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Comment by Tichy | Hacker News Reader

"Many of the specially designed bikes, which cost $3,500 each"

What were they thinking???

Surely it must be possible to design a cheaper bike for that purpose? The electronics shouldn't be much more complicated than an average mobile phone?

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When it looks too crazy to be true, it probably isn't true.

Wikipedia: 'The price per bicycle has been variously stated as US$1,300 (if provided by JCDecaux), €300, or US$3,460 apiece'.

300 euro seems like a reasonable price for just the bicycle itself, the other figures must include other costs. Also, let's not forget that the scheme is subsidized by giving JCDecaux a monopoly on a lot of advertising space in the city, so even at a high cost it may still be profitable to them.

I seriously doubt they cost that much.

The only electronics on the bike I can think of is the head light LED and the dynamo to power it. The rest of the electronics are in the docking stations.

I'm thinking the $3500 price probably includes the docking station which is kinda misleading.

I wasn't too surprised that they cost a lot to make. I mean, after all, shopping carts cost ~175$.

Though, 1300$ does sound more reasonable.

Over-engineering. They could have done the same with bikes that cost significantly less.

It's kinda like how London buses are made by Mercedes. You might think that's an extravagance - but if things are to be used hard every day, it's a false economy to cut corners up front (unless you go so cheap they're effectively disposable).

Many delivery vans are made by Mercedes, too. There's nothing extravagant about them - they are just good quality delivery vans.

There's Lamborghini tractors, too! http://www.lamborghini-tractors.com/

Wikipedia lists 9 1/2 manufacturers of buses currently in use in London:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bus_types_used_in_Londo...

(Not to dispute your main point though. The buses here seem to last pretty well.)

Quite. In Amsterdam, people mostly ride boring-looking, old-fashioned but very durable bikes, rather than being particular objects of desire. On the other hand, no public program is immune from vandals or the disaffected - some of whom are truly desperate but many of whom are just trolls.

The interesting thing about the boring-looking, old-fashioned, durable Dutch model of bike is it's becoming a luxury brand abroad. I've certainly seen it as having a certain cachet in the UK and US.

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