Hey Sup Forums, I'm trying to gauge interest in a potential startup, in light of the EV thread

Hey Sup Forums, I'm trying to gauge interest in a potential startup, in light of the EV thread.

What would it take for you to commute by e-bike or light electric scooter most days of the week?

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youtu.be/DyPsw9Czwe0
lunacycle.com/batteries/packs/52v/52v-mighty-mini-cube-samsung-ebike-battery-pack-30q-6ah-3-pounds/
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Elevated bike lanes away from the fucking welfare trash running people over with their cars.

+50 years of age so I can't ride a regular bike anymore.

Make it not rain all the fucking time and remove all cars from the roads.

I already pedal my bike to work year around. Motor assist may be attractive for longer journies. The magic bullet for me is either the cost or the possibility to retrofit a motor to my existing bike. How long/far could I go on a charge?

ebike = you still pedal, you just cover more ground doing it.

I already commute greener than an electric bicycle

A bike with at least 100 HP (75 kW) @ 5300 RPM so that i can GO SPEEDU RACER whenever the urge arises

No, seriously. Gotta go fast youtu.be/DyPsw9Czwe0

You're too late. Already been done.

basically all of this. it's also a little tricky because i park my bike indoors but the thought of plugging it in seems a little obnoxious. i'd be happy if the battery came as a portable battery pack that i could also/alternatively use as a usb power bank (e.g. pic related)

agreed
do you normally commute by bike?
rain is a slight annoyance but not a big deal w/ proper gear (that most people are unwilling to buy for whatever reason)
a $700 conversion would get you about 30 miles of range, that is ~$200 for a kit and ~$500 for a battery. You can go cheaper if you are a DIY kind of person.
wear your helmet
Maybe 0.0001% of the population owns an ebike
easily doable. I have two bikes, one with a permanently attached battery pack and another with a removeable battery stored in a topeak mtx rail bag on my rear rack

>100HP from a bicycle
Until we have conveniently small nuclear generators, just get a fucking motorbike then you autist. Perhaps that a power to weight ratio of nearly 10000hp per ton AKA death trap.

e-bikes suck shit,kid

>this bootyblast
you asked me what it would take fro me to get interested in eBikes and i told you. Why get angry?

100HP on a 300lb vehicle? That would be like the fastest vehicle in the history of mankind

>easily doable
not necessarily. what capacity does a bike need? if it's more than 20,000 mAh then you're definitely looking at a bigger brick than the one i pictured, which means users are probably not going to be willing to carry it around as a powerbank.

it would be a step in the right direction just to make the battery removable (for one thing, you wouldn't want to risk it being out in the elements, or potentially stolen, or whatever), but the real "next step" would be to make it small enough to be viable for carrying around with a laptop and other stuff. if you need a sizable battery to make augmented pedaling for ~30 miles practical, then you might need to wait for larger capacity batteries to become smaller (there's some carbon-based tech coming through the pipeline that might make this feasible).

part of the issue too is that $700 is kind of a bit of money. i spent a fair amount on a good bike and that would (not quite, but almost) double the value of my road bike. would a retrofit of future bikes be possible? like if i upgraded my bike in 5 years, would it be possible/practical to take the kit from bike A to bike B?

*20Ah

Problems
>Associated with poor physical health/laziness. Only people around here who use them are old people
>Usually look really boring and conservative. Most young people like road bikes and minimal aesthetics and whatever. Try to find a nice way to hide the battery, most designs I've seen are incredibly ugly.
>Cumbersome to charge, so you probably want a detachable battery or something like that.
>Usually really heavy. Was quite surprised by the weight when I tried one pretty recently. But then again, my bike weighs only about 10kg.

>300 LB bicycle
The fuck is the frame made of? Uranium? Most (properly made, not BSO chinkshits from walmart) bicycles weigh between 15 and 25 lbs so it's even more extreme than you think.
I'm not angry, im just saying that 100HP on a normal bicycle is.... unwieldy to say the least.

If I can commute by bike, why wouldn't commute by a normal bike?
What does your product offer better than a normal bike for a normal commute?

>The fuck is the frame made of? Uranium? Most (properly made, not BSO chinkshits from walmart) bicycles weigh between 15 and 25 lbs so it's even more extreme than you think.

