Is now the time?

[mvadventure]

A friend of mine who recently purchased his first ebike has moved back to Maine for the summer. Maine is like Canada and has only a few days of summer and he is probabably freezing his ass off but he took his bike so he'll be happy.

Prior to his leaving we discussed whether or not NOW is the time to enter the ebike market. With has at $4.00 and going up, motorcycle and ICE scooter shops not able to keep used and smaller motorcycles in stock, an almost absence of used motorcycles on the market, it simply seems to me that this is the best time ever for ebikes.

If I had the time I believe I would try and work with an existing vendor and purchase a dozen or so reasonably priced SLA and other battery bikes to test our local market. I'd enjoy the fun of meeting potential customers and messing with the bikes but there is simply no room in the schedule.

The opinions of you'all would be appreciated however and if positive I'll email the thread to my Maine friend. Seems to me folks like ypedal would be blown away by now with the snow fixing to melt for a few days.

Mike

 

[Ypedal]

Uhm.. actually .. snow is GONE !! woooo !

Batteries.. batteries.. batteries.. it's all about the battery.

Problem with starting off with a dozen bikes is that once you sell a few, you need parts to support your sales.. and parts get expensive when they are not available easily and have to be ordered from China.

With a big budget, a big shipment of parts.. ie: 1000 units would be a real kick in the pants start but who's got that kinda cash sitting around.. i don't.

But.. it all comes back down to batteries. Things are moving so quickly that buying a large inventory ( not that it's even available right now .. ) is not a great idea, BMS and chargers have not caught up to the cells yet.. cart before horses thing.

Not the right time just yet.. close.. but not yet.

 

[fechter]

I hate to be pesimistic, but my observation is most of the available hardware suffers from poor reliability. From a business standpoint, this can be disastrous if your return rate is too high.
Even if you choose components carefully and get the best ones, they still sort of suck, and there will be a substantial amount of return and support needed. This means you have to charge enough over what it really costs to cover support. You can do the math. Suppliers have a tendency to suddenly change their design or try to rip you off, so you can get burned there too.

I hope the quality and reliability of the parts improves over time. The really well made stuff is astronomically expensive, which also kills your market. We need well designed but cheap stuff.

It's almost a chatch 22, since the market is not big enough for well made stuff to be cheap, and the track record of existing products is bad enough to deter many people from buying.

Certainly if you choose your stuff carefully and set the right price point, business could be good. There isn't that much competition right now.

 

[Lenk42602]

I hate to be pesimistic, but my observation is most of the available hardware suffers from poor reliability. From a business standpoint, this can be disastrous if your return rate is too high.
Even if you choose components carefully and get the best ones, they still sort of suck, and there will be a substantial amount of return and support needed. This means you have to charge enough over what it really costs to cover support. You can do the math. Suppliers have a tendency to suddenly change their design or try to rip you off, so you can get burned there too.

I hope the quality and reliability of the parts improves over time. The really well made stuff is astronomically expensive, which also kills your market. We need well designed but cheap stuff.

It's almost a chatch 22, since the market is not big enough for well made stuff to be cheap, and the track record of existing products is bad enough to deter many people from buying.

Certainly if you choose your stuff carefully and set the right price point, business could be good. There isn't that much competition right now.

Here here. I was all gung ho this january to go out and buy about 7-8 k in inventory - mostly Xlyte 4 - series stuff, get my website cleaned up, populated with product, start advertising.... But now being around this technology for a year it is apparent to me that while I can afford holding an inventory and paying interest oon it, I absolutely cannot afford returned products with any frequency. Not really in the repair/service business, and a small retailer would have to just replace the faulty component only to battle with the manufacturer (or whole saler) later. Right now, due to minimal US demand, QC is where it is. Just too messy..

Another issue is this - many are talking about rising fuel costs, but Americans in general have not yet been forced to move out of their gas guzzlers. Many people have commented on my bikes, and how they are a fantastic solution to the fuel issue, and then get in their cars and drive off, seeing me again as "out there" somewhere, somehow not connected to the same world they live in......

People still have options. Until riding in cars becomes SO expensive that it makes more than just marginal sense to think in a new direction AND THEN ACTUALLY REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF EXCESS, most will just cut back in other areas of their lives to afford to continue their ICE dependency. Like less Starbucks, no supersizing, going to Walmart, etc.....

A cultural shift, driven by economic factors is just beginning. Until it truly gathers enough momentum and the flywheel effect begins to change the very fabric of daily american life, it is just not the perfect time yet.

peace,

len

 

[hornsailor]

I would agree the perfect storm has not yet arrived, but I do see it coming as sure as El Nino !

