate the less weight you've got on your back wheel. Eventually you reach the maximum energy transfer from back wheel contact patch into the motor and lock up the back wheel, and even then you may not have considerably slowed the bike.

Regen on the front wheel would be most effective - but then you've got two motors or a less-than-ideal front motor that adds unsprung weight and has similar traction issues during acceleration as the front unloads.

It's a shame - I think a lot of people want ebikes to work, but they're not as convenient as a pedal bike (especially not in small apartments) and usually they're too heavy to really use in blended pedaling/e-assist mode.

ABS on ebikes exist already, so I'm not buying your locking issue. Also e-scooters like Lime had regen braking forever.

As other commenters noted, rear wheel regenerative braking doesn’t work very well. But there are more problems: most mid-drive e-bikes fundamentally can’t regeneratively brake at all: the rear hub freewheels and cannot drive the motor. Even ignoring that, the chain/belt frequently also can’t drive the motor because that would cause the pedals to drive the motor, and a lot of e-bikes are designed to be pleasant to ride with the motor off, and the rotor has rotational inertia and often has drag as well.

It's not free in a bicycle - it requires significant design compromises in the drivetrain because normally the rear hub has a freewheel to keep it from being back-driven (this may be part of the reason they went for "pedal-by-wire").

On a vehicle like this, which resembles a bicycle but is not one, it's free to implement regenerative braking. It already has all of the necessary components.

My e-bike has regen braking and it's definitely noticable, but I don't know how much it helps

Boosted Boards have regen, and in typical use, it extends range by about 10%. It was an incredibly intuitive system; instead of brakes, you regen your way to a stop.

I don't see how this would be any different. Or, it's certainly not "moronic"

The Boosted board imbued the word "moronic" with layers of meaning that it previously lacked. In particular its regenerative brake, with its penchant for sudden disengagement, literally killed riders.

I find regen exciting for it's ability to slow down my brake pads getting shredded every month. The fact that I get some energy back from it is mostly a bonus.

How are you shredding brake pads every month?

My town is on the side of a volcano, a 30% grade is like the average hill here.

That combines with the heavy weight of an ebike, another 50lb+ of cargo in the saddlebags, plus my exceptionally fat ass means I burn through a pair of front brake pads about once a month if I'm running errands most days.

>> a 30% grade is like the average hill here.

So the steepest roads in the world have small sections where the grade exceeds 30%; none maintain it or "average" 30%.

Seriously. Even the Mauna Kea volcano climb doesn't have 30% grades.

https://www.strava.com/segments/1504789

Ya sorry I always get it mixed up with the % grade thing.

When I'm in my car the dash reads on the hills here between 12° all the way up to 16° on the switchback into the valley. The new market is up a 14° hill.

So closer to ~24% grade average maybe? It's damn steep is the point regardless.

Do you sell many trombones?

It wasn't quite monthly but on my radwagon 4 I would change the pads every other month at least. Hauling two kids around SF on a heavy bike plus a little bit of poor design on Rad's part.

> The energy balance simply does not favor regenerative braking on a bicycle

Here in Seattle with all the hills it might

it has nothing to do with the hills; it's the mass and the power output of the system. Bicycles are light and humans (even with electric pedal assist) are weak.

Think of regen braking as a way to save an expendable part (brake pads). Instead of dumping your kinetic energy into heating up some brake pads, you can dump your kinetic energy back into the battery. That it happens to recharge (likely only a few small percent) is just a bonus.

agreed. regen does nothing on my e-moto. i'll drop 5000 feet in elevation and the battery percentage doesn't go up.

My eBike is close to 90lbs, but it is a large cargo bike touted as a "small car replacement". It is close to a tandem bike in size with a steel frame. I'm so used to it now, but I live in a house and never need to carry it up stairs. It does mean that I need an expensive bike rack to support that weight.

I lived in an apartment with only stairs where I owned a light gravel bike roughly 20 lbs and an old mtb that was about 35, and my back really felt the difference between the two.

100 lbs would be unmanageable.

With a bike the size of mine, I don't think I would own it if I was living in an apartment. It's just too big even without considering stairs. It's long. It's wide. It's perfect for how I'm using it not in an apartment. Not every bike is a fit for every rider.

The point I really fell like I left out is that with that size and weight of the bike plus being able to haul 300lbs, the motor and battery combo is rated for 45 miles. Not once have I felt like I needed longer range. It's not that kind of bike. I use it for tooling around while shopping or leisure rides topping out at 35 miles. Even at 35 mile rides, by battery still has plenty remaining as I still heavily rely on my meat motor.

I have a 75lb cargo ebike and I'm afraid to mount it on my stand to work on it.

My Stromer ST3 weights about 30kg, has an 1kWh battery but doesn't come anywhere close to even 100km range at full speed.

I suspect pedal-by-wire will only be slightly heavier since it doesn't need gears, but the range will probably be even worse.

800 wh and 100 miles? There is no way anyone gets that.

800 watt hours for $4,500 is absurd too.

>"808Wh battery and 100 miles of range. These two numbers track with each other and are roughly believable."

Absolutely not. Unless you have baby in a saddle and going 10mph

Rivian figures they can take the 149,000Wh they would've put into a $100,000 truck, split it into 186 ebikes and take home $837,000.

It's difficult to say these numbers are believable or not as they depend on speed and pedal input, but given my own experience and reading some tests/forum, they are off by 2x to 3x.

$4500 is ten or more of my homebrew 750 watt electric mountain bike originally built in 2004. I just repowered with LiFePO4 after 10 years in storage and the new batteries really pull. It has a front hub motor with a throttle control limited to 20 mph. My commute is 10 miles, 6 on a dedicated bike path. Life is good.

What kind of capacity from your LFP battery? Is it diy built? I did one in the spring 16S with 25Ah cells and it's been amazing since. Only problem is it's a bit too big to fit anywhere I'd like it to. I have to mount it on a rear rack

I am using 3x 12v 185wh batteries in series. Realistically I can count on around 500wh. They are only 3 lbs each and fit neatly within the frame of the mtb. I don't like having them up on the rear rack, they tend to make the tail of the bike wag a bit compared to low and centered.

https://old.reddit.com/r/ebikes/comments/1o0qthk/dynagirl_ri...

I just 3d printed protective covers for them last week when marketing turned their back on the new Bambu printer.

Nice

I have a big commute and in the (Canadian) winter my old 750Wh was sometimes not up to the task. So I went wildly over the top and built a huge cap battery. I never need to worry now

I don't plan to bike commute in the winter, it is too dark AM and PM. Have you tested your LiFePO4 batteries in low temperatures?

My local bicycle dealer has models in the window up to 15k$. There’s a market for such priced products.

Oh, clearly. But for that money I'd buy a really nice BMW i3 REX. Obviously not an option for everyone.

Those are high performance mountain bikes with carbon fiber frames, top of the line components, carbon wheels. This is an aluminum city commuter and 4.5k is at the high end of that class of ebike.

My tern gsd (cargo e-bike) was in this range and it was totally worth it. Not sure I'd feel the same about a basic commuter bike though.

