
Ebikes: I Sing the Ride Electric - jseliger
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-teicholz/ebikes-i-sing-the-ride-el_b_13860700.html
======
drcross
I have been experimenting with e-bikes over the past few months and converted
a standard BMX to an e-bike over the last weekend. They are unbelievably good.
You have to try one to understand how much fun they are.

E-bikes have the potential to revolutionize urban transportation, particularly
in European cities but we are being stopped here by heavy regulation.

To be road legal in most European cities an e-bike needs to 1\. Be less than
250 watts, and: 2\. Only work when you are actively pedaling, otherwise it
should come to a halt and, 3\. Stop powering the user once it reaches 25kmph.

If you break any of those rules you need to have a motorbike license and have
the e-bike licensed (which is practically impossible). These restrictions are
unnecessary and heavy handed. There should be some flexibility in the law
allowing someone to use a low to medium power e-bike without being forced to
pedal and being let drive at a reasonable speed. Every bike used is a car off
the road. I've written to my local transportation minister who replied to say
that they have no intention of changing the law anytime soon which is a real
shame.

~~~
Johnny555
As a regular rider of a non-ebike, I like the restrictions. It's unnerving to
be passed by a silent 25mph (40kph) unlit e-bike on a trail at night. 25kph
sounds more reasonable, about the same speed a typical human can bike on a
flat road.

Easing the restrictions too much results in near-motorbike performance in
trails and bike lanes shared with human powered riders.

~~~
belorn
> unlit e-bike

Well there we got a easy-to-fix problem. I never turn of the light, and its
not like a led bike light is going to A), decrease travel time, B) ruin the
environment.

Is there a good reason why the light isn't always on when the ignition (ie
key) is turned?

~~~
rwmj
IMO this is evidence of the problem with bikes and ebikes in general. They're
not an integrated, complete solution where (like cars) you just turn them on
and go. At the moment ebikes are preassembled kits with a standard bike,
electric battery and motor, and (if you're lucky) lights added, but most
people will have to add their own lights powered by separate batteries, locks,
and other accessories.

For the market to really take off there should be a maintenance free, complete
solution. One of the many things would be that the lights are integrated to
the rest of the electrics.

Also one could imagine removing most of the moving parts of a bike: No chain
or gears (use a dynamo and a motor). Steering wheel is probably not needed if
you have some kind of electronic self-balancing mechanism (like the Segway).
You could arrange the wheels side by side instead of front and back to make
the whole machine much smaller. Integrate the bike lock into the bike so you
don't have to carry a separate lock, with lock/unlock controlled by your
cellphone. Integrate the lights into the chassis and make them work
automatically. Fewer moving parts => less maintenance => cheaper to buy and
operate.

~~~
Johnny555
If you still want it to be reasonably human powered, replacing the chain with
a generator+motor is a bad idea. A chain has less than 2% loss, while a motor-
generator set will have 10 times or greater losses. Even a few watts of loss
from a generator hub is noticable... losing 10 - 20% of power would make the
bike nearly unrideable for any significant distance.

I'm not sure how you'd remove the handlebars and still allow steering, one key
piece of bicycle steering is counter steering -- you actually steer left to
tilt the bike over so you can go to the right. (for gentler turns you can
shift your body weight, but if you need to make a sudden turn to avoid an
obstacle, you use countersteering)

Likewise, I don't see how you'd have 2 side by side wheels on a "bike" that's
designed to go 30mph+, how would you stop quickly without cartwheeling?

~~~
rwmj
I should say I'm envisaging an electric-assist bike so (some) losses would be
fine since they are made up by the battery. Of course if it's 10x the loss of
a regular bike that could be a problem - I've no idea if your figures are
correct or represent the state of the art.

> Likewise, I don't see how you'd have 2 side by side wheels on a "bike"
> that's designed to go 30mph+, how would you stop quickly without
> cartwheeling?

I guess you'd stop the motor and the electronic self-balancing would do the
rest (in a very hand-waving way, but Segways are an existence proof that
something like this is possible, although perhaps not at 30mph).

~~~
Johnny555
Here's a chart of a typical electric bike motor efficiency -- peak efficiency
is about 85% at 30mph. At 15mph, efficiency is closer to 50%. (that doesn't
mean you get greatest range at 30mph since wind resistance increases with the
cube of the rider's speed, so is 8 times greater at 30mph than at 15mph)

[https://endless-
sphere.com/w/index.php/EBike_Efficiency#Dete...](https://endless-
sphere.com/w/index.php/EBike_Efficiency#Determining_Peak_Motor_Output_-
_Simple-Cheap_Method)

And that's just for the motor, ignoring losses in the generator.

