Business Forums

[newbie electric rider]

29a, I am in too. Have cash.

I believe any human is a potential ebiker customer. The thing is there should be some sort of manual done up, I was kind of startled when xyster said 72 volts could be lethal, and seeing that battery pack all melted, or reading Patrick"s soldering away on his porch and throwing a cell on the front lawn waiting for an explosion.

These bikes need to be saftey first, before an accident happens that gets all over the news, then the oil/gas/auto unions start lobbying the govt and voila.. no more ebikes. Here in Ontario we have 3 years, to get as many ebikes on the road as possible.
Those 10 demos I was thinking about could be all painted up, with stuff like Kyoto approved , could even name the bike something snazzy like kyotee. with a phone number or web site handy. Lend them out to some nice looking females should get some positive attention.( sex sells ) In a very short time word of mouth would take over. Acceptance by the public is the key, strength in numbers.
Although it would be nice to have a showroom, sales staff, expensive bikes on display, this is quite expensive as overhead should be kept quite low, something like that could easily run 10,000 per month. Overhead is a business start up killer.

 

[mvadventure]

No disrespect intended Newbie but I believe you are dead wrong re setup. Yes bikes can and will be sold via garages and the internet but human nature being what it is only a storefront will provide any semblance of permanency or confidence to a potential customer. Not every human is a potential customer either. For one reason or another a bike simply won't do, especially in current configurations re comfort and range. Make a bike much more comfortable and now you have an electric motorcycle with all the attendant problems.

ebikes northwest & California has a web page determining who the customer is http://www.electricvehiclesnw.com/main/who-buys.htm and I tend to agree with most of their thoughts. The senior citizen part is off as the only thing parked in front of most retirement homes are visitor cars and staff, there is a senior citizen market and has great potential.

Consumer confidence is a critical part of success. Years ago, when I was first in business, getting new commercial accounts was always a challenge as I was the new guy in the emerging market. As I destroyed the competition and acquired new markets it got a LITTLE easier making initial approaches to new clients as it was easier to demonstrate business stability. Eventually the name of my company became synamous with quality and stability in my industry. It took years. Right now the ebike industry has no one in that position beyond a local level. Yes there are a few stand alone stores with strong INTERNET presence but I haven't found a single multi store, multi location provider. To me a realistic simple goal would be to attain profit making status within the first year, two additional stores the second year and no less than four to six the third year.

Markets would include sales, service, consumer rentals and resort rental. Once the market is tapped it can become a flow. It has yet to be determined how big that flow can be but it's potentially limited without great market development.

You don't need to invent a mousetrap. You have to make a mousetrap better, cheaper and in higher volume. Then you have to grow mice.

Enough for today.
Mike

 

[CGameProgrammer]

I think it would be very difficult to make e-bikes popular for exactly the same reason gasoline-powered bicycles (which do exist and have for a long time) are extremely rare.

1) The bicycle is an inferior platform for a motor vehicle. It's unstable at speed and poorly-handling compared to a motorcycle or scooter. It's very light, but a motorized vehicle shouldn't need to be so light unless there's something wrong with its method of propulsion (like inadequate battery technology). Also it lacks turn signals, brake lights, etc.

2) Very few people ever want to pedal and use a motor at the same time. Pretty much only disabled or elderly people, with a few exceptions but not many. People who want to pedal want a purely human-powered vehicle. People who want a motor would not want to pedal, at least not while riding the motorized vehicle. In fact, in the U.S. at least, the word 'moped' is usually used to mean a low-speed motorscooter and not anything pedal-powered because they're almost extinct. People want something that doesn't have to be pedaled.

3) Laws. You can't have both bicycle and non-bicycle privileges. Either you are merely a bicycle, being slow and weak but with many privileges, or you are a motor vehicle, allowed to be fast or powerful but requiring registration, insurance, etc. There's no reason why bicycles and their derivatives should be exempt from the law.

4) It's new. By all rights, recumbents ought to be very popular, but I think I've seen maybe one in my entire life, here in the U.S. I've seen a couple of others on car racks. I've never seen a single velomobile (covered bicycle). People are set in their ways.

I say forget about e-bikes and focus on scooters or motorcycles. Those already have appeal (especially motorcycles which are far more common in the U.S.) so it's just a small thing to sell an electric version to people. You're not doing something radical, just promoting an electric drivetrain over an internal-combustion engine.

 

[scottclarke]

Congrats gents on a truly worthwhile discussion - one which has touched on a lot of what I have been thinking over the past 2 years.