 

[mvadventure]

To my original question, I think now is the time. When you consider lead time in determining product you want to sell (research, testing, cost, availability, parts, etc), lead time in securing product, locating and opening a storefront and determining advertising strategy then now is certainly the time.

I base this partially on a newspaper article that appeared in the Daytona Journal (Daytona, FL) about the local Segway dealer and how his sales have been increasing dramatically. The Segway is a five thousand dollar behemoth with a walking speed top end and a learning curve and this guys sales are up something like 150 over the previous year. 150 thousand dollar ebikes enjoying a 30% markup would likly pay the rent and utilities for a year. Throw in a few less expensive and more expensive models, include parts and accessories, form a ebike club and I think you could make a decent living the first year. Of course I live in Florida where we bike 12 months a year. Ypedal lives where you bike, decent weather wise and all kidding aside, a substantially shorter portion of time.

The guys I play golf with appear to think I'm nuts but not as nuts this year as I was last year. Some of these are old fogies, some are not. This morning on a very enjoyable ride through the community and a state park about 7 miles up the road I saw a more than a dozen pedal bikes and most of these were folks were middle aged or more. It will take a bit of marketing to get them on a ebike but if you had a in stock, dependable, comfortable machine with decent range I think it would sell and sell well. Wallys World has to be selling a bunch of Curries or they wouldn't carry them and they have virtually no customer support for them. You could probably make a buck repairing old Curries and getting them back on the road.

Taking it a step further and following the Optibike example, a retailer with a bit of capital, imagination and desire could start out selling off the shelf ebikes and develop and manufacture his own brand and model. Using the Chinese concept of CASE (copy and steal everything) manufacturing a reliable electric motor is a realistic possibility anc could likely be done by two or three local subcontractors. Making frames can't be all that hard once a few jigs and a certified welder is put on the job.

Look at what has been done in the motorcycle world with American Chopper and Jessie James and use your imagination.

Mike

 

[TylerDurden]

Ex-Intel head pushes electric cars
By KEN THOMAS, Associated Press Writer
Sun Jun 29, 1:51 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Former Intel Corp. Chairman Andy Grove has a knack for sensing when circumstances should force changes at a company or an industry — and how to respond.

He even has coined a term for it: the "strategic inflection point." Now the retired chairman of the world's largest computer chip maker thinks the term applies to energy and transportation, where record-high gasoline and oil prices have spurred interest in alternative energy sources and next-generation vehicles.

During the past year and a half, Grove has created his own crash course in electric power, plug-in hybrid vehicles and finding ways of shifting the nation's fleet of vehicles from gasoline. His goal: To draw more attention to electric vehicles.

"The most important thing I would like to do is light that almost half-assumed truth up in neon lights: Electricity in transportation has to be done. It is urgent. It is important that everything else is secondary," Grove said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

"The drumbeat of the electrical transportation is accelerating like nothing I've ever seen in my life," he said.

Grove, 71, who was Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1997, is the latest industry and government heavyweight to push plug-in hybrids and electric cars. Former CIA director James Woolsey, former Secretary of State George Schultz and Google Inc.'s philanthropic arm, Google.org, have touted the benefits of cars that could plug into a standard wall outlet to recharge the battery.

Several automakers are testing plug-in prototypes that would allow the vehicle to run on electric power for the first 40 miles. The technology hinges on the development of advanced lithium-ion batteries and companies such as General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. hope to have an extended range plug-in available in limited quantities by 2010.

In the latest edition of The American, published by the American Enterprise Institute, Grove writes that the beauty of electric power is its ability to be produced through multiple sources such as coal, wind and nuclear, and its "stickiness" — it can be transported only over land.

Oil, by contrast, "flows to the highest bidder," making the United States more susceptible to price increases caused by voracious demand for petroleum from growing economies such as China.

While car makers have been developing plug-ins, Grove says the nation should consider ways of retrofitting the 80 million low-mileage pickups, sport utility vehicles and vans on the road to make them capable of running on both gasoline and electric power.

Giving these vehicles "dual fuel" functions would be similar to changes made in other technologies. DVD players, for example, were often combined with VCR tape players when they were first introduced to help consumers make the transition.

To push the technology along, Grove suggests tax incentives to take the risk out of battery development and help offset the costs of conversion kits. Utilities, he says, could subsidize the early adopters of plug-ins by providing free electric power to the vehicles for the first year to 18 months.