Electric bikes don't need perfect efficiency, the Specialized Turbo S has a
700W-hour battery and gives 30 - 60 miles of range (2 - 4 hours at 15mph). A
human pedaling at 15mph puts out around 100W, so even if the motor is only 50%
efficient, the bike can still travel for 50 miles at that rate on one charge.

With a Segway, you stand well over the wheels and can shift your butt (and
center of gravity) as far to the rear as possible to make an emergency stop. I
don't see how you'd do that with anything resembling a seated bicycle.

------
HNaTTY
I built an e-bike last weekend, I have just 35 miles on it so far and I've
convinced 1-2 friends to get one already. I love riding but my enthusiasm in
winter is severely diminished; this has rekindled it for me.

Anybody here who is interested in an e-bike should strongly consider building
up an existing bike rather than dropping $4k on one of the ones mentioned in
this article. All the ones mentioned in the article are underpowered and
overpriced.

I built a front-suspension mountain bike with a mid-drive motor called a
BBSHD. Setup of the bike with the motor kit took about 3 hours and there were
no major issues. Some custom tools might be needed to remove the bottom
bracket, a bike shop would likely charge less to do it for you than the tools
cost.

Last bit of advice, if you do get a DIY kit, make sure to get a high-quality
18650 battery pack. Don't go LiPo and certainly don't go lead-acid. Your
battery pack will last longer if you don't always charge it to 100%, but you
should charge it to 100% the first half dozen cycles to balance the batteries.

~~~
fillskills
How much range do you get on yours? I am interested in this one because it has
30 mile range and replaceable battery. Price is pretty decent at less than
1500. Link: [http://www.genze.com/e-bikes/](http://www.genze.com/e-bikes/)

~~~
HNaTTY
That bike has a 36v, 8.7ah battery. I have a 52v, 13.5ah battery. Watt-hours
is volts times amp-hours, so you're looking at 313wh and I've got 702wh, so
more than twice.

That bike has 1.75" tires and I've got big 3" wide tires, and I'm only running
about 10-12psi, with front suspension sucking up what feels like half of my
pedal power, so rolling resistance is much higher and efficiency is much lower
for me.

The "efficiency" is calculated as watt-hours per mile. You'll see different
numbers depending on all sorts of factors (pedaling, speed, terrain, tires),
but we can just hand-wave it all away (science!) and say 20wh/mile. That gives
you about 15 miles and me about 35.

I've only run the battery down once so far, and that was only from a 90%
charge, with a lot of mud, snow, and general screwing around. The battery cut
out at just over 25 miles.

~~~
fillskills
Thanks for detailing it out. Really appreciate that. I will mostly be using
the e-bike for daily commute. I was looking for something that is good battery
life, cheap, comfortable, long life. Your analysis helps a lot in figuring out
the a big part of it.

------
jseliger
Ebikes are particularly interesting: there have been a rash of ebike
Kickstarters (see e.g. [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hongquan/karmic-
kyoto](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hongquan/karmic-kyoto)) and
startups recently, and if the bikes get cheap enough they could really change
a lot of people's attitudes towards biking and bike infrastructure. They might
also make bike shares more attractive; Seattle is very hilly and its bike
share may go electric: [http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-
news/politics/leading-bi...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-
news/politics/leading-bike-share-bidder-proposes-all-electric-fleet-for-
seattle)

My girlfriend bought an electric bike four years ago, but that was a little
too early, and when we moved to a place with stairs the electric bike had to
go. But the person who bought it on Craigslist loves it and rides it to drop
her kid off at daycare, then to work.

If you haven't ridden a pedal-assist electric bike, you should stop by your
local bike shop and try one out. They're quite remarkable, but in a way that
is difficult to appreciate over text. I personally don't need one and ride a
Novarra Gotham ([https://www.rei.com/product/888337/novara-gotham-
bike-2016](https://www.rei.com/product/888337/novara-gotham-bike-2016)), but I
see the appeal and think that these will eventually take off, maybe sooner
than is widely expected.

There are various problems or trade-offs, which I'm sure people will point out
in this thread, but the cost-benefit is there or getting there.