Terns are great bikes

the problem with $5-$15k bikes is you can't actually use them in the USA as they'll be stolen. You can commute if you have the place to keep it secure. You can not stop for some shopping on the way home though as you'll lose your bike.

If you're riding a $10,000 bike to work, your work probably provides a place to safely store it. Or you make terrible financial decisions

> your work probably provides a place to safely store it.

They get stolen anyway, know some guys it happened to.

Right, the thieves will shoulder surf or pick a lock to get into the "secure" office building storage area. Happens all the time and the police won't bother to investigate.

Just like $0-$5K bikes: it's not like a homeless junkie is going to leave your bike alone if it's just $3K or even $300.

My $200 rusty ebike has been parked outside for 18 months in central London without problems. I take the battery in. The homeless junkie would have to get an angle grinder to cut two D locks, figure out how to buy the battery which costs $300 and is only available from decathlon, somehow try to make a profit out of the whole operation which I don't think I could myself and so on.

It's actually cost me about another $500 in maintenance getting the various bits that pack up replaced but it's a good theft deterrent.

This might have something to do with London not being in the USA?

I guess it varies by location but we have homeless druggies and bike thieves here too. I think old rusty stuff not being very attractive to thieves is fairly universal.

Do you also have homeless tent cities with thousands of stolen bikes in different states of decay piled around?

No. We don't have that one. Although the place still has issues https://www.reddit.com/r/londoncycling/comments/1hfo5ij/how_...

You might have different problems but you don't have the American problem with bike theft. Homeless here steal bikes regardless of their price and condition.

The last bike I had stolen was one I paid $100 for.

If I commuted via bicycle in an area with frequent larceny, I’d simply take it inside to my cubicle, which is surprisingly easy. Currently I live in a low larceny area so I simply leave it outside of the office, unlocked.

The components are all probably very junky, if everything can be had for $450

Sure if you can't DIY. It's a 20 year old Fuji chromoly-frame mountain bike with Shimano components. My biggest expense was new batteries, followed by heavy duty e-bike brake pads. What did you pay to build yours?

Why would anyone use Dropbox when you can self host a linux VM with a file share using a VPN to tunnel?

IMO a huge missed opportunity for these indirect-drive bikes is marketing them as a home exercise bike 2-in-1.

If the pedals are going into a generator with fancy software to emulate the feel of a bike, there's nothing stopping the bike from going into "stationary mode" and acting as an exercise bike. This thing even had a screen on it, so you could do workouts like a peloton.

Then there's the storage aspect -- many people already have (or want) to allocate space to an exercise bike. It would pretty compelling that was also the parking space for your bike-bike.

Then there's the added benefit that your workout is charging the battery. Imagine biking to a park on low charge, doing a stationary workout, and then having enough battery left to bike home with full assist.

Its an interesting idea and the engineer in my agrees with you. Then the product skeptic says that anyone who wants to ride a bike as a form of exercise and get around using a bike, would probably just ride a normal bike.

Yup the venn diagram of people who buy an electric bike (ie don't want to work hard to push pedals) and people who want an exercise bike (where the only thing going on is pedal pushing, no moving) has exactly one person in the center piece: op.

I own both! I use my ebike for shopping and visiting my parents who live on a steep hill near the base of a mountain range. And I have an exercise bike in my office to stretch my legs in the winter.

I think it's an incredibly common use case in places where biking is the default transit mode. I like biking for exercise, but I don't necessarily want to be a sweaty mess after my commute for work, or when lugging my kids around, or when getting groceries.

1. I'd like to ride somewhere and get a workout but I might go farther than I can go normally and rely on ebike assist when I go back home.

2. there are rides I do where I am going for the exercise. There are potential rides I want to do that I can't because I can't afford to be covered in sweat when I arrive. I dont' necessarily want to have TWO bikes or maybe I dont' mind getting a workout on the way home where I can promptly take a shower.

At this point, just accept electric motorcycles/scooters are a distinct category that you'd like to accept and promote, and get rid of the vestigial pedals.

In my country, our govt is promoting e-cycles, and they are about ~ USD 1,000, after being imported from China. They have similar specs to these 'bikes' (range-wise) and I think they are better vehicles, both in price and in utility.

https://www.pave.gov.pk/vehicles

No need to add fake pedals or create a useless 'bike' frame when people are earning for a scooter/motorcycle. Create easier licensing/registration options and you will see adoption rise for the vehicles people truly want.

I don't get what you mean, electric scooters are already a thing? At least in most countries in Europe they are classified the same type of vehicle as pedal-assisted e-bicycles and are capped at 25km/h and can ride in the bike lanes. If they go faster they are classified as full motorcycle and have to ride on the road with the cars and requires a license and a license plate (regardless if electric or non-electric).

https://dualwheeljourney.com/mopeds/swedish-moped-class-1-an...

> get rid of the vestigial pedals.

Pedal-assisted is very much not a vestigial category, plenty of people want to get exercise and not just ride a scooter. On top of that they massively increase the range of the bicycle and the bicycle is still usable when the battery runs out.

I've been annoyed by this as well for a while. I have a non-electric cargo bike but I don't care if others have pedals or not. I'm more scared of a bakfeit mum zooming through at 25km/h than a lightweight Chinese-style moped going slower than that. Regulating who can go where by speed and weight would make much more sense than creating all these arbitrary categories in my opinion.

Pedaling to make energy to store in a battery that then runs an electric motor seems to get around the best thing about bicycles: their efficiency.

No one is going to do that. It's an electric motorcycle in disguise. Don't even play.

If only there were some way to take all that work of pedaling and efficiently translate it into torque on the rear wheel, right?

like a... drive train or something?

science fiction my good dude.

Wouldn't you be able to pedal at your most efficient rate, and go at whatever speed you want? Like how diesel-electric trains don't actually drive the wheels with the diesel engine, they power an electric motor.

(I've never ridden any kind of e-bike so I don't really know how it works)

Trains and large trucks use this setup because a mechanical gearbox would need to be enormous to withstand torques they produce. Bikes don't experience even moderate torques so they can be equipped with 10-20 geared transmissions, which weight under 1 kg.

Bikes have very efficient transmission systems, so outside of extremes you can pedal at an efficient amount of torque for the rider regardless of say: hitting a big hill. This is doubly so for e-bikes that assist in the pedaling.

This is more akin to a hybrid car, who's gas engine could generate electricity, but in the case of this e-Bike from Rivian, why would you do that? The electric motor is significantly more powerful than a person's legs, outside of the Pro Peleton.

Watch anyone on a Class 3 ebike: they're not pedaling. The bicycle drivetrain is just there to get around regulations, like having a license.

Rivian isn't known for making hyper-efficient electric vehicles. Rivians are MANLY trucks made to do MANLY truck things, like go fast! and go through tires faster!