>not incorporating the weight of the driver with the gross weight of the vehicle

We can relay it in any unit we want; since battery capacities tend to be reported in milliamp hours i figured sticking to mAh made more sense.

i don't know anyone who talks about smartphone batteries as 6.4Ah, for instance, despite being in the thousands range.

>What does your product offer better than a normal bike for a normal commute?

>no sweating (if desired)
>faster
>more cargo capacity
>hilly terrain is no longer a problem

>weight of the driver
>plus the weight of the bike
>300lb
dude you're either more familiar with metric and grossly misestimating the conversion rate, or you're a goddamn manatee riding a bicycle

Because given what is expected of most peoples weights and in view that 100HP number, the weight really becomes negligible with such a power-weight ratio.

I've just always seen it retarded to use unreduced capacities. I bought a pair of headphones the other day, only cost me 2000ยข

>a $700 conversion would get you about 30 miles of range

That same $700 will get you three or four gas motor kits, or even a used motorcycle.

but in many places a battery-augmented bicycle is considered legal for bike lanes and whatnot, whereas a gas-powered motorcycle/moped/what-have-you is considered a street vehicle (requires a license of some sort)

i'm not saying i'm keen on the battery idea OP is presenting, but there are trade-offs that are more subtle than we're acknowledging.

we almost never use the centiliters unit despite often dealing with things in the hundreds of milliliters. does that bother you as well?

hell, with the exception of meters, the centi prefix is (almost) never used.

>not counting his qt 10/10 gf riding on the back.

Nah

In most places a motorized bicycle is still a bicycle or at least a legal grey area.
At absolute worst you'd need to show up to a single town hall meeting and say "bruh it's still a bike though" so the city council will say "sounds legit".

The whole SI system must be pure autism fuel for you then. The system itself is all good, but people just don't really use it as it's supposed to be used. Deal with it, it's really not that difficult.

This desu.
I currently cycle and I risk riding on the sidewalk and getting a ticket everyday to avoid all of the scumfuck degenerate mongoloids who text and drive.

I'd rather argue with a cop about the legality of my actions that get ran over and killed.

lots of removable batteries on the market

at some point you are limited by battery design. The 3.5Ah 18650s are the most power dense cells for commercial sale. You could get something like 10Ah out of something this size: lunacycle.com/batteries/packs/52v/52v-mighty-mini-cube-samsung-ebike-battery-pack-30q-6ah-3-pounds/

> like if i upgraded my bike in 5 years, would it be possible/practical to take the kit from bike A to bike B?

yes, no problem

I'm 230lb, my ebike + battery + lock + commuting bag/laptop/gym clothes is ~300lbs, I don't see how that's ludicrous

complete opposite

no legislation is good legislation

I would MUCH MUCH MUCH rather operate in a legal grey area than to be limited to some arcane wattage or speed limit imagined up by my inept city council

>160 lb male
>20 lb frame
>5 lb lock
>20 lb bag
>25 lb battery
Still only 230. That guy is confirmed manatee on a bike. How can you commute via cycle and be overweight?

I don't ride my bike more than a mile to the train station, so I don't think I'll need anything like this ever.

Operating in a legal grey area means you're leaving it entirely up to the interpretation of whichever cop happens to be behind quota and having a bad day.

>lots of removable batteries on the market
yeah again i'm saying that removable and highly portable are very different things. your car's battery is removable.

If they could travel 20 kilometers in less than 30 minutes on actual highways

I don't run into cops like that and they don't give me shit because I'm not a degenerate. In fact, we have cops that use e-bikes here. They are well aware that more e-bikes means less cars and they are fine with that

> not even incorporating the weight of the motor
100hp is gonna weigh quite a bit.

>160 lb male

holy shit

good deal, sounds like you chose a good place to live

what is your definition of highly portable? You can get 3lb batteries that will get you 10 miles with pedal assist. Anything beyond that is outside the realm of our current knowledge of chemistry and physics

can do

Kits are available. I've seen ones that supposedly go up to 50 mph. Aerodynamically, bikes hit a wall at 30mph, so efficiency would hit same wall. The added torque can cause metal fatigue on the frame, so consider additional bracing. Also wheel bearing wear and brake wear from added torque, weight and speeds.

>5lb lock
>20lb bag
a heavy duty bike lock should weigh more like 3-4lbs, but sure. my laptop weighs 5lbs max, and i can't imagine what else you're carrying to make 20lbs. i could understand if you were talking about biking home with groceries, but i would imagine that you'd anticipate more than 20lbs in that case, so that's a very weird estimate.

a 25lb battery definitively takes the battery outside of the portable range that we were talking about earlier. an ideal battery pack would be one that i could carry in my messenger bag or whatever, and use as a power bank, as previously mentioned.

