Smart Electric Bicycles Survey

fpoposki

10 µW
Joined
Oct 17, 2017
Messages
5
Hello everyone.
First of all I have to say I love this forum and really enjoy reading it.
I am writing this post because me and my colleagues need your help. We are working on an electric bicycle that will fill most if not all of everyone's needs when it comes to ebikes. The survey is part of the project at the Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Skopje.
We are developing ebikes, different versions for individually owned bikes, and at the same time we are developing a city wide system with power grids, bike parks, renting and so on....

I would like to note that I want to focus everyone's attention to the matter of the survey, not the way its conducted, and to improve what the characteristics and give people what they really want and need.

https://form.jotformeu.com/72855963719372

(alternative survey https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdpn3TYh647v76eQtwLF-FNpFA0NOWU64LfYerELVX-NU_XIw/viewform?usp=sf_link)

P.S. If there is any questions you do not understand you can just skip it (sometimes the site mixes the languages up, it is multilingual after all)
P.S. 2 The last question is really a free comment, any ideas are welcome. Anything and everything will be considered
P.S. 3 It would also be great if we can start a discussion here as far as any ideas you could give us. It would really mean a lot to us all.
P.S. 4 if you choose the first link just click on the text that seems Russian (it's actually Macedonian), it will go to the next question.
 
The English site was written in Russian. I translated with Google and proceeded.
After unsuccessful three tries at entering in the country where I live, I gave up.

I suggest improving usability first.
 
wturber said:
The English site was written in Russian. I translated with Google and proceeded.
After unsuccessful three tries at entering in the country where I live, I gave up.

I suggest improving usability first.

I haven't had any reported problems so far, sorry of the trouble. here is an alternative survey https://goo.gl/forms/gWstwib4MNuBcgfS2
Thank you for your interest
 
I'd be glad to help out. I did have some issues taking the survey you might want to know about.

As wturber noted, the site front page would only come up in Cyrillic script, regardless of the selected language. The other 2 links you provided would not connect. I got a I google translated from Macedonian "Добредојдовте Паметен Велосипед" welcome to smart bike and found the following pages were in english until page 8.
Доколку постои, која карактеристика на вашиот (стандарден или електричен) велосипедви е најголема пречка за да го користите?

After that, it was in english again and I was able to finish. Question 14 did have one awkward answer choice. "Sound Signalization" - That could mean a horn or a bell, but it could also mean a back up beeper, theft deterrent alarm, audio feedback from the controller for being powered up, audible battery low level warnings, or many other things and still be in context to the question.
 
Drunkskunk said:
I'd be glad to help out. I did have some issues taking the survey you might want to know about.

As wturber noted, the site front page would only come up in Cyrillic script, regardless of the selected language. The other 2 links you provided would not connect. I got a I google translated from Macedonian "Добредојдовте Паметен Велосипед" welcome to smart bike and found the following pages were in english until page 8.
Доколку постои, која карактеристика на вашиот (стандарден или електричен) велосипедви е најголема пречка за да го користите?

After that, it was in english again and I was able to finish. Question 14 did have one awkward answer choice. "Sound Signalization" - That could mean a horn or a bell, but it could also mean a back up beeper, theft deterrent alarm, audio feedback from the controller for being powered up, audible battery low level warnings, or many other things and still be in context to the question.

First of all i would like to say that the front welcome page has some silly regulations on it by the site on which the survey is conducted, and it does not allow the translation of some questions to English, i have done my best to make it multilingual for the country I live in, the lack of access to some sites in my country does not help that either, and I have decided to save the project budget for the prototypes and patents. That is why i added the Google Form.

And as for the Sound signalization it is written in that manner for several reasons 1. multilingual 2. to get the general idea if people want sound as form for signal 3. we are making the bike street legal in EU, some things are not allowed, it is kind of tricky (we are trying to get the maximum out of it)

I would like to note that I want to focus everyone's attention to the matter of the survey, and to improve what the characteristics and give people what they really want and need.
Thank you
 
fpoposki said:
P.S. 3 It would also be great if we can start a discussion here as far as any ideas you could give us. It would really mean a lot to us all.
Well, the first thing is that as much as we appreciate you asking us, Endless Sphere probably isn't really the place you'd want to get answers from, as you are probably looking for "typical" riders. There aren't that many of those here on ES. Most of us are DIYers and non-standard riders in one way or another. Some of us are really crazy ;) but very few of us are the audience your survey needs.

You'd really want to put your survey on regular bicycle riding forums, because those are really your target audience.


This forum might be able to help you with technical understandings and the like.


You can also read around this forum for various people's build threads, and threads like Your Creation's Before and After Pics, and get ideas for what the bikes people here ride are like.



That said, I don't see anything in the survey about what type of drive system, power levels, torque capabilities, etc.; and as pointed out by others above, some things iike "sound signalization" or "smart helmet" are too vague to be answerable. If the survey does not explain what things mean, people taking the survey can't answer the questions meaningfully, so the answers wont' really be useful to you.

