ebikes on a roll

[dmcgoldrick]

hi, i remember some months ago that the consensus on the site was that ebikes would remain a small niche market...........and nobody was making any money from selling them....!!!!!!!!!! (presumably a joke...)
i see that this years sales of ebikes have surged from everything i read off the forum and big players are now entering the market with very modern looking bikes in prototype.
the price of these bikes is now pushing the 3 grand mark so will be interesting to see what the uptake will be.

the wheel is turning and at last we may begin to see modern design bringing about lower weight and desirable choice instead of a compromised heavy bike with a battery stuck on.......get saving up, price point is heading up.......(dont worry too much though as there will always be the bargain basement models based on lower quality components and older technology that some will find perfectly adequate for their needs)

hopefully at some point a major distributor in the uk will wake up to the part exchange system used on the continent to develop a culture of regularly changing ones bike to encourage repeat sales..........

just my opinions of course..........but watch this space.....

regards

 

[Pete Telford]

Yes I think this may be the tipping point - especially since I have recently tipped! Been aware of electrics for some time but they seemed very first generation - it was the sudden realisation that Lithium batteries were here that rekindled my interest. Odd thing is that I cant think what sparked the new interest off, I don't think I read any articles, certainly didn't see any bikes but somehow I suddenly took a renewed interest.

 

[mike killay]

Saw a young teenager about 14 today on an electric bike. His mates had unpowered bikes. May well catch on.

 

[eddieo]

Well I like to think up until recently we had 2 of these new style bikes. Under 20 kg and with great performance and handling..at about £2000 each. The Bosch has now gone, sob sob...But in the market for a similar stepthrough crank drive. (dont really want two hub motor bikes)

will not rush into it this time. will wait and see what comes out in new year, as we have a good few unassisted bikes to keep us going. I still have the specialised/DaaHub which is a lethal combination and great fun!

I agree 2012/13 will probably see some significant advances with maybe some break through in battery technologies as well....

 

[tillson]

the price of these bikes is now pushing the 3 grand mark so will be interesting to see what the uptake will be.

Very little uptake at this sort of price point I would have thought. I can't see many people who are new to the ebike concept wading in with three thousand pounds.

A few hardened ebike converts might deem them to be value for money but, speaking as one, I can't see what the extra one thousand five hundred pounds over and above the cost of my Pro Connect is buying me.

I think that the volume market will be in the £400 - £1000 region.

 

[eddieo]

Very little uptake at this sort of price point I would have thought. I can't see many people who are new to the ebike concept wading in with three thousand pounds.

A few hardened ebike converts might deem them to be value for money but, speaking as one, I can't see what the extra one thousand five hundred pounds over and above the cost of my Pro Connect is buying me.

I think that the volume market will be in the £400 - £1000 region.

But this is not true in Europe, where many buy bikes in the 2000 - 3000 euro price range......and not just a few enthusiast either...... The German pedelec forum is full of them. Many Panasonic bikes are in this price range as well.

you only have to look at the activity on this site to see we are woefully behind....

 

[oigoi]

I agree that to increase the number of people using ebikes we need to see better budget models. I for one would like to see some crank drive bikes in the £500 to £1000 price range.

 

[eddieo]

I agree that to increase the number of people using ebikes we need to see better budget models. I for one would like to see some crank drive bikes in the £500 to £1000 price range.

But that is completely unrealistic..... Decent unassisted bikes can cost more then that!

 

[oigoi]

I think what we are waiting on is the trickle down of technology. This comes, in time. It's like 15 years ago when I was into mountain biking you had to spend £500+ to get a mountain bike with any suspension, even just front suspension.

Now you can buy a mountain bike with suspension for a lot less than that. Is generally the way, over time what you can get for your money improves.

I think with ebikes the main thing holding costs up at the moment is the cost of batteries. Motors and controllers are cheap enough

 

[RoadieRoger]

I wouldn`t spend more than £1000 on something that I don`t need , but it`s nice to have . Most people in these times of austerity would find it mad to spend £3000 on an Ebike . From some of the postings on here, spending more money doesn`t seem to guarantee fault free riding !