~~~
potel576
I wish items like this got more attention. It's my opinion that all the hoopla
over self driving cars is masking other really important modes of
transportation. If the cost was low enough, it would be far more efficient to
ride an E-Bike to your destination if it was in close proximity, especially
for community to work. Of course there are trade-offs, but I can't help but
think about how much this would alleviate traffic congestion, how this could
contribute to someone living a more healthy lifestyle, and the impact on
someone's happiness of riding a bike instead of being in a car.

~~~
cortesoft
I think e-bikes are going to have the same issue that scooters and mopeds have
(and even bikes too) - safety. If you live in a city, you are going to have to
be riding near cars, and it is simply a fact that a collision is much worse
when you are on a bike or scooter than when you are in a car. A minor fender
bender in a car could be serious injury on a bike or scooter.

Everyone I know who commutes to work on a bike has been in an injury accident,
ranging from bad cuts and bruises to broken bones and brain injuries. When you
combine the basic lack of courtesy from car drivers, the inability to see
bikes compared to cars, and the exposed nature of a bike rider compared to a
car, the danger is simply too great for many people (myself included) to take.

Unless we get lots of dedicated bike roads where you never have to interact
with cars, I don't see how this problem is solvable. As ebikes get faster and
more powerful, the danger is going to increase rather than decrease. This is
the same reason I don't ride a motorcycle; while it would be efficient and
quicker to commute on one, they are simply too dangerous.

~~~
zik
I commute to work 15km each way on an e-bike and I do almost all of it on bike
paths away from cars. It's a very pleasant way to commute. I don't need to use
any special "bike roads" \- the existing bike path infrastructure in Melbourne
(Australia) works for me.

~~~
cortesoft
Yes, there are cities where the existing structure works for bikes safely. In
my city (Los Angeles), there is simply no way to get anywhere without going on
streets with cars.

------
mgberlin
I truly hope to see many, many more of these on bike paths and roads in the
near future. They bring the joy of bikes and motorcycles (two things I love
dearly) to a whole new audience, are ecologically sound, and extremely
efficient.

However, as an avid mountain biker I hope we can keep them as far from our
local trail systems as possible. They're destructive to the trails, and allow
people to end up on trails far ahead of their skill level. Running out of
battery 3 miles from home on a city street where you hop on a bus is one
thing, running out 3 miles down a steep hill away from civilization with the
sun going down is how inexperienced people get killed.

Ebikes are mopeds by another name, have been around for decades, and have
never been allowed on trails. Lets keep it that way.

------
maxsilver
It's worth mentioning that used electric cars offer a lot of these benefits
too, for folks who live in more affordable regions and/or otherwise can't
bicycle for whatever reason.

For about the price of two e-bikes, you can pick up a used Nissan Leaf or
Mitsubishi i-MiEV that will do 50+ miles, seat 4+ people, is comfy and safe in
any weather, and is clean / silent / zero emissions.

And for folks who want something more transit-friendly than a bike, you can
buy electric scooters for jumping between bus stops and home and save a little
bit of cash. Products like
[https://ecorecoscooter.com/why/](https://ecorecoscooter.com/why/)

Electric motors are great, and offer up lots of different affordable middle
grounds between "pure bicycling" and "burning lots of gas".

------
chrissnell
My dad owns a small chain of bike shops in Texas. I've posted about him before
and some of you may remember the stories. He's been in business since 1971 and
has seen it all. I was back home for the holidays last week and stopped by
dad's store to see what's new. He had a bunch of e-bikes on the floor. I
chuckled when I saw them--they're so antithetical to the sport of cycling--but
my old, crusty former-bike-racer dad loved them and raved about their
benefits. He's been selling a ton of them! The ones he sells have German-
designed (maybe German-made?) Bosch motors and batteries. They're well-built
and perfect for a quick run to the grocery store. I can't say I'd ever buy
them but after seeing how many they're selling, I'm confident that they're
here to stay and will be a mainstream product for most bike shops next year.

~~~
onmobiletemp
There is an explosion in evoke sales right now. Almost every bike shop in
California now carries them. The ones I've been to anyway. The Bosch motors
are very popular.

------
jpollock
In the Bay Area, with traffic, an e-bike can be just as fast as driving.

I used a Specialized for about a week, the level of effort was the same as
walking, and almost as fast as driving (rush hour). Due to the rate limiter,
it was <10% faster than I could achieve myself on a bike.

I would wholeheartedly recommend it to _anyone_ currently driving to work,
it's a LOT cheaper than a car.

Personally, I went back to a regular bike, I wanted the exercise and found the
rate limiter (19mph without a motorcycle license) to be too frustrating.

~~~
burger_moon
It's interesting that ebikes are rate limited to 19mph but electric
skateboards are sold which exceed this and I haven't heard of people having
issues regarding traveling too fast on a skateboard.