>25 pounds is not portable
Manlet alert!

>I don't run into cops like that
wow so they must not exist at all then, right?

...

you're going to be absolutely devastated when you realize that nobody's impressed that you carry around 25lb batteries on a daily basis.

they'll act impressed when they see your knife, but they're all just scared of the autist.

I commute with pic related because it's cheap and awesome.

I have a 15Ah 52V battery made of soft-sided LiPo and it weighs 15lbs

If you used 3.5Ah 18650s to make the same battery it would be even lighter.

This gives me a hypothetical 60 mile range. I commute 8 miles to work each day (round trip) and charge once a week on Sunday.

Most people would need less.

do you not understand how the law works? If you are operating in a legal gay area, they can't just up and up ticket you, they would need to pass a law first outlawing what you were doing, and thanks to habeus corpus you would be unaffected

You sound like a 15 year-old that thinks that the government only passes laws to GIVE you rights.

You literally have to move it twice a day.
>They'll act impressed when they see your knife
Where is that even coming from? Is this some bizarre manlet tactic?

we can find an optimal size for most riders given the distances they travel, but i suspect that the truth is motor-augmented bikes will be hamstrung until better batteries than lithium become available.

the motor and even the cost, we can all take, but a 15(to 25)lb battery with such limitations is a bridge too far for many people

i said earlier that i'm not interested in a battery that i can't reasonably use as a power bank as well, so that would mean carrying it around with me as well.

if i can only use it to power the motor, then i'm even less likely to remember to bring it in and charge it, which means i'll have ~25lbs + whatever weight the motor is of dead weight.

That's really a limitation? Freeing yourself from gas and spending literally 3 cents a week to 'fill' up your battery on electricity? Because people don't want to carry around 10lbs of battery (enough for several commutes)? They might as well just use a frame battery then.

limitations in terms of range, sure.

you make it sound like there's no cost to riding around with a dead battery and motor. a bike is a very light way to get around, whereas a motorized bike with no juice in it is not an especially light way to get around.

>that i can't reasonably use as a power bank as well

There is nothing stopping you or a battery company from slapping a dc buck converter and a usb port on a ebike battery for a few bucks (a lot of ebike controllers have USB ports already). The problem is there's no demand.

do you forget to fill up your car with gas? why would you forget to charge up your ebike then? why is only one of these scenarios feasible in your mind?

What, is being 6'0 160 not a usual thing where you're from?

Most of the people I know do some sort of athletic activity and lots of cardio. Unless you're a muscle man or a fat ass this is right at the sweet spot for the male physique.
I figured the 25lb battery was some a battery/motor combo. I don't need 100hp on a bike either, jesus. Isn't 1hp roughly 550ft/lbs of force?

I could get by with a 10 hp motor easy as just a ride assist, and 25 seems like the upper limit for what I can see being feasible on your standard road bike frame. Past that much power I'm gonna want a much sturdier frame, upping weight anyway.
I got used to commuting from campus with a few large textbooks in my bag. Easily 20-30 lbs on my back. I guess you're right though, that's outside of the usual parameters for most riders.

ebikes really seem pointless to me. In the city, where they might make sense (due to range and speed restrictions), there's already loads of public transport. I'd much rather just take the subway or ride a bus, where I can relax in safety, than deal with traffic on a tiny bike.

Where they make sense are 3rd world cities with terrible public transport, as a 1:1 replacement for gas scooters.

>I could get by with a 10 hp motor easy as just a ride assist, and 25 seems like the upper limit for what I can see being feasible on your standard road bike frame. Past that much power I'm gonna want a much sturdier frame, upping weight anyway.

A 2 HP (1500W) e-bike will easily get you up to 30mph. I could barely imagine a 10hp setup (7500W, some exist, they easily go 80mph) let alone 25HP. That would be a fucking death ride, probably near 150mph easy.

Not every city has public transportation.

>there's already loads of public transport

most cities are not remotely like this

Every single city worth living in has public transit and any city with no transit is going to be a deathtrap for cyclists anyway.

some pain pill popping idiot driving a van hit and killed a young boy in broad daylight on a 35 mph street right here in my neighborhood. that boy was on a skateboard though.