"I think it is a legitimate place for the government to fund, to accelerate it," he said.

Automakers have urged the government to provide more consumer tax incentives and research aid to develop advanced batteries, but they have questioned efforts to retrofit the vehicles.

Any changes to the engine would void the warranty, and the alterations could undermine the vehicle's reliability and safety functions, automakers say.

"We strongly discourage consumers from retrofitting vehicles," said GM spokesman Greg Martin.

Grove says the fledgling plug-in hybrid movement offers parallels to the Homebrew Computer Club from the mid-1970s that helped electronic hobbyists in Northern California set the stage for personal computers. Plug-in hybrid conversion shops could spread the technology in similar ways.

"The personal computer ... went to individuals first before it went to corporations. The conversion goes to individuals," Grove said. "Electric cars ... the corporations are sitting, wishing this whole friggin' thing to go away. Which is exactly what the computer companies' attitude was to personal computers."

Grove has battled Parkinson's disease and devoted millions of dollars and work to support research into the disorder. He has taken to alternative energy issues with a similar intensity, tapping into a network of plug-in enthusiasts and experts. Grove says he even bought a textbook on electric and hybrid vehicles written by a University of Akron professor.

"They are all enthusiastically tutoring me," he said.

Grove co-teaches a Stanford University business school seminar and will devote the class next fall to examining ways of making the electric car possible.

He acknowledges that the shift to electric transportation will be a daunting challenge, but he notes that President Franklin Roosevelt worked with Detroit's automakers during World War II to quickly retool their plants to supply the war effort. At a time of gas prices that exceed $4 a gallon and with the dangers of oil politics, those lessons shouldn't be lost, he said.

"I think technologically it's doable. I think the logic is pretty compelling," Grove said. "Somebody better drive it and play Roosevelt."

 

[Parker]

Bikes are still thought of and built for recreation and sport, not true transport. The Infrastructure, both physical and legal reflect this as well. Personally I think a libertarian point could be made and pushed with ebikes. With the ever creeping erosion of rights if we could keep ebikes in the less regulated category of bikes(and walking) rather than the more regulated category of cars and motorcycles it would be a rare step in the opposite direction. And if we could tap into peoples libertarian inclination along with/or alternative to their green and financial considerations we really might get somewhere. But if this gets big will we have to get insurance and state inspection stickers and county tax stickers and police speed traps. I hope not.

 

[TylerDurden]

But if this gets big will we have to get insurance and state inspection stickers and county tax stickers and police speed traps. I hope not.

All the more reason to develop "stealth" tech for ebikes quickly: If assist cannot be detected by eye, regulation will focus more on activity (speeding, recklessness), as opposed to hardware.

 

[mvadventure]

I'm adding a new post more out of frustration than any other reason. DrunkSkunks recent post where he put a link to a ebike newspaper article, http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/08/15/electric.bikes.ap/index.html, and the same article appearing in the Daytona paper today would indicate ebike sales are starting to really take off. Maybe so but in at least ten years of riding an ebike (an early Z.A.P. friction drive for a long time) I have seen less than a half dozen others.

Yesterday I was in a hurry to leave the golf course, it's a half hour ride home and I was trying to go in between rain showers. Just before I left, I park my bike in the cart barn out of the weather, one of the cart attendents wanted to talk about my bike. Since the weather was threatening I kept the conversation short but he had a couple of valid questions.

He had just started the job and lives 15-16 miles away, it's irregular hours and he is a bike rider. Apparently he gave his transportation needs quite a bit of thought and wound up buying a 49cc mo-ped. Since time was short our discussion only lasted a couple of minutes but when I told him how much the battery cost (48 volt 20 AH LiPO4) he said his mo-ped didn't cost that much. His bike will go 45 MPH, is rain proof, burns less than a quart of gasoline round trip and costs less than my batteries! It also has good brakes, a headlight, tail light, brake light and probably turn signals and a horn.

I'm about ready to buy a mo-ped except I'd lose the EV Grin.

Mike

 

[markcycle]

I'm adding a new post more out of frustration than any other reason. DrunkSkunks recent post where he put a link to a ebike newspaper article, http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/08/15/electric.bikes.ap/index.html, and the same article appearing in the Daytona paper today would indicate ebike sales are starting to really take off. Maybe so but in at least ten years of riding an ebike (an early Z.A.P. friction drive for a long time) I have seen less than a half dozen others.