~~~
Johnny555
It's not something the police are going to typically enforce, but it's
something that will increase your liability in an accident (not to mention
that the faster you go the more serious your injuries are likely to be).

If you're riding a 30mph eBike on a bike trail that doesn't permit it and you
have an accident with someone, you can expect to shoulder most of the
liability, even if the other person did something like step in front of you.
The same holds true with a skateboard, if you run your 20mph skateboard into
the side of a car, you can expect to pay for the damages to the car (after you
get out of the hospital) -- even if the car driver pulled out in front of you
because he wasn't expecting a 20mph skateboard on the sidewalk.

------
rwmj
Loved my e-bike. Hated the constant maintenance required. Is there a
relatively maintenance free bike (electric or otherwise)? I don't spend my
weekends tinkering with my car, so I don't see why I should have to with my
bike either.

Some things which went wrong with the bike before I abandoned it: punctures,
chain falling off (3 times), rear derailleur completely destroyed itself,
loose joints (everywhere and needed tightening almost every journey), left
crank fell off (apparently very common on all bikes). I ended up riding with a
complete toolkit.

~~~
upofadown
This question could probably be better answered on, say, an appropriate
subreddit.

There is a serious difference between the sort of bike you get at a department
store and the sort of bike you can get at a bike ship in terms of component
quality. Good components can last a ridiculous length of time. You can get
puncture resistant tires if you are willing to pay the price.

Chains are still a maintenance weak spot for bikes (they shouldn't fall off).
There are belt driven bikes that are supposed to be more reliable than chain
driven bikes.

~~~
rwmj
Point taken, although in this case I didn't buy a "bike-shaped object", but
something that cost about US$1200 (apparently that's not enough to spend for a
decent e-bike).

~~~
exDM69
That's dirt cheap for an electric bike. I don't think you get good quality
parts for that price.

My human powered bike is in similar price range (should be a bit cheaper in
the US) and I've had to do some maintenance on it. It has quality parts but
chains and sprockets get wear and tear and needs to be compensated by small
adjustments (derailleurs, chain tensioner, etc) and the occasional spare part.

I get my bike maintained at a bike shop about twice a year and regularly oil
it. But I get 2000+ miles a year.

I could do it myself for less but I don't have a space to work and store tools
in.

------
onmobiletemp
I am an ebike freak. It's so nice to finally see some ebike enthusiasm on hn!
If you have any questions about ebikes just ask me. If I can't answer I can at
the very least put you on the right path. If you want to get into ebikes,
check out the endless sphere forums. It's the defacto online headquarters for
everything ebike. Doctor bass and live-for-physics-luke are two of the most
formidable experts on there. Luke used to be in IT and now designs the battery
systems for zero motorcycle. Great guy. If you don't understand why electric
bikes or transportation is cool then Google "lightning electric motorcycle"
and become converted. Cheers.

~~~
scarlac
Great! Price is still restrictive for many. What are your recommendations on
how to get a cheap starter eBike while steering clear of common pitfalls (and
what are they)?

~~~
onmobiletemp
The highest power to dollar ratio is got by building a bike. Pre-made bikes as
very expensive right now as you point out. If you just want to try one out, go
to a bike shop and test drive one. If you want one for yourself and you want
it to be fast or go long then I would suggest building a battery pack with
headway lithium iron phosphate cells, a lyen high power controller and a solid
hub motor, maybe a crystalite. Endless sphere has endless documentation on how
to do it. I don't know what your background is so there may be a learning
curve, but I can say that you should learn that stuff if you want to get into
ebikes anyway. Unless you want to wait 5 years for prices to fall.

------
Johnny555
Somewhat related, the California Bicycle Coalition has started a petition to
encourage CARB to offer bike and e-bike incentives as they do for electric
automobiles:

[http://www.calbike.org/bike_purchase_incentive_petition](http://www.calbike.org/bike_purchase_incentive_petition)

[http://www.fixcaliforniaroads.org/arbletter](http://www.fixcaliforniaroads.org/arbletter)

------
rikkus
I'd love to buy a tricycle version for a relative who would like a kind of
motability aid but wouldn't like to have one of the typical electric scooters.
Anyone have any experience with them? The ones I've seen seem to require
manual gear shifting and it would be best if it's as simple as possible.