This is called a "digital" bike.

https://www.ebike24.com/blog/digital-drive-ebikes

On my e-bike, with just a standard 7-speed transmission I can pedal at my most efficient rate always; since I have an extra 300W of power available I don't need the super-low gears for climbing.

a full suspension e-bike, 500+Wh battery, with a belt drive for $4,500 is honestly a really good deal. There is a shortage of options when it comes to full-suspension bikes that are good for commutes. Compare this to any e-bike with the Bosch e-bike system. The big risk here for consumers if whether they can match the service, support, and reliability that Bosch has. There appears to be a class-2 e-bike option which is something that significantly differentiates it from bikes with the Bosch system.

"Honestly" does not make it a "really good" deal.

It's an e-bike. The competition is stiff, better looking, and better priced.

If they're lucky, this will appeal to university professors and over achieving parents of unsuspecting kids who want a cool bike but got an expensive dorky one instead.

The e-bike market has multiple tiers/segments. This is not priced to compete with brands like Rad Power Bikes, Lectric, or Aventon. It's likely going to compete with brands like Tern, Benno, Gazelle, Trek, etc.

edit: ask yourself why the median new car in the US sells for over $50k when you can easily find cars for less than half that price.

I find it hard to imagine what the overlap between this and e.g. ebikes from Trek, though. Besides the price of course... It's an entirely different product.

Cars that cost North of 50k is a good example. I wish this bike looked as attractive as its price needs it to be.

I really don't get what the point of the pedals on a thing like this, though. I guess mainly to satisfy some sort of regulations which separate bikes and motorcycle like vehicles? Considering that they aren't even connected to the drivetrain...

In the U.S., there are 3 classes of e-bike: Class 1: pedal-assist only up to 20mph (helmets optional for adults) Class 2: same as Class 1 but with optional throttle to 20mph Class 3: pedal-assist only up to 28mph (helmets required, adults only)

There's also a maximum power rating of 750 watts for all of these. I'm not sure where the "pedal by wire" feature is from a regulatory perspective, but to me this fits into either class 2 or 3 depending on what option you get.

My state doesn't even require helmets for motorcyclists. I am guessing any regulations on e-bikes date back to the days when 2-stroke "moped" bikes were briefly popular.

Based on the video and rivian history I think they wanted to redesign from the ground up a bike to match the packaging success they had at rivian and companies like lucid vs how legacy automakers approached it. The problem is the current laws about bikes and ebikes limited them and they had to make many tradeoffs which is what we are looking at. I guess we will find it if it was worth it to go ground up vs more off the shelf. As a rivian owner I'm concerned about repair-ability and maintenance.

Some people actually do like to double up a bit of exercise with their commute.

So get a pedal-assist ebike which is much nicer to ride for a fraction of the price?

The article clearly states it’s class 3.

From the article:

> It also features a throttle good for 20mph where regulations allow.

That must mean they have a class 2 option.

The way I read it is if you use throttle-only you can reach 20 mph, but then if adding pedal-power you reach 28 mph. The pedal is probably not generating sufficient force to add 8 mph, but it’s telling the control system to do that.

class 2 and class 3 are mutually exclusive. You cannot legally have an e-bike that supports throttle up to 20mph that can also continue to e-assist if you pedal up to 28mph. While it's technically possible in software to switch between these modes, consumers aren't supposed to be able to do this on their own.

You have an incorrect definition of Class 3.

Class 3 allows pedal assist up to 28 and throttle to 20

https://thecyclistchoice.com/resources/electric-bike-classes...

I did it on my e bike...all I did was lie to the computer about how big my wheels were, which was a directly accessible in the settings menu

You can usually limit the bike to go less than 20mph in those cases.

It would be nice to have the GPS automatically set the pedal assist max speed when riding on shared paths with pedestrians and people.

I have also seen road bikers on those same shared paths pedal faster than 20mph.

No consumer GPS is precise enough to reliably distinguish between a bike path and an adjacent regular road, especially if there are any overhead obstructions nearby. Many bike paths don't have a 20mph speed limit anyway.

I was in the market for a commuter recently and my runner-up was this bike from Bulls (German brand trying to break into the US market) with full suspension, a Bosch motor, and coming in at a staggeringly light 58 lbs (battery included) for $3300. Extremely tempting, if I hadn't managed to snag a heavily-discounted Aventon Level 2 instead. https://bullsbikesusa.com/products/iconic-evo-tr-1-750

that's a nice bike! bummer that the rear rack isn't co-sprung.

120mm seems like an absurd amount of travel for ostensibly what is a city bike

Lets it soak up harsh bumps at at higher speeds.

Potholes and speed bumps are a thing.

A really good deal based on what? You can buy bikes with double the battery off amazon for a quarter of the price. What are you comparing this to?

you can get a high quality 4khw 20kw electric dirt bike for $4500... oh right, maybe not the best for commuting. they were fun before the cops caught on.

Why do you need full sus on a commuter though? I think it's a gimmick that's not worth the 4500

It seems US manufacturers only cater to the luxury segment. How about doing something simple, reliable and cheap? With the tariffs soon they will kill off cheap foreign options and we will only have upscale things to buy. It used to be that the US was good at producing for the mass market but it seems that's over.

This thing seems totally overengineered by people who never use bikes

> How about doing something simple, reliable and cheap?

Like Rad Power Bikes? Though IIRC they're not doing too well at the moment.

I have a Juiced bike myself for the commute, it's quite nice.

Very interesting, really liking the swappable components in the quad. I'm a big cyclist but have been looking for something new to take around for commuting that isn't a scooter.

Great to see more manufacturers getting in on micromobility options.

What I want ... not an E-bike, but an E-version of the BMW C1

Critical features: 1. moderate weather protection 2. vastly improved crash protection 3. top speed above 50mph 4. luggage capacity of a small flatbed trailer

I acknowledge the utility of e-bikes for many; for me, I prefer my non-e bike when I want to ride my bike, but would love an e-motorycle as an alternative to 80% of my car trips.

https://www.theautopian.com/bmws-first-scooter-had-a-ridicul...

You‘re in luck BMW recently presented their vision CE.

https://www.bmwmotorcycles.com/en/experience/stories/urban-m...

Sadly, no weather protection and apparently almost zero luggage capacity. But it's a very tiny step in roughly the right direction ...

In the camper image it has a luggage box a sort of roof case.

oh, those concept shots are hysterical. the one with the pink bike and the woman with 3 dogs kills, but the dj setup is where I said "too far" and closed the tab

> the dj setup is where I said "too far" and closed the tab

Also, it's AI-generated. Zoom in on the right-most guy in the image. Garbage in, garbage out. Embarrassing garbage quality for an official site.

> the one with the pink bike and the woman with 3 dogs kills

A was all curious about the "woman with 3 dogs kills", but was disappointed to find the dogs are alive. I just read the sentence wrong.

the with 3 dogs was just describing the woman, not the target of the kills. it's not Kristi Noem in the image.

The weather protection is great for positive temperatures - you can protect yourself from sun and rain. Unfortunately, for those in cold weather, two wheeled vehicles make little sense.

