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Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#141

Post by aeharding »

jacquesm wrote: post #91
aeharding wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense for seasonal and recreational riders. We both ride year round though almost daily for transportation. As for discharging below 15%, Bosch's firmware is pretty smart about this. It keeps a reserve that's used for powering lights for a few hours after the assist cuts off.

Yes, that's at 5% state-of-charge, which is a bit low. If you charge up to 100% and discharge to that cut-off point you will get 300 to 400 cycles out of your battery. If you go from 80% state-of-charge down to 20% then you can get thousands of cycles out of your batteries. That's one of the reasons I designed that pack as large as it is: to stay within the 80-to-20 range on a 100 km trip.

Interesting! I've only gotten that low a handful of times. Definitely a bigger battery would be good if you're going that low on a regular basis.

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#142

Post by iambateman »

mikepurvis wrote: post #115
hendersoon wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your country, really. Throttle ebikes are legal in the USA so long as they don't go faster than 20MPH on throttle alone. And really speed is what matters here. Who cares if it's pedal-assist or throttle so long as you aren't going markedly faster than normal people without any motor at all? There's no safety concern.

At a certain point, you've added enough extra mass to the vehicle in terms of batteries, motor, beefed up brakes and frame, etc that you need to start asking questions about how much kinetic energy it's carrying and what happens to it all in case of a crash. Silly comparison, but we wouldn't let a car drive on the sidewalk even if it had a special module that limited it to 5km/h.

There’s an order of magnitude between a 2 ton vehicle and a 250 pound vehicle+rider.

Cars also have huge blind spots and if a bike rider gets in an accident, it’s usually very painful for them too, so their incentives to avoid accidents are quite high.

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#143

Post by abakker »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #139
TacticalCoder wrote: post #27

We really need a terminology to differentiate better between pedal-assist only e-bikes ("pedelec") and electric motorbikes. A "bicycle" that can accelerate without the need to pedal at all is an electric motorcycle, no matter if you put pedal on it or not. I see the two as totally different things: I've tried pedal-assist e-bike and they're great. But... Although I have nothing against motorbikes I'm not cool at all…

> A "bicycle" that can accelerate without the need to pedal at all is an electric motorcycle, no matter if you put pedal on it or not. That sounds very American. Don’t we have Vespa scooters and mopeds in the USA as well? There are plenty of bike formats between bicycle and motorbikes. In China most e-bikes aren’t pedal assists and no one would ever claim they were car road worthy vehicles, they got bike lanes or the…

If its got a motor and it looks like a bike...

An an American, I agree with your assessment. to me, Vespas and Mopeds are motorbikes. they burn gas.

Pedal assist ebikes are a new category to me, and I don't think any of the current rules make much sense for that.

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#144

Post by masklinn »

QuercusMax wrote: post #86
jacquesm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pedal assist e-bike. There are people that cheat and that install throttles so they can move without pedaling but that's a great way to get your vehicle confiscated. A typical ride has me providing 40 to 60% of the Joules and the remainder comes out of the battery. If there is a very heavy wind up (not rare here) that might drop to 30/70 and if I have a tailwind it is the reverse. The bike has a nice stats…

My wife just bought an ebike (from RadPower) that has both pedal assist and a throttle that doesn't require pedaling. You can also adjust the amount of pedal assist so you can "feather pedal". Who's going to confiscate this bike????

> Who's going to confiscate this bike????

Most european cops if they catch you: some countries may treat s-pedelecs as bikes, but in most it's a moped, you need a driving license, insurance, a license plate, and all the legal equipment of a moped (e.g. lights, rear view mirror), and commonly type approval (which is going to be very, very expensive). Also can't use cycle paths.

Over the last few years many (but probably not all) member countries have passed laws to treat devices not exceeding 25km/h to bikes, but that's only for hard-limited devices, not "I swear I don't go faster than 25", the latter? mopeds.

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#145

Post by rjbwork »

jacquesm wrote: post #44
twodave wrote: post #38

Awesome project Jacques! I saw a comment of yours on an article a day or two ago and was hoping to see this pop up soon. I've found the most difficult thing about riding an e-bike is the other motorists have no idea how to react to you. You're not really a regular bicycle anymore due to your speed, but you're also not a motorcycle that deserves its own lane. I have at least one car turn in front of me almost every tr…

In the USA the situation is much more risky than here. I don't like riding in traffic mostly because drivers tend to have a short fuse for anything that isn't exactly at the limit, but on bike paths everything works just fine. The problem is that s-pedelecs are technically lumped in with the scooters, even though there is no throttle and there is absolutely no way you are going to sustain 40 Kph+ for anything but a v…

I have an e-bike and I disagree with your assertions. I'm a fat asthmatic and I have absolutely no problem maintaining 40kph for long stretches of time on my bike. The fastest I've done on it (on a large hill but still) is 42.7MPH (~68Kph). Average cruising speed on flat land can easily be 30-33mph(48-53kph). Not all e-bikes are capable of this, but they are certainly not some kind of rare expensive impossibility - mine was less than 3000 USD.

