The simple answer to the question, are Ebikes overpriced, is yes, but there are better value ones to be had if you do some research, and I have included one in this comparison.
When I bought my Haibike Yamaha hard tail in March 2015 it was the cheapest bike that Haibike offered. I bought it for £1,750 after being given £100 of the then list price of £1,849. I've just realised, he owes me a quid.
I already owned an Oxygen Emate rear hub bike that I had bought in 2011 for £1,399.
To their credit both bikes are still working well and in use.
It might not be fair to compare The Haibike with The Oxygen as The Haibike is four years younger and £449 more expensive. (list price rather than paid price)
My original Oxygen is looking very shabby now after a hard life of constant work. The forks are worn out with rust and too much play and should be replaced, but I don't think they are dangerous.
The air adjustable forks on The Haibike are much better quality and still in good serviceability condition after spending half of their life taking hard knocks off road.
Likewise the Tektro Hydraulic brakes on The Haibike are far superior to the Tektro mechanical disc brakes on The Oxygen and a minimum requirement for harder off road use.
The two bikes have two very different motor systems. The Haibike has a sophisticated torque drive crank drive system that works incredibly well off road.
The Oxygen has a simple rear hub cadence system that pushes you along and is simple effective and robust.
I like both systems and prefer the simplicity of the rear hub cadence system for riding on the road in a very relaxed manor. The Oxygen is very old now and controllers will have moved on a lot since I bought it, but in many ways its simplicity is part of its charm.
The rear hub drive takes pressure of the whole transmission and chains, chain rings, cassettes and chains consequently last an order of magnitude of time longer than the crank drive Haibike. So running costs for a rear hub bike are far cheaper.
The real difference between these two bikes though as they age out of warranty is that The Oxygen can be fixed with spar parts that are still readily available.
The Haibike by comparison has built in defeat technology of mainly the battery and motor with a lot of bespoke parts that are generally not available to buy or very expensive making it a far harder and more expensive bike to fix yourself.
I was lucky when the motor on my Haibike was replaced right on the point of the two year warranty. The second motor is still working as it should. I was also lucky to be able to fix a charging problem with my battery and battery charger on my Haibike, but had to do so myself.
My Oxygen is now on its third motor wheel and third battery, but the cost of repairing it so far has been relatively modest. I have also had to replace throttles from time to time on The Oxygen when they break. I think I am on my third throttle. But they were easy and inexpensive to source of Ebay. Both bikes have had replaced brake discs. One of The Oxygen's motor wheels broke spokes and it took me a while, replacing them when they broke to reach a point when it stopped.
One obvious price point issue with my Haibike was its wheels, both of which I have replaced.
To be honest I love both these bikes for different reasons.
How much would you pay for a similar bike today. The Gran-Camino from woosh bikes looks like a great rear hub bike and at £1,459 is only £50 more than I paid for my 2011 Oxygen, 4.1% more expensive. So with all the time that has past since I bought my Oxygen, represents very good value. Also The Gran-Camino has much better brakes than my Oxygen with the same Tektro Hydraulic brakes of the same type as fitted to my Haibike, and a comparable front fork, and has been designed to cope off road.
In cost terms my Haibike hardseven has fared less well with the base model now costing £2,199, £359 more than the list price of my 2015 model, 15.9% more expensive. It now comes with a Bosch motor, but is otherwise quite similar.
I did manage to knock a £100 of my Haibike when I bought it in 2015, and if I had not done that the £350 gap would have been the £450 gap that I have used for this comparison.
Despite this the gap has grown to a £740 gap between the latest entry level hard tail Haibike and The woosh Gran-Camino , all be it with a Bosch motor system rather than a Yamaha one on the Haibike. In 2015 my Haibike was 24.34% more expensive than the Oxygen. Now in 2022 the same entry level Haibike is 33.7% more expensive than the Gran-Camino.
So if you want value similar to 2011 buy the woosh!
I would love to have a go on The woosh Gran-Camino to see how capable it is off road but have a feeling that a crank drive will still beat it when the tracks are harder, steeper and more technical.
I have never owned a woosh bike but they do still look good value.
www.sitko-velo.de
www.pedelecs.co.uk