NotJustBikes' latest video is titled "I'm so Sick of this Lazy Excuse (for bad cities)" and the lazy excuse is the cold or wet weather.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXDP9WQe0io

A previous video "How is a bike tunnel this freak'n great" is about urbanism and cycling in Bergen, Norway and has repeated digs at people who say you can't have good cycling infrastructure unless it's sunny and tropical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCedclz03uI

And a previous video "Why Canadians can't bike in the winter (but Finnish people can)" about the city of Oulo, Finland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

And a previous video about Oslo, Norway, "The next great cycling city"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmp09Fd07oc

He used to work in tech, I think in ATI chip design consulting, and spent time lived in Sunnyville, California, where it was always room temperature and sunny outside - the best weather anyone could ask for - and everyone still drove everywhere all the time. He travelled short and long stay consulting visits all over the world for years, in Toronto, Sunnyville, Oxford, London, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Taiwan, China, and it's those experiences which gave rise to his opinions about cities and that YouTube channel

So, while I broadly share most of NotJustBike's views on the world, this particular context is different.

I was asking for an electric motorcycle with a top speed of at least 50mph, intended to be used over the sort of distances that people would not use an e-bike or a bicycle for (in my case, like the 25mile/40km journey from my home into the nearest city).

I do actually ride my bike to/from the city sometimes, and probably the coldest I've ever been cycling (and I ride a lot) was on a winter morning doing this, when I underestimated the depth of the cold without direct sunshine.

Moving at powered speed, with little to zero effort, is extremely chilling (potentially even life-threatening).

So yes ... yes to better cycling infrastructure even inside cities with challenging winter conditions, but also yes to recognizing that not all two-wheeled transport fits that particular description.

And 5. no helmet necessary! They actually did make a concept version of this, the C1-E: https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/tv-footage/detail/PF00...

Despite the complaints in this thread there is already a market for $4k ebikes. And people are buying them. The bike competes with a bunch of e-bikes in that price range, Evelo Omega, Bosch, etc. So they're hardly a first mover. They are optimizing that market.

yeah but what's the point? At this price point alibaba monsters are far more powerful and real bicycles far more bicycle-like. These will sell a 10-20k units and fade into obscurity like Van Moofs and other disruptive bicycles before them.

People typically don't buy big ticket goods from a company named "YACCEEZY" like you might see on Amazon or Aliexpress these days.

It's worth noting that Hyundai had a similar issue when it entered the US market. It was an uphill battle to market itself to convince people to spend thousands of dollars of money on a no-name car brand.

As someone who enjoys bicycling every now and then, I suspect a 40 kg Also TM-B hurling up a tight bicycle lane at 50 km/h can be somewhat hazardous to people on regular (unpowered and light) bicycles—not unlike a motorcycle, but obviously to a lesser degree.

For comparison, Seoul bike lanes allow pedal-assist bikes that are limited to 25 km/h and weigh no more than 30 kg (battery included), which seems pretty generous.

> Also also unveiled its Alpha Wave helmet.... It also features integrated lights and a four-speaker, wind-shielded internal audio system with two noise-canceling mics. The helmet integrates with the TM-B’s console, where music, calls, and podcasts can be controlled on the bike.

In an ideal world these would be great features to have, but in the real world, where so many places have a near complete absence of safe cycling infrastructure and bicycles are casually mixed in with giant trucks it's a bit of a scary notion to reduce your situational awareness with a great sound system and the distraction of doing your morning zoom standup while cycling to work (I've done this before lol, tho most of my commute is in separated bike lanes...).

This points to the headwinds to adoption and success of the Also, which is that so many cities are ambivalent and uninterested if not outright ideologically opposed to building safe all ages and abilities bike lanes. That sort of safe infrastructure is critical to the success of a product like this. It's really unfortunate.

I've seen a lot of people use noise cancelling ear buds on roads using pedal bikes, so I don't see how this is any different really.

I just added strips of fake fur to the straps my boring old helmet to diffuse the wind noise the same way a "dead cat" cover on a microphone does. They look a bit like muttonchops which is a bonus as far as I am concerned. I use wraparound bone conduction headphones that don't block my ears. I would be afraid of losing an expensive earbud.

Bear with me I don't know much about bikes but I have this honest question: why does it need a chain, and won't place the engine (or whatever gear box it has) directly on the wheel?

So it will appear as a bicycle and be allowed on paths in parks (is what I'm guessing).

It's a backup so that if you do lose power, you can still pedal home. Major pain to pedal an 80 lb fixed gear bike, but This is standard on ebikes and doesn't contribute much weight or cost in itself.

> "It's a backup so that if you do lose power, you can still pedal home."

The pedals are not connected to the chain or wheels, it's surely a legal dodge to pretend it's a pedelec not a motorbike.

The biggest reason is minimizing unsprung mass, the performance of the rear suspension would be much worse with a hub motor.

does that actually matter much on anything except dirt-bike tracks, or trying to go 40mph on a horrifically bumpy track? minus some comfort advantage, of course.

like technically, sure, it's obviously true. but for performance it only really matters when you would get air time with higher mass, and the lower mass stays in contact more. commuter e-biking generally doesn't get anywhere near those speeds or bump-sizes. (trail biking: sure! I 100% believe it's a sizable consideration there)

I've never ridden a full suspension with a hub motor so I can't say, but my guess is that yes, it would make a pretty big difference with an aggressive rider or poor quality streets. It's not just keeping contact that matters, its the consistency and quality of contact, especially with a super torquey motor ready to jump at a twitch of your thumb. Its of course not necessary for commuter biking, but neither is basically anything on this premium product aside from the wheels and pedals.

Also to note, they are very much marketing it as a trail bike in addition to a commuter so it's not surprising they would spend a bit to optimize for ride quality and traction.

Not all e-bikes have a rear suspension, so the motor will feel the bumps either way pretty much the same, I would guess. Or being placed in the middle halves somewhat the shocks?

It's not clear if their design allows for it from the details in the article, but you'd want a chain in case you run out of battery so you can pedal manually.

Putting the motor into the wheel makes for an excellent riding experience, I have a Bionx rear wheel (out of business) that is connected to the chain ring and pedals in the traditional way. The wheel detects torque from pedaling and applies it's own torque to drive the wheel. It can be used with and without power and feels almost seamless and is silent.

Unfortunately it seems to be difficult to engineer and build these wheel motors for reliability and longevity. They significanly increase the unsprung mass of the wheel which leads to increased wear on the hub components.

Dirt bikes and many motorcycles also have chains, this allows you to change gears to adjust torque (alternatives include shaft and belt drives).

E-bikes can have the motors on the wheel (hub-drive) or on the pedal (mid-drive). This choice is largely related to how much you want your e-bike to really be a scooter or really be providing pedal assist. As a consequence hub-drive e-bikes typically have a throttle while mid-drive do not.

A good mid-drive e-bike really makes it feel like you are a super human cyclist rather than riding a scooter. It leads to a much smoother riding experience if your aim is to still be essentially bicycling but you'd like to get moving faster and not break a sweet even on the most extreme hills.

> A good mid-drive e-bike really makes it feel like you are a super human cyclist

Of course. But the pedals on this thing aren't even connected to the drivetrain. So what is the benefit in this specific case?