Yesterday I was in a hurry to leave the golf course, it's a half hour ride home and I was trying to go in between rain showers. Just before I left, I park my bike in the cart barn out of the weather, one of the cart attendents wanted to talk about my bike. Since the weather was threatening I kept the conversation short but he had a couple of valid questions.

He had just started the job and lives 15-16 miles away, it's irregular hours and he is a bike rider. Apparently he gave his transportation needs quite a bit of thought and wound up buying a 49cc mo-ped. Since time was short our discussion only lasted a couple of minutes but when I told him how much the battery cost (48 volt 20 AH LiPO4) he said his mo-ped didn't cost that much. His bike will go 45 MPH, is rain proof, burns less than a quart of gasoline round trip and costs less than my batteries! It also has good brakes, a headlight, tail light, brake light and probably turn signals and a horn.

I'm about ready to buy a mo-ped except I'd lose the EV Grin.

Mike

Hi Mike
First I have to say I don't think EV's should be compared to ICE vehicles. I'm willing to pay more for the privilege of not throwing tons of pollutants into the are and I love my EV smile and am willing to pay a premium for it. I'm sure that moped is dirty, noisy, hot and just plain yesterday's earth destroying technology.
Early adopters of new tech always pay more and if you believe in the technology you'll be proud to do it. You are showing the world (at your expense) the future. If your not happy with a E bike get a electric scooter or a electric motorcycle. My E motorcycle will blow the doors off any moped and most people who test ride it feel its like a 250cc bike. Sure it cost me a lot of money to build but that's the cost for a great great EV smile.

Thats my 2 cents

Mark

 

[Lenk42602]

I am heading back to school in january. Was watching CNN just now and saw the UAW president speaking about union wages, the state of the auto industry and the bailout-contingent-upon-a-sound-strategic-plan for rebound.

problem is, fully electric cars are estimated in ranging from 20-40k OTD, while we are officially in a recession, and the eligibility for financing, let alone finding a creditor to finance, will continue to only become more difficult...

Ebikes may seem expensive, but compared to what the general consumers options are currently, and will be into the future, I dunno. Maybe the perfect storm is beginning to gather????

Well, how about now?

 

[pwbset]

Maybe the perfect storm is beginning to gather????

Yes. With the Fed currently fighting deflation with every criminal thing they can think of and soon the commercial mortgage and credit card bubbles also bursting we're heading for an inevitable hyper-inflationary period. Buy ebike parts now or within the next 6-9 months IMO. Prices are only going to go up, up, up. *sigh* :|

FYI: I'm not an economist, but I play one on the internets.

 

[PedalingBiped]

I agree that it's all about the batteries. It's one thing to have some one "hooked" to ebikes like all of us on ES, its another to thing trying to sell someone your vision of the future.

Here in Seattle, the city demands large employers to cut back on cars used by their employees.
I am familiar with Swedish Hospital. It offers free bus passes, preferred parking for carpools. One guy that I know has a ferry pass paid by them. So it costs them over $100/month per employee. Swedish was charging employees to park in their parking garage at $7/ day. The city said that they still had too many commuters and made them raise the rate to $12/day.

The local paper said there were 6,000 bikes using the Burke-Gilman trail (a rail trail) to commute every day

If you could tap into businesses like this and offer them a turnkey solution then you could start up without a store front. I haven't done the numbers but an example would be to get a deposit and then lease them for a monthly fee, $30 for SLA $60 for LiFePo4 10ah and $90 for 20 ah

It don't think it would be cost effective to build your own frame, too expensive. Just order a bare frame from china and then add your own components. I think the price would be about the same as buying a cheap bike from a big box and then swapping out parts. (tires and brakes)

I think friends and family would want an ebike too and you could sell your "old" ones to them

I think we are on the cusp of an ebike paradigm and now would be a could time to start planning and getting your feet "wet" if you can afford it. Alas, I can not.

 

[acornstu]

not sure if now is the time, if it's already gone, or if it's 50 years away. but if i spent half the time doing things as i did thinking about the risk i'd b a millionare!!!

if i were you i would just start small. throw what you can at building some ev bikes, make a little side cash that way and you don't have to mortgage the house. if it takes off move on to motorcyles and cars/trucks. then you have no real money invested and the only risk is loosing the ev business you started with a few hundred bucks in some old bikes...

the way the economy is right now most people can't afford to take big financial risks. and while a lot more time consuming, this method may b far less devastating should something go wrond than it would to blow the kids college fund on a whim.

wtf ever path you choose my friend good luck. i hope everyone can go electric some day.

 

[Lenk42602]

1. people are too interested in excess
2. batteries are too expensive


now you go......