~~~
onmobiletemp
Checkout electric recumbant bikes. I believe a company called outsiders makes
exactly what you are talking about for disabled vets. Name might be wrong but
they are out there

~~~
onmobiletemp
I meant to type "outriders." Damn phone.

------
ethagknight
What drives costs up with e-bikes? A decent moped appears to be $1000, goes
faster, has suspension, and is overall more complex.

~~~
soperj
Batteries. Same as electric cars.

~~~
scarlac
Also, many eBikes bodies I've seen are made from aluminum or even carbon fiber
rather than steel, to account for the weight added by the battery I'm
guessing.

------
jasone
As a bicyclist who can sustain >20mph for minutes at a time, I find the 20mph
cutoff as implemented quite frustrating. It feels terrible to easily
accelerate to 20mph, and then struggle mightily past the cliff of assisted
pedaling. The assistance curve needs to (at least optionally) taper off as the
rider approaches 20mph, so that the cutoff doesn't feel like a cliff.

~~~
rwmj
It's 15 mph in the EU, which is even more annoying.

~~~
masklinn
Technically the EU[0] limit is 25kmh+10%, so you can e.g. implement a
progressive cutoff from 25kmh to 27.5kmh to allow a comfortable ride at a
constant 25.

[0] and norwegian, but not english

------
closeparen
To anyone trying to work around motorcycle licensing in the US: don't. The
Motorcycle Safety Foundation class is one of the most fun things you can do in
a couple of weekends, and I highly recommend it. After that, getting the M1 is
purely clerical (in California anyway) and reasonably fast.

------
Decade
I wonder how much of the popularity of bikes is connected with this horrible
drought we've been going through in California.

For my uses, my non-electric bike plus BART is usually sufficient, so I've
been looking around for what would be nice for rain or for trips outside the
city. And I've found a bunch of promises and no available products. Most
famous may be the Lit Motors C-1, always 5 years away from availability.

My brother just came back from Beijing, and he commented on how they have a
lot more transportation options over there.

------
throwaway7767
I love my ebikes, but I wouldn't recommend making purchasing decisions based
on this article.

His complaint with the Trek bike is that it hurt his ass to ride on it
compared to the one he preferred. This probably mostly comes down to the
saddle, which is something you just change out if you don't like it. It's
silly to purchase a whole bike just because you like a particular kind of
saddle (though it's a common beginner cyclist mistake).

Also: > BMW (yes that BMW) makes an Ebike ($3,430) featuring Bosch motors with
a 400 watt battery

I mean, I realise that many people don't understand the difference between
Watts and Watt-Hours, but it again underscores that the writer doesn't really
understand the things he's reviewing and comparing, so how can his other
information be reliable?

~~~
milesokeefe
>Also: > BMW (yes that BMW) makes an Ebike ($3,430) featuring Bosch motors
with a 400 watt battery

[https://shop.bmw.com/en_US/p/-/bmw-cruise-e-
bike./2412319/](https://shop.bmw.com/en_US/p/-/bmw-cruise-e-bike./2412319/)

------
NoGravitas
I'm a regular bike commuter, and I want to love eBikes. I like the idea that
they enable longer commutes, and get people commuting who would otherwise be
intimidated by the fitness requirements or afraid of arriving at work sweaty.

BUT...they're so expensive! A good scooter (eg a Honda Metropolitan) is like
$2000. The cheap Chinese scooters I see all around town are probably about
half that. I love electric and hate gasoline, but I don't really want to pay
twice as much for less utility. I realize a comparable electric motorcycle is
like $10k, but ugh.

~~~
MK999
Look at riide ( [http://www.riide.com](http://www.riide.com)). You can rent
one. I just got on the list

------
pilom
Those prices are absolutely insane. I bought a $100 craigslist bike, added a
kit like this [http://amzn.to/2i8xhts](http://amzn.to/2i8xhts) for $250 and
another $100 for some cheap lead acid batteries. (Similar lithium batteries
would have been about $400). So I paid $450 total and it got me back and forth
from work 7 miles away ever day for 2 years before I moved and sold it.

~~~
rwmj
Amazon link without the hidden affiliate code: [https://www.amazon.com/Aosom-
Electric-Battery-Powered-Conver...](https://www.amazon.com/Aosom-Electric-
Battery-Powered-Conversion/dp/B00GIXZKP8/)

------
j_s
Related discussion nearly two years ago on "The Tesla of Scooters":
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9431394](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9431394)

------
vdnkh
ebikes are ubiquitous in NYC amongst delivery drivers. I haven't really seen
any other users using one.