Completely agree. They should probably just remove the pedals and generator entirely and save that weight. But then legally it becomes a scooter and probably would require a license and be more limited as to where it could go.

But what if the pedals are connected to the wheel only in a "symbolic" way, say, some electrical contact or something? So technically you still have to pedal to qualify as e-bike, just without real mechanical transmission? And if you lose power bad luck, don't commute with an empty battery...

I have a couple of mid-drive e-bikes (Bafang motors) with throttles. Throttled mid-drives let you get the best of both worlds: Great pedal assist combined with the ability to just be a scooter when you get tired. And I agree that mid-drive is the way to go if you want to ride on hills. If you commute in San Francisco for example, a hub drive e-bike will not help you much but a mid-drive will change your life.

I could imagine (not necessarily feasible!) the pedals only moving a dynamo with variable resistance to mimic real world pedaling, and the hub drive doing the drive according to the pedaling speed? Would that be a scooter or a e-bike, according to norms?

mid-drive e-bikes like this one are generally more expensive also but more efficient than rear hub motor systems. They also provide better overall weight distribution.

For 4.5k that's quite expensive .. I got a bike for $1300 been using it for 1.5 years (around 7-10 miles a day) and the thing for bikes usually people pay it all upfront (unlike cars were mostly bought in installments) so the price difference there are quite noticeable

A french company is developing similar technology called PERS (pedaling energy recovery system) [1] that is actually chainless. This comparison [2] claims an overall efficiency of around 64%, with both generator and motor losing about 20% each. They were interviewed by the Laidback bike report [3].

[1] https://www.cixi.life/pers-technology

[2] https://www.ebike24.com/blog/chainless-ebikes

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyGDZw3VPlI

The TM-Q is much more interesting to me as an outsider. What if these are clogging up city bike lanes for commercial purposes? https://ridealso.com/products/quad

You build bigger lanes. Paris and London are quickly learning this lesson.

There are already bigger lanes - it's where the cars drive. What is the difference between a Tesla and a TM-Q loaded with 30 amazon packages?

Amazon has been using a vehicle that looks very similar to the enclosed version in upper Manhattan the last few months. Given their existing relationship with Rivian maybe they have some kind of early access.

We have quite a lot of those sort of things in London. They don't seem to cause much problems. They certainly clog the roads much less than conventional commercial vehicles.

The battery system here sounds so sweet. Swappable, with a respectable 0.5kWh and then an Extended Range 0.8kWh is excellent.

Usb-c chargeable at 240W is divinely sweet. Maybe maybe some day dual USB would be nice (for the ER especially) but this is quite respectable. And by not trying to super fast charge the battery will live longer anyhow.

Being removable is another nice win, if not uncommon. I don't know which other batteries provide USB power even without the bike, which again is such a great nice to have: take the bike to a park then bring with an charge some phones or what-not.

In the future I really hope we see some battery alliances, making some form factors, and centralizing on usb-c. As would be good common sense. The overlap between a bike battery and standalone Delta or Ecoflow battery power station is huge, and Rivian here seems a little further along than most at hybridizing & generalizing a battery system: obvious win to anyone paying attention!

The modularity could be a major win too. I'd love to see a an e-bike maker go down the Ford Bronco path & add a bunch of attachments points and replaceable/modular pieces to the design, and release all the specs for free use! Even if it only is Rivian and some partners doing this here, this is the way, it feels like:

> The top frame of the TM-B is modular by design, so the bike can be transformed without tools into a cargo hauler, kid carrier, or cruiser with a bench seat.

Cargo haulers easily climb to the 6000$ ranges. And the massive 180NM motor here will not bat an eye!

One thing I'd love to see: a stationary bike mode. Bring it inside for the winter & do spin class, charging up the battery. The full series hybrid, no mechanical linkage, doesnt deel super super practical to be honest but it's interesting!

A lot of nice basic things that make sense. Like no longer needing special cherging equipment for reasonably good capacity chwrging (albeit most usb-c chargers will only be doing 100w for a while now, but that seems fine).

bikes are already highly "modular" in that outside of ebike motor systems you can swap most parts. Bikes like the Rivian in the article would only work if ruggedized and sold to fleets. As a consumer you'd just get something from Specialized at this price point since it won't be worthless in 2 years time.

Agreed that bikes do often exhibit some level of modularity. But attaching a front or back cargo rack or kid carrier gets pretty finicky pretty quick: most e-bikers tend to just buy the (often quite expensive) 1st party gear, because it'll actually fit right.

This bike seems to have only a single major modular system, but it comprises such a massive part of the bike: there's a big stem-post that attaches to the drive unit. Being able to swap that stem-post out for other things allows for really big changes, imo. You could build some really cool really neat different top-sides atop this bike, with really weird cargo or kid shapes.

I would love to see smaller level modularity too. I'm really impressed by the Bronco, and how they've clearly worked very hard to make it a "car as a platform", opening up as much space as they can for aftermarket parts & 3d printing people to build everything from cup-holders/interior fixing to body-panels (dunno the best link for this, but for ex: https://thebronconation.com/more-bronco-modularity-fender-fl...). I see Rivian / Also tapping that energy here in a way that moves far beyond what bikes today offer.

Everyone I know used a Yepp/Thule child seat for their bike and I never heard a peep about "finicky".

I'm more familiar with racks for front and back. And it feels like those people with a very random assortment of connectors rod-clamps and other assorted hardware are invaluable friends to have for a lot of these installs.

There's usually some kind of screw mounts somewhere, different bikes with different geometries need lateral positioning & control & it feels like >50% of the time what comes with the rack doesn't quite work.

It looks like most of these bike seats assume the bike already has some kind of rack installed. If there's already two horizontal bars ready to go then yeah it should be pretty simple to install: the hard parts done.

I feel like this debate over bikes are modular / no they are not is kind of silly. There is some part swapping, and some affixment points, but these come with great inconsistency across bikes and parts. But much more so than that, it feels like there's such a limited of reconfigurability for most bikes. There's the same bike underneath whatever you do, and the number of serious affixment points strongly limits how you can build up.

The Thule seat clamps to the seat tube. Every normal bike you'd actually trust to hold up a child has a round seat tube. Not the piece of junk in the article, of course.

Still feels like talking about this very niche small point distracts rather than adds to the conversation about modularity.

USB-C support is honestly one of the most exciting features. I guess it's an efficiency/profit thing, but it's wild to me how many ebikes have weird proprietary chargers.

Reeks of Juicero.

NFS lock and unlock. GPS locator. Capacitance touchscreen controls. Hydraulic disc brakes.

Companion helmet with wirelessly connected brake lights, and noise cancelling(?!) speakers.

Why do we need to learn the same lessons over and over again?

What? lol

The issue with juicero is that their hardware design was needlessly and insanely over complicated, like magnitudes past anything I’m seeing here - and they DRMd something that didn’t need to be DRMd (juice)

For this bike, those are features people regularly want in e-bikes and cost very little to add - the bike already needs a capable cpu for battery management and acceleration curve controlling.