My point is that you should be more ingenuous with your assertions of what the capabilities of these bikes are when communicating with people about it. Nothing makes people more skeptical than reading things that are just plain false from an advocate.

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#146

Post by jodrellblank »

jacquesm wrote: post #52
Tostino wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that argument for forcing pedaling to me seems like a way of gatekeeping to keep something a little more "pure" without any actual reason.

Not really, without the pedals it's no longer a bicycle but a moped. We have e-mopeds already and there are plenty of rules for those.

I just twigged from this thread that “moped” is motor+pedal.

Now I’m annoyed that in the UK we use “moped” for Vespa style scooters which have no pedals.

(I was already mildly annoyed that we use “scooter” for Vespa style vehicles which you sit on and are entirely motorised, when it really describes the variant skateboard with handlebars you stand on using one foot and ‘scoot’ along using the other foot for propulsion).

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#147

Post by jacquesm »

space_fountain wrote: post #128
Closi wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see the two as totally different things: I've tried pedal-assist e-bike and they're great. But... Although I have nothing against motorbikes I'm not cool at all with basically motorbikes getting a free pass because they're disguised as bicycles. Eh, it depends if you see pedal assistance being the defining difference between a bike and a motorbike. From a safety perspective, speed may be a better differentiator.

I think something like average real world speed and weight are the two important metrics. Maybe this is the intuition with petal assist vs throttle controlled e-bikes. I do sort of think it should take some work to get a bike up to it's top speed so that riders don't just cruise at that speed.

A typical scooter will blow right by my bike, no matter how hard I work at it. Anything over 40 kph is very intense, 36 to 38 is doable over the longer term traffic permitting.

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#148

Post by masklinn »

pa7ch wrote: post #120
TacticalCoder wrote: post #27

We really need a terminology to differentiate better between pedal-assist only e-bikes ("pedelec") and electric motorbikes. A "bicycle" that can accelerate without the need to pedal at all is an electric motorcycle, no matter if you put pedal on it or not. I see the two as totally different things: I've tried pedal-assist e-bike and they're great. But... Although I have nothing against motorbikes I'm not cool at all…

I never understood while we regulate on the mechanism to engage the motor instead of top speed or max power.

Pedelecs are regulated on all three: maximum continuous power of 250W, assistance only from 6km/h, top assisted speed of 25km/h.

The point of pedelec regulations (in europe anyway) is to be a baseline: anything which satisfies the pedelec specs must be treated as a bicycle by all member states, so if you have a pedelec you know that it will be usable as a bike throughput the union. Member states can go beyond if they want to.

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#149

Post by yellow_postit »

Tostino wrote: post #50
ralusek wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not cool at all with basically motorbikes getting a free pass because they're disguised as bicycles Why? Seems like a pointless distinction in regards to any sort of rules. Surely where they're allowed to operate, for example, should be based on things like speed and weight, rather than "whether or not the operator is moving their legs in a circular motion."

Yeah that argument for forcing pedaling to me seems like a way of gatekeeping to keep something a little more "pure" without any actual reason.

On a cargo bike carrying children in a hilly area the throttle is nearly essentially to safely get going from a stop and then to have pedaling take over.

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#150

Post by masklinn »

Closi wrote: post #123
pa7ch wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood while we regulate on the mechanism to engage the motor instead of top speed or max power.

Agreed, 70mph but you have to pedal to keep the bike going = e-bike (although an illegal one)... 15mph and has a throttle = electric motorbike (and also illegal)... But make that 15mph illegal electric motorbike 10mph faster and add extra hardware so users have to waggle their feet around in a circle to trigger the motors... SUDDENLY LEGAL! I highly doubt there are any safety benefits from pedalling - it seems like a…

> it seems like an arbitrary limit.

Of course it is, all limits are arbitrary, even if informed. Lawmakers probably picked limits which would be reasonably achievable by average healthy humans over long distances.

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