141–150 of 224 posts
Don’t buy products made by VC funded firms! Especially not if it’s a real product and you value repairability and service. VanMoof made losses the size of their revenue. They made bikes… where’s the natural monopoly to be chased there?
They thought they can do what Canyon can do, but Canyon is a much, much bigger company.
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As far as I know the theft recovery is part of an additional package and not included with a regular purchase. Certainly fun, but I think there are cheaper theft insurance policies out there.
Recovering the bike and thus not promoting theft is also a value.
I mean, even if a stolen bike has a working tracker and you're able to trace it to a particular house, do VanMoof's recovery team have the legal authority to bust the door down to reclaim it?
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> They made expensive e-bikes with theft recovery features My husband's VanMoof bike got stolen in Ghent, they couldn't do shit about it.
Well in that case he did get a new one, didn't he?
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They're losing money on every sale... what market?
Isn’t the assumption that they are losing money on the cost of expansion, not the material cost? Eg, if they were only selling in the Netherlands it would be profitable—but they are paying for international growth and that isn’t profitable.
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An AirTag is $30. So yeah, what did they make?
You're implying that about $30 is enough to build something airtag-like into a bike? Can you describe how? I'd be happy to learn just for myself (I'd love to do something like that with my expensive bike) but you get bonus points if the scheme is usable for a business, ie. doesn't rely on Apple's benevolence or ignorance.
Manufacturers can purchase AirTag-like chips to integrate with their electronics. Done. Price per unit probably orders of magnitude lower than the AirTag retail price.
Of course the whole "locking system" with companion app is a separate thing. But as far as FindMy goes, it should be fairly simple. Would be interesting to learn what kind of royalties Apple charges.
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They are expensive. All parts are cheap chinese crap components. I had to dismantle the main motor because some slip ring got worn out. Turned out to be a cheap motor you can find in parts on Alibaba/expess. The brakes are bad. The electronics are bad. They almost always fail after a while. The only thing what is good about VanMoof are the looks. Everything else is just shit.
And where they could use standard pieces, they don’t. It took me ages to replace a bottom bracket because the cheap one they had installed was bent and replacement was nowhere to be found easily, except at their shop for an outrageous price.
Eg. if your through axle breaks, good luck finding a store that stocks one in the correct length with the correct thread and the correct thread length, and even if you do, you'll probably end up paying 40€ for a small piece of metal.
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Recovering the bike and thus not promoting theft is also a value.
Maybe, maybe not. I mean, even if a stolen bike has a working tracker and you're able to trace it to a particular house, do VanMoof's recovery team have the legal authority to bust the door down to reclaim it?
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Yeah, but for the price bump you get features which affect the ride of the bike directly (lower weight, better braking, easier shifting etc.). Of course there are diminishing returns, but a 2k bike is significantly better than a 1k bike in almost all aspects, and a 4k bike is also noticeably better than the 2k one. (Whether the price is worth it for you is another question). For me, theft-protecting a 4k bike which o…
I'm using a bike that I bought new for less than 100 euro from a big box shop. I've been using it for more than a decade with zero maintenance (apart from fixing occasional flat). It still works. It's just little stiff which is a feature because I can prop the handlebars against the wall and it stays like that because the weight of the bicycle is not enough to turn the handlebars. It's also heavy because it has suspe…
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You'd be shocked anywhere in the Netherlands (I'm Dutch) at how common bike theft is. We have actual secured parking garages in many cities to counter the problem. The larger ones in Utrecht and Amsterdam have room for many thousands of bikes and they are used a lto. Berlin where I currently live isn't much better but they've not yet introduced parking garages for bikes as far as I know.
Netherlands is a wealthy developed nation; how did it get like what you describe? It sounds like a lack of enforcement, or some kind of problem with an unrecognized socioeconomic underclass. Here in Tokyo, this kind of problem with theft is unheard of. Most bike theft is just joy-riding, and is deterred by using a wheel lock (goes through the wheel spokes, so it can't be easily ridden). Of course, this is also a plac…