These are features that people differentiate these pseudo motorcycles on. “We” have learned the lesson.

The helmet is very juicero tho

I wouldn’t lump disk brakes in with the rest of those, maybe the hydraulic part is overkill though.

The $999 Lectric XP4 has hydraulic disc brakes. While uncommon at that price point, it's not unusual to see them on $1500-2k e-bikes.

My ebike has hydraulic disk brakes and a CVT, e bikes have moved forward from the bike-shaped-object era

They've moved on from the 'can maintain/repair it with basic tools' era. Soon they'll be dependent on the cloud and subscription services...

(Kind of amazed that wireless derailleurs became a thing. Replacing a simple mechanical device with complex tech requiring two batteries)

Enviolo CVT? I'm curious about how you like it. I rented a Blue Bike in Boston with a CVT and loved it.

I've liked it, not being serviceable is a drawback but it's been issue-free for 3 years now

I wish I had the automatic shifting module for SF's hills, but it's a nice to have that probably isn't as useful elsewhere

I bought complete hydraulic disc brake set for $40 on Ali Express. Mechanical brakes cannot be much cheaper.

Hydraulic disc brakes aren't really overkill on an e-bike, it's a safety thing. You really don't want to skimp out on stopping power when your heavy bike has a powerful motor.

> maybe the hydraulic part is overkill though

Not for an e-bike it isn't. In fact, I'd say if you're not rocking hydraulic brakes on an e-bike, you're asking for a bad time. I know that most lower end e-bikes don't come with them standard, but to me, it's a necessary and immediate upgrade for safety.

Non-hydraulic discs suck. You get better braking power out of decent rim brakes.

I respectfully disagree. I've owned and ridden several ebikes with mechanical disc brakes. When they're properly adjusted they have just as much stopping power as hydraulics.

Hydraulic disc brakes are not overkill with a bike of that mass [0] and power. Disc brakes are very common mountain bikes or any type where there is a lot of braking as caliper/rim brakes can overheat and pop the tires, so this unit should definitely have disc brakes. Hydraulic is better than cable/mechanical as hydraulic can generate more braking power, have better feel, and stay in better adjustment. The only downside vs cable+disc is cable is more repairable in the field.

[0] (overall specs indicate a lot of weight, Rivian are not proud enough of any lightweighting to even print the weight, and their autos are also very heavy, indicating a lack of lightweight engineering discipline in that shop which may carry over to their other mobility solutions)

Having hydraulic disc brakes on a bicycle like this isn't something odd. Tons of regular bicycles have them these days.

The only kind of weird thing I see here is the idea the pedals aren't actually directly connected to the drive train, they just turn a generator.

That’s going to separate force-applied from force-required while riding - a much more comfortable pedal action.

That is what gears are for. The only time gears fail is when you want to pedal harder without going faster - charge the battery. Downhill with a tailwind the cautious can reach this situation, but most just go faster.

gears with a chain is more energy efficient.

Hydraulic brakes are great. I have them on two bikes and would certainly buy them again.

The bike cost nowhere near $4500 and certainly doesn't have any "smart" integration other than a holder for my phone, which I added myself for $13.

There's literally thousands of e-bikes with touch screens and it would be unsafe for a bike of this weight to have anything other than hydraulic disc brakes, which are the standard for just about anything that isn't a road bike these days. Locator also pretty common even on $1,000 ebikes.

But yes, other stuff seems to be features for the sake of features.

E-bikes with properly adjusted mechanical disc brakes are perfectly safe, and mechanical brakes are easy to adjust yourself without the need to take them to a bike shop. It's the discs that are important -- not whether they are mechanical or hydraulic.

conversely hydraulics don't need adjustment

...except when they do. If you get a leak or an air bubble for example and have to flush the system, you'll need a trip to the bike shop.

If you put miles on your bike and ride hills, you'll spend way more time fiddling with an allen/torx on the inboard pad or the adjustment barrel on the cable as your pads wear. The bleeding procedure for hydraulics is for sure messier, but still very doable in 5 minutes. When you do have air in the system, pumping the lever a bit gives you back some braking function.

A touchscreen on a primarily-outdoor device makes no sense to me. It's just a single point of failure for fanciness. Transit safety should be taken more seriously, with controls you can operate by feel, rather than vision. It's not important if lots and lots of companies include this single point of failure.

Edit: also, don't capacitive screens kinda suck if they get a little wet? like what, you just can't use the screen controls while it's raining without risking unlocking your seat 40,000 times in a half second due to a stray raindrop sitting on the screen? Feels like resistive would explicitly be superior here. You probably don't need huge accuracy for what should ideally be a spacious display anyways.

There's nothing wrong with hydraulic disc brakes on an e-bike, except that hydraulic brakes are hard to maintain yourself without special tools. All e-bikes need disc brakes, period. Any e-bike (or any merely heavy bike) is unsafe without disc brakes. Whether those brakes are mechanical or hydraulic doesn't matter nearly as much as the fact that they use discs.

What does "NFS" stand for in this context?

https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/NFS

I think they meant NFC (as in Near Field Communication).

A typo for NFC seems likely.

They mean NFC, I think.

Yup, typo and unable to edit the comment now.

NFC, Near Field Communication.

I'm with you on the automatic lock/unlock and full-touch controls, I don't like either of those design choices in cars and I don't want them in a bike either.

That said a GPS locator is great on an e-bike. They're high value theft targets, anything that makes them harder to steal, easier to track, or otherwise reduces the appeal of stealing one is a good thing.

Hydraulic disc brakes are a great thing even on non-electronic bikes. I won't buy another bike without them. My hardtail mountain bike, gravel bike, and e-cruiser are all hydraulic discs.

ah yes hydraulic disk brakes on like 80lbs bike is exactly like juicero

Hydraulic disc brakes are table stakes for a mountain or gravel bike nowadays. Dual or preferably quad piston calipers on a big rotor make a significant difference when it comes to stopping power.

To me this looks like how people who never use a bike imagine a good bike. I am ok with the brakes but the rest just makes the bike more complex and expensive with possible planned obsolescence. I don't want to deal with firmware updates for my bike.

I wonder if you can still ride it if they turn their server off?

"activates and deactivates when the rider is nearby"

sounds iffy like that. I was riding a Forest bike yesterday where the user app and bike both have to connect to Forest's servers and it's kind of a pain.

I have a 750W e-bike (which actually means 750W peak, 500W sustained).

There are hills near my house that my bike can not make it up without significant pedal assist.

If the motor and power electronics on this e-bike can only handle 750W peak, 500W sustained, as is common and I think is possibly even legislated in parts of the U.S., this bike will not be able to make it up serious hills.

With a normal e-bike, your pedaling is additive to the motor. That is not the case with this design.

If the motor is geared it could make a difference. For comparison, most people put out about 100 watts with their legs, but need to downshift to go up hills. This looks like a mid drive unit, which should be capable of varied gearing.

I was looking for where the gearing was and it doesn't appear to be in the wheels. It looks like it's in the hub.

I have a bike with an automatic transmission and it handles steep hills just fine.

