Unless there is already such a thing, I want to start an open-source electric bike (well, scooter/motorcycle actually, I see the pedals as more of a hindrance to adpoption) project this Winter.
Electric bike, stupid love of my life
51–60 of 415 posts
Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless bike theft is solved, an e-bike will remain a toy for the weekends for most people. An expensive e-bike is a prime target to thieves. They require a secure indoor storage space at both ends of the any journey, and many potential users lack that, either at their workplace or their home (e.g living in an apartment only accessible via stairs)
What prevents anyone from using e.g. embedded Apple tags to monitor their bike whereabouts?
By the time the notification goes off, your bike is gone and the police largely do not care, unless it’s a large-scale, thief-to-reseller ring. The only thing that really works is motorcycle locks and alarms, but the effective ones are pricey.
Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cars once upon a time required a secure storage space for security. Technology improved, comprehensive insurance became a social norm, etc, and now you can just snug it against a curb, hop out of your car and press a button and generally not worry about theft, but if it does happen you're covered. Why can't e-bikes be this way? My answer: they can and are, just not all of them yet.
Car theft is rather more policed because a 2-ton 100mph+ car can easily kill or cause a lot of damage in the wrong hands. Bike theft is down there with shoplifting or recreational drug use when it comes to policing priorities. But when a bike is stolen, often a person is losing an important means of transportation, so perhaps it should be taken more seriously. Not going to happen in a ‘soft on crime’ society, though.
I propose, somewhat tautologically, that the primary reason why car theft is generally well policed (in USA, where my lived experiences have primarily been) is that it's generally a small enough problem for most police departments to get their arms around because of basic anti theft technology.
I believe the Kia/Hyundai debacle of the last few years supports this idea:
> So far this year, Minneapolis police have received 1,899 Kia and Hyundai theft reports, nearly 18 times the number for the same period in 2022. [1]
[1]: https://apnews.com/article/hyundai-kia-tiktok-theft-stolen-8...
Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life
#54It amazes me how little attention e-bikes are given in terms of reducing traffic, pollution, CO2 etc. The BBC is especially bad at this - they promote lots of articles singing the praises of electric vehicles (i.e. cars) and almost never mention e-bikes as being far better for a lot of use cases. It also grinds my gears that there's tax breaks for getting e-cars and nothing for getting e-bikes. It's almost as if poli…
I love my e-bike (and feel like I have to point that out in threads like this), but while the use cases for them are many, they do not realistically replace ICE cars for most people. They just don't. People with families need cars, and would never forego owning one (or two, or even three) of them just because they have the option of riding electric bikes. That's why electric and hybrid electric cars remain a big deal.
Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless bike theft is solved, an e-bike will remain a toy for the weekends for most people. An expensive e-bike is a prime target to thieves. They require a secure indoor storage space at both ends of the any journey, and many potential users lack that, either at their workplace or their home (e.g living in an apartment only accessible via stairs)
Solved it by buying crappy police auction bikes, defective power tool battery packs off eBay and cheap hub motors from China. Make the bike look ugly take your home made soldiered pack with you when you park. $1500-4000 depending on how fast and how far you need to go. I can rearrange the packs and there isn't a bike that is faster, but 48 volts at about 50km/hr is the sweet spot for safety and practical commuting. N…
[deleted]
Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life
#56Remember that bicycle are the most efficient way to move a human, that’s where the Steve Job’s quote « Computers are bicycles for the mind » comes from [1]. This efficiency never stops to amaze me.
And an electric bicycle makes it way more convenient while still being quite efficient. I share the love of electric bikes with the author and I am sure that huge progresses in UX and efficiency are it to come in the field. Would love to work on it one day ! (But hardware is hard…) I am happy to see the subject on HN frontpage. If anyone know any quirky projects on the subject, I would love to know more !
Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life
#57Anecdotally it seems like these things are causing a crazy amount of head injuries. I get all the tales from the ICU at the dinner table and if I had kids I don't know if I would even let them hang out with another kid if they had an ebike. They seem super cool and I always stop to watch someone zoom buy but I can't help but notice that a lot of the people on ebikes shouldn't be going that fast and aren't built to ta…
I don’t think this can be ignored. The bulk of ebike injuries to children are coming from throttle-having class 2 bikes and in my view these should simply be outlawed. I’ve seen people crash then who clearly thought they were stopping, but who were holding the throttle. They were riding a motorcycle without motorcycle training. Torque-assist pedal systems are perfectly intuitive to anyone who knows how to ride a regu…
You also need a higher quality, impact rated helmet. I'm sure plenty of folks buy am expensive bike and the cheapest helmet.
Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would love to get some e-bikes for my family. However, they're not terribly useful aside from recreation for us. We don't live in an urban or even suburban area. Bikes are a local thing. If the weather is too hot, or cold, or wet, or snowy, you're out of luck. Cars appeal nationwide. They'll get you hundreds of miles, comfortably, between remote destinations that aren't served by public transport or airports. Or, t…
They're of course not the solution for every transportation need, especially if you live out in the middle of nowhere, but two things: > If the weather is too hot, or cold, or wet, or snowy, you're out of luck. I really don't think the weather is as much of a barrier as it's often made out to be. The Netherlands is famously windy and rainy and Oulu, Finland has snow 5 months out of the year, but nevertheless lots of…
More than 10cm of snow is a show stopper and that only happens a few times a year, most work from home anyway on those days. Studded tires, poggies for your handle bars. Cheap heated 5volt USB vest and pants wired into your battery pack is an option if inclined.
Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life
#59Remember that bicycle are the most efficient way to move a human, that’s where the Steve Job’s quote « Computers are bicycles for the mind » comes from [1]. This efficiency never stops to amaze me. And an electric bicycle makes it way more convenient while still being quite efficient. I share the love of electric bikes with the author and I am sure that huge progresses in UX and efficiency are it to come in the field…
Electric bicycles are actually more efficient than bicycles (which are themselves more efficient than walking). The combination of human power and electric assist uses less total energy than human power alone!
Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life
#60Unless there is already such a thing, I want to start an open-source electric bike (well, scooter/motorcycle actually, I see the pedals as more of a hindrance to adpoption) project this Winter.
Check out "endless sphere e-bike forums" and ebikes.ca.