CGameProgrammer - your first point - I don't really think it has merit! In the UK there is a minimum £200 difference (annualy) between running costs of a (elec)bicycle and a light motorcycle/moped. For most people the figure runs near £400. It might not seem much but to some people its worth them cycling in all weathers instead of using a 'heavy' motorcycle.

And I can promise you - I get no more wet/cold when riding my ebikes than I do when riding motorcyles!

Stability - well yes - something you can only overcome with supple suspension - maybe longer wheelbase - and wider tyres... = added weight. This is doable though.

I run with traffic in town, really only passed when people exceed the speed limit - yet I rarely do over 26mph. Congestion truly makes a 25mph bicycle completely viable here - as hundreds have now agreed.

You know - 2 years ago I started putting things together. I was out every day on a bike - doing 15+ miles per day - mostly local - initially to spur interest since I wanted to sell them. Well that has not happened but I sure have big interest now - but it has taken that long. I have people from all walks of life - from 10 years to 70 years asking where they can buy one. Of course, I have to be honest and say you can't - crying shame for me given I am back doing a day job and a crying shame for them and the market as a whole.

Of course, saying all that - I see the future as 'heavy' enclosed recumbent trikes - since that seems approach seemed to tick all the boxes on the hundred or so questionaires I handed out 18 months ago. Part of the reason I'm not developing bikes at all now..........

Ask a hundred average LEISURE cyclists (who don't cycle commute) what they want in a single person commuter/shopping trolley and you get - from memory....

enclosed - away from weather effects + safety
luggage space
range
speed

Poll didn't lead at all - didn't ask the above questions but the answers - condensed down lead to these conclusions.

I regularly speak with different cyclists about ebikes at the local bike shop. Can get very frustrating.... Had one chap just the other day - hard core lycra - cycles to work every day. Mentions he is buying a car to do the shopping - I ask why not a trailer - he says he has tried and it is too heavy - so I say ebike! He says no - he likes to push himself - a motor would be cheating -mmmmmmmmmmmmm

Thats what we are up against!

 

[mvadventure]

Scott, you've apparently tried and found out the hard way that the ebike simply isn't the better mouse trap yet. It may never be.

Many years ago in my little motorcycle shop in Orlando, FL a salesman sold me a bunch of 50cc mopeds. I don't remember what I paid for them but they retailed for about $195.00. They had all the appropriate safety equipment and would go about 35 mph, you did have to pedal to start them.

Back then a 14 y/o could get a drivers license to operate a motor bike with 5 hp or less. My shop was right around the corner from a high school and the kids would come in the shop all the time. NO ONE ever bought a moped. I don't remember whatever happened to them but I never sold one. They were fun, ran on fumes, required very little maintenance but weren't "cool". 50 & 75 cc motorcycles were as were the Cushman Scooters and they were very popular despite costing almost twice as much. Of course once the kids reached sixteen those that could afford automobiles gladly gave up their two wheels for four.

This being said, the ebike market for the moment may be in the marketers ability to create fun, convenience and economy for the customer. Reliability, convenience, range and safety will be forefront. I see the practicality for the recumbent, especially the three wheeled version with a protective cover but we're getting back into the motorcycle/moped world and possibly eliminating the fun factor. The freedom of laws a bicycle enjoys is only enhanced by providing power and the existing bicycle market is going to be a tough nut to crack.

I don't think there are a lot of commuters out there who really want to have to carry a rain suit and fewer yet that want to have to waterproof their electrical connections themselves. All of them will certainly want their brakes to work in the rain and would probably like the convenience of having their tail light come on when they turn their headlight on. Plus, it's hard to believe, they will want to be able to see with that little cheapo headlight.

Today we get in our cars and don't give routine maintenance a second thought, we merely schedule appointments based on mileage. A bike don't work like that. My dealer picks my car up at my home and delivers a new car for me to drive while mine is being serviced. It costs a lot but the simple convenience is worth a lot.

I am not discouraged, there is a market and this forum proves it, developing that market will be a tremendous but rewarding challenge. Priced right I'd probably buy a container of Crystallyte kits or bionic kits and give it a shot just for fun. I simply lack the ambition though to take it any further. It would interfere with my golf, my boating and harassing my grandkids.

But, think about it a bit. Imagine 300 ebikes going into your community over a period of sixty days. How long would it take the local government to start enacting restricting laws? 300 in a big metro area would be nothing but where I live you'd see some every day. Some of those people would be idiots. Guaranteed. One or two wouldn't be able to stop and get run over, another would drive drunk, some would play in traffic and pretty soon, well who knows.
Mike

 

[Lessss]

One MAJOR thing has changed since your moped days. COST OF INSURANCE.