But generally speaking, I would expect the bike at this price point to have an automatic transmission.

Given it can output 180Nm I expect this thing can get up whatever hill you point it at

I'm actually pretty excited about this, and I've always been surprised that there isn't an electric bike like this.

One of the main user interface challenges with a pedal assist E bike is how to make the experience feel as intuitive as just pedaling a normal bicycle with a chain, but be able to embrace all of the UX freedom afforded by the "Pedal by wire" separation.

Consider that because there's an electric generator that the pedals are powering, the software can vary how much amperage is allowed to be generated and so provide variable force feedback as it were, and the software can set any relationship between the input (pedaling frequency, torque, rate of change etc.) and the behavior of the traction motor. I think that's the basis for actually a very exciting pedaling platform.

They also say in the article that the generator itself can create enough power to substantively move the motor, which is pretty awesome in my mind but I can totally understand how that feels circuitous.

My general advice is to never buy a bike from a company that doesn’t have a core business in building non electric bicycles.

At least not their first generation.

Throttles are so lame. They make these things motorcycles that pretend to be bicycles ridden at 20+ mph in bike lanes by people who mostly haven’t ridden anything at all for 20 years so they lack the knowledge of etiquette and bicycle handling skills putting a bunch of us a risk IMO.

Oh: I was surprised/saddened that the article mentioned Cake's bankruptcy, so I had to check and it seems the company/assets and a lot of staff was acquired by Norwegian company Brages [1] so it kind of still exists, at least. Not sure if that means they no longer sell in the US, though.

[1]: https://ridecake.com/en-SE/the-cake-journey-continues

I had a look and

> Good enough to make me think the $9,000 / €9,000 starting price isn’t as crazy as I first thought.

I think there may be a limited market at the higher price points given you can get a pretty good ebike for a fraction of that.

A bunch of them have Öhlins suspensions, so it's obviously a special market.

Not affiliated but I'm looking into converting my commuter bike with a kit from https://ebikes.ca. Seems to make more sense to turn any of the million bikes out there into an electric one using a reusable kit than buying a single purpose electric bike that will end up on the landfill once the company goes bust because no one wants to push around a bike that heavy.

Self-plug: you can take a look at our repairable and sustainable battery at https://gouach.com. If it gets depleted, it's super easy to replace cells, getting you a whole new battery for $50 (price of cells) instead of buying a new $200 - $500 battery

I disagree, I went that route and ended up regretting it. While converting a regular bike to an e-bike does work, a standard commuter bike is designed to carry a person’s weight with the center of gravity in mind. Adding an electric hub motor and a 20 lb lithium battery to a frame with cantilever brakes just feels sketchy. A properly designed e-bike typically comes with four-piston hydraulic brakes, and the placement of the motor and battery is engineered to maintain balance and handling.

I think someone is missing a massive marketing/product-improvement opportunity by not selling a scaffold for the bike to allow it to be used as an exercise bike - this is turn would make significant savings on people's electricity budget .. then suddenly the direct-to-battery pedal arrangement would go from weakness to proper feature! #feelfreetocontactmewithmonetaryreward

The cargo version IMO might be a bigger hit. I can see not just last mile, but perhaps within large factories, golf clubs etc.

Electric golf carts have existed since the 1950s, and are the cart type available at most golf courses in the US. Regarding factories, a variant with a pallet mover or fork lift would be handy (but electric lifts are probably the second most common type if they haven't already surpassed propane).

Car companies have been screwing up e-bikes for longer than you think

https://electrek.co/2024/04/02/car-companies-have-been-screw...

"Drive by Wire"? This is not even anywhere near a "bike". At least you could argue "e-bikes" could still be pedaled without the battery. It's not that anybody would want to or even could, but an argument could be made.

Reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/c__jbrnsxXU?si=D8n2sqRTkyur9gaq

It's not really intended for bicycleists, it's intended for rivian owners.

28mph as the top speed seems to go beyond the bike market, but it’s positioned as a bike. It’s also marketed as a mountain bike. Of course it’s on the person to be safe, just wondering if it becomes a problem on the roads and trails

28 mph is the legal max for Class 3 ebikes with pedal assist. It's the max you can usually legally ride without getting into license requirements etc in most of the US.

I ride a class-3 Tern cargo bike with 400Wh battery and this range is very optimistic, especially since this is pedal-by-wire. Also what happens when the battery runs out, because you can just ride without assist on any Bosch e-bike.

Game over with a dead battery, I would think, though I suppose it's possible that the generator you're pedaling is enough for very slow movement without the battery boost...

Most visibly interesting part to me is the frame design without a rear triangle (no seatstay) like a motorcycle or dirtbike.

Materials must be real strong to withstand all the torque forces without a rear triangle, right? Any other e-bikes like this?

Climate change is tailwind for e-bikes. What we need is better infrastructure accross and muscle memory to use them. If only politicians would invest more in infrastructure... (speaking from Southern EU perspective)

Here in the USA, there are bike lanes and dedicated bike trails everywhere and a great deal of ebike adoption. The problem is that regulatory frameworks haven’t caught up and public sentiment is becoming quite negative when yet another brutal accident happens.

I'm liking aspects of the design, but I'm concerned about weight and overengineering of simple stuff like the seatpost bracket.

Also, the "TM-B Reservation Token" smacks of egregious marketeering.

Still, this looks like a solid ebike.

It looks good and has many soold features that meet most needs, but seriously lacking the simplest mud guard prediction that almost all no sport bikes need

It has a bit of a “The Homer” feel to it, but maybe the designs grows on you.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsons/images/0/05/TheHo...

(https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer)

A classic Simpsons episode!

"Powerful like a gorilla, yet soft and yielding like a nerf ball..."

The bike lane compliant vehicle category is exciting. Infinite Machine (infinitemachine.com) made me aware of this category with their Olto model, which is at a (surprisingly) superior price point.

I walked past a near identical delivery quad to their TM-Q not an hour ago.

I'm not sure we can call these things bikes. It weights almost 40kgs... You cannot physically ride even slightly uphill when the battery dies. It's just a motor or a scooter.

I guess the difference is these can "legally" ride on sidewalks

Christ what an ugly kludge. Just spend a weekend in Amsterdam and check out the Tenways and the Vanmoof roaming the streets for an idea how to do it, if not right, at least decently

This is a motorcycle. It's a cycle with a motor.

I love that the popularity of motorcycling is taking off with better batteries, motors, and control systems!

It's motorcycling though :-)

inadequate suspension to be classified as a motorbike imo

In terms of travel it has as much as a normal motorcycle. Which is really absurd for a 24" bike even with those stubby crank arms.

Some motorcycles don't even have rear suspension. Canonical ones, in fact. Like hardtail Harleys.

This thing at least looks like a bike, some of the 'e-bikes' are way more motorcycles than actually meant to be paddled.

> $4,500

Haha. https://www.himobikes.com/

So if people don't like this, does anyone have a recommendation for a good, class 1 (pedal assist only) bike?