(meaning, the answers people give will be random, based solely on what they think you might mean, not what you actually mean, since that isn't possible for them to know).
 
amberwolf said:
fpoposki said:
P.S. 3 It would also be great if we can start a discussion here as far as any ideas you could give us. It would really mean a lot to us all.
Well, the first thing is that as much as we appreciate you asking us, Endless Sphere probably isn't really the place you'd want to get answers from, as you are probably looking for "typical" riders. There aren't that many of those here on ES. Most of us are DIYers and non-standard riders in one way or another. Some of us are really crazy ;) but very few of us are the audience your survey needs


That said, I don't see anything in the survey about what type of drive system, power levels, torque capabilities, etc.; and as pointed out by others above, some things iike "sound signalization" or "smart helmet" are too vague to be answerable. If the survey does not explain what things mean, people taking the survey can't answer the questions meaningfully, so the answers wont' really be useful to you.

(meaning, the answers people give will be random, based solely on what they think you might mean, not what you actually mean, since that isn't possible for them to know).
1 part of the answer, most people do not use ebikes, we are looking to change that, all of you guys do, and surely nothing is perfect, you have tested that, and maybe not been able to perfect those problems, we are looking tho change that. I know it may sound cocky (sorry for the language), but believe me, we work super hard, and have the support, most do not have
2 part continues from the first. the survey covers a wide audience, their answers and need will give us the needs they have from their bikes. And lets be honest, no engine can do everything and make everyone happy, we carefully planned the questions, although it doesnt seem that way, to combine their answers and come up with a street legal solutions, which trust me it is really tricky in EU

Thank you for your time
 
Since you're only making an EU solution, you need to target your survey to those in the EU.

Also, the regulations and situation are different in different parts of the EU, so you also need to specify which part of the EU you are targeting, and which one you are making a solution for.


Elsewhere in the world, there are very different regulations and situations, where actual needs make a difference to what the bike can do.

In the parts of the EU that limit speed to well below what any regular pedal cyclist can do, and power levels to barely what a fit rider could do, an ebike doesn't have anywhere near the capabilities needed to do the things some people (like me) need to do--for those people, in those areas, your survey would be pointless, because nothing you can make would work for them. They would require a car, because an ebike that could do it would be illegal. (See my SB Cruiser trike thread for one example--here in Arizona, USA, it's perfectly legal, but not in the EU. An EU-regulation-crippled bike would be unsafe and useless to me on the roads in traffic here in Phoenix; I'd be run over).



So you need to target your survey to those you can provide for, because answers from those you cannot help just skew your results in the wrong way.

It's up to you, but at the moment you're collecting information that will harm your final results, because you're not asking your actual audience.

If you want to sell EU-legal ebikes, your audience is people in the EU that don't presently ride ebikes, but would if the right one were to come along.

Those that already have ebikes already have a product they use and are not nearly as likely to be your customers.
 
amberwolf said:
Since you're only making an EU solution, you need to target your survey to those in the EU.

Also, the regulations and situation are different in different parts of the EU, so you also need to specify which part of the EU you are targeting, and which one you are making a solution for.


Elsewhere in the world, there are very different regulations and situations, where actual needs make a difference to what the bike can do.

In the parts of the EU that limit speed to well below what any regular pedal cyclist can do, and power levels to barely what a fit rider could do, an ebike doesn't have anywhere near the capabilities needed to do the things some people (like me) need to do--for those people, in those areas, your survey would be pointless, because nothing you can make would work for them. They would require a car, because an ebike that could do it would be illegal. (See my SB Cruiser trike thread for one example--here in Arizona, USA, it's perfectly legal, but not in the EU. An EU-regulation-crippled bike would be unsafe and useless to me on the roads in traffic here in Phoenix; I'd be run over).



So you need to target your survey to those you can provide for, because answers from those you cannot help just skew your results in the wrong way.

It's up to you, but at the moment you're collecting information that will harm your final results, because you're not asking your actual audience.

If you want to sell EU-legal ebikes, your audience is people in the EU that don't presently ride ebikes, but would if the right one were to come along.

Those that already have ebikes already have a product they use and are not nearly as likely to be your customers.


EU regulations are the same for whole of Europe. Macedonia, my country being part of it i need to respect those regulations, furthermore, most ebike that are legal in EU have no problem in the USA, we would like to develop a version for those markets too, not to forget asia and so on...
Being students we are developing a design, and designs are easily modified to fit the standards and regulations, harder the needs, that is why we are spreading the survey everywhere.
We are not collecting information that could harm our project, the sentence above kind of starts on that problematic, furthermore, take for example Bosch mid drive, Yamaha, Brose and so on, they are all made for EU market to, Bosch and Brose are german as you know, the difference between the EU and USA version, doesnt really change all that much for an engineer

That is exactly why we are welcoming any and all ideas, brainstorming those ideas could lead us to something bigger
 
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