 

[Lowell]

A good driver can insure a 50cc scooter in BC for ~$200/yr.

 

[Lessss]

"A good driver"
Teens aren't considered good drivers. It's not the cost of Moped insurance - - it's the cost of CAR insurance.

 

[Lowell]

"A good driver"
Teens aren't considered good drivers. It's not the cost of Moped insurance - - it's the cost of CAR insurance.

Cars are still cheap to insure in BC. I can get basic coverage on a turbocharged all wheel drive machine for around $800/yr with my 43% discount and roadstar plus. Teens can either insure under their parents names, or pay 12-1300.

 

[Lock]

I think one part of the "problem" comes from trying to shoehorn light weight human-electric hybrids into 20th-century vehicle regulations and perspectives, and another part also comes from assuming the pedal bike form factor as the only legitimate alternative to four-wheeled vehicles for private transport.

Regarding the second part, if you take away the seat, the pedals, the chain and gears, the derailleur and shift levers, the spandex... and boil the two-wheeler down to a tiny platform held by two small wheels, given smooth pavements, where the only controls are go and stop, controlled simply by thumb or wrist, where the tires never get flat and there are no greasy bits... the vehicle folds into a shoulder bag, disappears in a car trunk, parks in a closet, flies as luggage... rather than a slow speed motorized vehicle it becomes a running machine for urban pedestrians... a grocery-getter... a commuting machine for short distances and slow speeds... ultra-reliable and extremely cheap to own and operate.

*Then* if can become a legitimate transport alternative for many more urban trips.

If you agree that the priorities in transport are safety and comfort and reliability, before speed and distance...

(When I am asked "How fast does it go", I like to ask "Well, how fast do you need to go?", and very often the answer is silence.) Any sailor would say that it's not where you get to but *how* you get there that is important.

The "problems" with personal EVs are social/political, and not technical at all.

The *real* "problems" with EVs (at their current stage of development) are urban sprawl and the long distances travelled for commutes etc... our miserable lifestyles.

For a small portion of the population, really tiny vehicles (Victorian pedal bikes) are already entirely practical for extending trips around urban neighbourhoods.

This can see this already in my town, where a large minority already do not own or use large 4-wheeled private vehicles to move about town day to day... While for the national average only 2% favour two-wheeled transport (as pedal bicycle), locally the percentage has risen to 10%...

Socially/politically, our economic models do not factor in (yet) the real costs of roads congested with large private vehicles that impede commercial and emergency vehicles, and degrade air and land and water qualities. The real costs of someone injured in traffic every 30 minutes.
The real costs of wildlife crushed under these wheels, or all the acres of prime local farm lands paved over. The real health costs due to inactivity, for human bodies developed for daily exercise as hunter/gatherers... The real costs of isolation from our neighbours, inside of vehicles that enclose us in steel and plastic and glass and that reduce our communication to horns and hand signals... The real costs of the loss of traditional neighbourhood values, where it used to take a whole village to raise our children.

"Bad" weather is a fact of life. We may choose to envelope and isolate ourselves in artificial climates for comfort and safetys sake, but really, are we above our natural world, or a part of it?

We are not that far removed from the caves. Should we think in human terms (the here and the now, our dreams, rather than our realities) or in geologic terms? Which is really more viable, long-term?

We need to learn from the histories of Teotihuacán, and Easter Island, and the Norse in Greenland, and all the other cultures that have thrived but collapsed in our brief history?

It is not so hard to see the future when we look at the past. And our future is coming at us fast.

Anyway. Sorry to ramble...

This is all to say that yeah, I agree w/the other comments about service and reliability and ease of use. It's a bit of a chicken and egg scenario, where the possibilities are limited by convention and myopic laws.

I have been driving a little EV around town for many years now that for most in my city is "alien" tech. Yet it was build nearly a decade ago on the other side of the same small planet. Wm.Gibson pointed out "The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet."

Yah, my vehicle is illegal, but it is safer than anything else out there (for my neighbours, for my environment), and I am having way too much fun to give up this little vehicle without a fight.

There are so many things we accept today that were once proscribed, for me to believe that things will not change!