>Every single city worth living in has public transit
Nope
>any city with no transit is going to be a deathtrap for cyclists anyway
Nope

25hp is what you'd get on a 200-250cc motorcycle! (that will weigh 200-250 pounds). That's a LOT of power.

I figure any city without public transport will be so spread out, and so dependent on freeways, that you'd really want a car to 'get out of it'.

The attitute of someone who has never been a cyclist.

Just found this page, mind you this is calculated for a tri track, but i did some quick googling for frontal area and coefficient of friction for cycles and found this.

Looks like my estimate of 25 was off, and given a vehicle of around 260 lbs you need 35-40 hp to reach and maintain speeds of 45 mph.

So you need an electric motor capable of supplying ~30,000 watts?

How much does that weigh?

No more snow
No cars in the road that would kill me
A/C
Stereo

have you ever traveled? there are plenty of cities in first-world countries that have a dense urban core and no or extremely shitty public transportation

Nope again. I not only get around my city on board but also go from city to city on board. In addition to highways there are backroads that take you from city to city

Oh wait I guess I'm retarded.

I never was very good at mathematical concepts.

OP if you need someone to help sell the product to people I'm all yours but don't let me near the design or you'll have a rocket powered death bike.

>Looks like my estimate of 25 was off, and given a vehicle of around 260 lbs you need 35-40 hp to reach and maintain speeds of 45 mph.

Are you seriously this retarded? I get up to 45mph on my 3000W (72V, 40A) motor...that's 4 HP.

See above. Yes I am.

Apart from American flyover hellscapes give an example?

t. teenager who watched Line of Sight a dozen times

But hey check it out I was off by a 0 place. I estimated 30,000 and you're using a 3,000.

Closer than I would have imagined for my first time doing this sort of calculation and like 3 minutes of googling.

>Apart from American flyover hellscapes give an example?
>Apart from 80% of the country, give an example

Atlanta, GA
Orlando, FL
Birmingham, AL
Knoxville, TN
Richmond, VA
Jackson, MS


That's just a few in the south

None of these are first-world by any reasonable definition.

>moving goalposts

hurr durr

In cities like that I'd be pretty paranoid about someone stealing my all-too-stealable electric bike.

Also consider that in low-density sprawling cities, people needs to carry a lot of stuff - like food and any other purchases - long distances from the point of purchase to their homes. It's not easy to put a weeks worth of groceries on a scooter (not really an issue in a real city where you can buy your groceries an easy walk from home).

>It's not easy to put a weeks worth of groceries on a scooter

Jesus christ stop moving the goalposts. The original question was:

>What would it take for you to commute by e-bike or light electric scooter most days of the week?
>most

I'm not saying that you need to do 100% of your commuting by e-bike or bicycle, I'm just asking if it would be feasible for people to replace maybe 3-4 of their commutes a week with an e-bike.

>regardless, they have things like pic-related or you can just slap on a used baby/dog bike stroller if you really needed to

See, this is why you are fat, America.
In Holland, grandmas and children ride 20kg single speed hi-ten citybikes and nobody complains.

>it's impossible
>it'll never work

I know way too many people like you

Nobody complains about it in America either.

That's because nobody rides.

Op only if it has 100hp+ then i will buy ut

>what are mountains
>what is crushing heat
>what is bicycle infrastructure

you do realize that Holland is basically mother nature's perfect place for bike commuting? I wouldn't want to have Mr. F350 bearing down on my ass trying to get up a hill in Colorado when it's 100 degrees out and I'm trying to get to work

But that's false. I see people biking and skating all the fucking time.

no rain

what is wrong with the rain? Can't you just throw a rainjacket and rainpants on?

As their daily commute?

>le 100 Horsepower on a bicycle meme

Why?

I'm a big fan of scooters, bicycles, and small motorcycles. Have lived in and traveled around southeast asia on small motorcycles/scooters. Have done long bicycle tours in North America. This year I'm going a smallish motorcycle (350cc) Canada-to-Patagonia trip.

But in the developed world, I really can't think of a scenario where a bicycle or e-bike would actually be practical everyday transport, unless you lived in some small dense town that somehow hasn't been Walmart-ized yet (some leafy college town or something). Otherwise it'll either be too spread out or too busy, and in both cases there are better alternatives (ideally public transport, failing that a car).

I don't know most of them so I can't really say what they're doing