I like the idea of regen making its way into pedal assist mountain bikes. It would act as a sort of descent control.

Any details on the regen efficiency? Going downhill would net back some energy depending on regen efficiency.

I would rather just pick up a Maeving RMS or a CE 02. TM-B weighs 90 lbs and is not quite a scooter or bike.

This new e-bike news drops just as Cory Ellison arrives at his mom’s in a Rivian. Great job marketing dept!

While this looks pretty slick, i definitely agree with commenters this falls on the moped end of things. I will assume from the features listed that it's loaded with proprietary parts.

I'm an everyday cyclist and when people ask me for recommendations on bike, I almost always recommend they look at traditional bike brands with e-bikes, rather than pure e-bike brands.

Traditional bike shop level bike brands typically have reputable Bosch or Bafang motors (preferably mid drive, not in the wheels hub)and computers, but the rest of the bike will be mostly standard bike brakes, wheel sizes, derailleurs, chains, hubs etc.

Bring one of those DTC e-bike brands into your local shop and there's probably a 50% chance they'll work on it. Good luck finding replacement parts or getting support from the company with no local prescence.

Look on /r/bikemechanics to see the horror show working on some of these bikes has become.

One of the great things about cycling is that almost anyone can learn to fix and maintain their bike. It's affordable and mostly standardized at this point

It's extremely accessible with YouTube Videos, the Park Tool Blue Book, and bike coops or workshops in most cities. Many local shops are happy to share knowledge with their customers.

The closer your e-bike is to a traditional bike, the better time you'll have in the long run.

I wish they’d clean up Class 3. They made the throttles illegal in California.

Well, it certainly has a Rivian price.

I suspect I'll be seeing these around here, soon.

People talking about efficiency are missing the point - the pedals are only there so it gets classified as an e-bike and not an electric motorcycle (so no license required, registration, taxes, can drive in the bike lane) and doesn’t have the jerky handling of an e-bike with the wheels mechanically linked to the pedals.

They never really intend for you to turn the pedals. It is a regulatory thing.

I really wish they would offer a Class 1 or Class 2 version.

Why?

because class 1 or 2 is allowed to go pretty much anywhere a bicycle is allowed to go where I live and class 3 has more restrictions.

Fair, I've not looked into how places are treating the different classes of electric bikes differently since I don't have one and my neighborhood isn't great for biking.

Where I live the city is trying to crack down on children riding fast scooters/bikes in the streets and in the city center and doubling and tripling up on them etc. I do regularly see teenagers and tweens engaging in unsafe activities on scooters and I understand.

So they passed a bunch of strict laws which only apply to the city, but they aren't allowed to override state law on Class 1 and 2 bikes, so the law is very clear and simple for them and they mostly can't pass anything. State law allows localities to implement more restrictons on class 3, so it's a little bit murkier for class 3 bikes here.

The city ordinance is actually very difficult to understand, because it's broadly written, so you might think that some things are illegal because it's not totally clear where it's overridden by state law. It's clear as mud, not simple english and you have to be an attorney and do some research to understand it.

This is obvious marketing spam. Not hn worthy imo.

> Due to regulations in some states and jurisdictions, throttle will act as an assist boost in those areas, temporarily increasing your assist multiplier while you hold it down.

The bike comes with DRM that automatically tracks which location you're in and applies regulations to the controls? Fucking hell.

The only things this seems to have over an electric scooter is larger wheels, a seat, and a cargo rack. It's almost impossible to tell in a time-efficient way though because they really want you to watch their presentation and individually click on each "SEE MORE" button and read each little excerpt one at a time. I'm super annoyed by this website.

Even the most premium possible scooter costs almost $1,000 less than this - Apollo Phantom 2.0 Stellar is $3,649 right now, and goes like 50 MPH, has far less DRM, and so on. No cargo space though.

The kid carrier looks dangerously top heavy.

We need fast charging e-bike infrastructure

Weird !

Now a clever engineer needs to add "peloton mode" -- use it as a stationary exercise bike and charge the battery at the same time.

Wow, cool bike! Said nobody.

It's sad to see so much effort being put into a product that is utterly uncool. Maybe start with the design (cool) and then integrate the mechanics. This is how companies design cool cars.

Great! Another bunch of micromobility products that nobody asked for. And the price! I can buy 6 very decent Chinese ebikes of various formats for the $4500 this thing will cost. I'm sure it will be more advanced and nicely designed, but it's just way too expensive. Bicycles are a mass-market item. Price is the primary decider. If you want to be successful, you have to be cheaper than the competition. Who is this for?

> Price is the primary decider

That's not even true for normal bicycles. Serious cyclists can spend massive amounts of cash on their rides.

Aside from that, if you're using this as a vehicle you want more than just the cheapest thing out there. Reliability and serviceability are important when not having the bike means you can't get to work or your kid's school.

By massive amounts, of course you meant "dramatically less than any car", right?

Most serious bicyclists I know, some with wonderful bikes, still spent less on their bikes than the typical American spends getting the air conditioned seats option in their F-150.

> Reliability and serviceability are important when not having the bike means you can't get to work or your kid's school.

True, but this bike is completely non-standard so sort of blows that. There isn't even a direct connection between the pedals and the wheels. If the electrical bits stop responding you don't even have a bike, you have a really awkward velocipede. Every other e-bike that I have ridden or seen is still a bike when there is no power.

Only 28mph max speed, and the firmware might actually be properly protected from this bug being easily fixed. I'll stick to my Chinese scooters run by code-unlocked STM32F103 clones i can easily cure of such idiocy.

Hey Dean Kamen,

See how it just becomes a bicycle when it's discharged or broken? This is much, much closer to what we expected from the Segway.

Look again. This is pedal by wire.

If it is broken the pedals will just spin because there is no mechanical link between the pedals and the parts that make the vehicle move.

Glad to see innovation in bicycle space. That said, when I was living in NYC, I was always afraid that someone on an e-bike would hit me when I'm trying to cross the road (esp. in the evenings or when the weather doesn't permit a lot of visibility). Some of these e-bikers also ride on the pedestrian platforms and it's dangerous (as of 2022, I don't think there was any enforcement to keep them out of the platforms).

It'd be interesting to see if/how e-bike laws would evolve if this trend gets bigger (ebikes are already big in big cities like NYC)

Small outdated 26 inch wheels, ugly, looks very heavy.

Promo pictures look cringe with metrosexuals riding them on a gravel road.

Cool.

Typical 2020s design trying to appeal to the smartphone/sedentary crowd who know nothing about bikes.

For this kind of money you can get a really nice eMTB like the Mith from UNNO which has 29 inch wheels, weighs 47 lbs (21.3kg) and is a much more capable bike with a 800Wh battery.

https://www.unno.com/en-us/mith

If you don't want classic transmission there are other eMTBs with a Pinion gearbox:

https://www.nicolai-bicycles.com/bikes-e-mtb-en

“metrosexuals”? what a whiplash to 2005 lmao

> Typical 2020s design trying to appeal to the smartphone/sedentary crowd who know nothing about bikes.

What's the problem with appealing to that crowd?

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