Safety is a given, but if folks wish to profit from personal electrics, just make `em convenient, comfortable, reliable and cheap. And don't forget the cup holder. These are things folks will always pay for. I am so tired of discussing what is legal.

tks

Lock

 

[Lock]

But, think about it a bit. Imagine 300 ebikes going into your community over a period of sixty days. How long would it take the local government to start enacting restricting laws? 300 in a big metro area would be nothing but where I live you'd see some every day. Some of those people would be idiots. Guaranteed. One or two wouldn't be able to stop and get run over, another would drive drunk, some would play in traffic and pretty soon, well who knows.
Mike

As long as they apply the same thinking to the 20th-century auto, I have no problem with this approach.
tks
Lock

 

[mvadventure]

OK, I 'm halfway rested, the golf was good today and I won fifteen bucks so I'm a happy camper.

Upon signing on today I noticed several new questions and a enlightening question, as it pertains to the business forum, about choosing a ebike. Other questions abound re battery technology, choices, et.

Following someones thread I looked up itselectric.ca and found they were advertising a 50 volt 25 AH battery and wrote them requesting info and received this "Mike:

The 50v 25Ah will be $900 - 950 USD range. We will have 36v, 8Ah arrive in late June. There are have a lot interest in the 48v 10Ah for most of the Crysalyte 408, 20amp configuration. I will send more detail information a few days. If I don't get back to you, just email again. The bike season just start, we are very backlog at the moment.

Thank you comment, we try to do our best to publish interesting information.

Now, this is good for itselectric.ca, they are backlogged. I find it typical of the ebike industry as it stands today. These folks are trying and can't keep up with the brief demand and don't in fact even have a product they are advertising. I guess they would be a lot busier if they had products to sell.

Granted I'm a little facetious, they undoubtedly have something to sell, just not batteries.

With a bit of tongue in cheek I emailed a fellow crossing the country on his bicycle, San Francisco to Boston to visit his mother on her 80th birthday. Since his writing was humorous in a way, I responded with a humorous desire to travel cross country by bike but was waiting on better batteries.

Well, with no tongue in cheek he thought he could solve my imaginary problem and recommended a web site that sells small gasoline motors for use on bicycles!

Is this the way the public thinks? This was from a guy that lives and breathes bicycles and is crossing the country on one. It's time for the ebike marketing guru to come out of the closet and set the world on ebike fire. Oh, wait, he/she will have to wait on Chinese manufacturers, containers to clear customs and various distributors.

Maybe we need to go to the inner city and start a factory of our own, we can get folks off of public assistance and put the Made in USA, or Canada as the case may be, right on the product. We could find a good Chinese design and copy it.

Mike

 

[TylerDurden]

Maybe we need to go to the inner city and start a factory of our own, we can get folks off of public assistance and put the Made in USA, or Canada as the case may be, right on the product. We could find a good Chinese design and copy it.

I can get behind a lot of that. I don't advocate relying too much on international transport for the long-haul; the open seas are waaaayyy to open, from a security standpoint.

Domestic production of ebikes has potential even now, since import quality is so spotty.

The market is still small enough that numerous players can ramp-up sales and service... when the US starts holding the inbound freighters 5mi offshore for ntl security, the domestic suppliers will win big.

8)

 

[newbie electric rider]

The problem with domestic manufacturing besides the costs for equipment, is labour, in China you have workers that make 100 dollars per month, and they are motivated. That would be very hard to compete with.

 

[markcycle]

If all the Japanese and Korean car companies can set up factories in the USA and make money, it seem only logical that with the right factory design its possible to manufacture a reasonably priced E bike that appeals to the masses in the USA.

It will be ironic when in 10 years or so a Chinese company builds a E bike factory in the USA

My Nissian Altma is assembled down south I think it has enough American content to be called made in the USA

Its just a excuse for doing nothing

The question in my mind "IS THERE A MARKET FOR E BIKES"
A really good E bike with 30 mile range can cost as much as a small motorcycle or scooter, so it can be a hard sell.

It seems the market to go after is the youth (under 16) market every kids got a bike so make it a low speed E bike they'll love it and maybe they will develop a proper attitude towards E bike's as a adult.

The other market is the poor fellow or gal who's gotten his license revoked and needs a means of transportation. If you put a add in the paper "Have no license no problem you can still can around using a Motorized vehicle and go any ware" Who know; when the only other alternative is pedaling a bicycle, walking or taking a bus.

Some how the E bike has to fill a perceived need right now it doesn't, Not when a cheap motorcycle can do any thing a E bike can do and probably in terms of strictly transportation arguably better.

Sure I love E bike for there quite elegance and extremely low impact they have on the planet going a little slower and seeing the world around is a benefit; one that is not wanted by most. For most the world is a giant garbage can as they zoom by throwing there McDonalds garbage out the window, at least in most of the USA they just don't care the motto is get me there fast and make me feel powerful is all that matters and sells.