 

[mike killay]

My take on this is that in Britain at least, cheap will reign supreme. Cast your mind back to digital watches,computers, colour TV etc. None became mainstream until the price came down.
At present, crank drive needs a special frame, hub motors can use any frame.
Teenagers can buy a bike for under £100 in Tescos. A hub motor, battery and charger for under £400 will prove to be the tipping point.
I have no idea why expensive e-bikes sell so well in Germany, but it must be a matter of social, tax and employment conditions being different. I have had lots of OAP's ask me about my bike, they are quite interested until I tell them that it costs over a £1,000 which is a heck of a lot of money for many people.

 

[flecc]

I'm still confident that e-bikes will remain a niche market in the UK, just as cycling itself is.

In the radically different northern European market, I can see the present boom slacking off and reducing over time in some areas. The boom in the largest market in the Netherlands is primarily of utility cyclists doing mundane local trips in their predominantly flat area, and the hassles of the occasional technical problems, battery charging and replacement will get to them after the initial enthusiasm wears off. For many a return to just jumping on a low maintenance bike and ambling off with gentle pedalling only will become attractive again. The same could hold true for Denmark and the flat areas of Germany.

 

[eddieo]

just looking at German ebay and the E bike section. Very like UK version with plenty of cheap bikes

Google Translate

some weird and not so wonderful bikes on there, and some very decent ones as well....... One I had not seen before was Winora? some very stylish hub motor bikes.

 

[Caph]

But that is completely unrealistic..... Decent unassisted bikes can cost more then that!

I'm not sure about that. Maybe for crank drive bikes, but not for hub motors.

You can walk in to a bike shop and buy an MTB style bike like this for under £500 with specs that you would struggle to get on a £3K MTB ebike. Rockshox front forks with remote lockout, T6 frame, Deore / X7 drivetrain and I've yet to see any ebike manufacturer step up their game and offer Avid hydraulic disk brakes as standard.

Yes, I definitely think there is a lot of room for price reductions on hub motor bikes especially with quality kits like the 8FUN with 36v Panasonic battery now available at just over £400.

 

[dmcgoldrick]

lots of comments about ebikes needing to be well under a grand in the uk..........
clearly not many golfers, football season ticket holders,horse riders, hill walkers, motorhome users, quality car owners etc,etc on the forum.........all these other hobbies cost 'thousands' per year to persue......'serious' road bikes are over a grand, serious mountain bikes are over 2 grand.

halfords is not the first place most enthusiasts think of when looking at bikes.........

i imagine having a discussion about laptops would cause similar reaction...........apple macs versus the rest
!!! 'fit for purpose' and high quality cutting edge technology are of course rarely found in the same sentence , and of course luxury and commodity enable everyone to make their own choices.

have fun whatever your budget....but please dont try and convince yourself that a 'fit for purpose' £500 budget ebike has any resemblance to the higher quality and higher priced alternatives......

note to self........check out the suzuki dealer when the saab needs changing ..........

regards

 

[flecc]

note to self........check out the suzuki dealer when the saab needs changing ..........

regards

Could be better advice to yourself than you might imagine! I've very recently bought a new Suzuki SX4 SZ5 (catchy model name you must admit ) and I much prefer it to the very popular Nissan Qashqai that I just got rid of very easily.

Anyway, modern SAABs are just modified Vauxhalls to varying degrees.

 

[dayglowfroggy]

I read this forum on a regular basis and find it hilarious that people even bother to debate the rise and fall in popularity of electric bikes it is obvious that they are about three times too expensive and as far as i can see the trend is to make that even worse .
Things are not getting better the mark up's must be at least 70% for the dealers when you think woosh bikes must be making a profit selling the same bike at £555 that is sold by the mainstream for £850 .
The truth is that most of the customers and the marketing is aimed at 50 somethings who have the money or people who live in citys who earn enough when the real totaly un tapped market is mr average who might be able to scrape together £500 if he lived near enough to work and didn't need a car for the familly .
Things are not going to change untill bikes come down in price and or fuel prices go up allot more.
£3000 bikes are a joke product that might sell in the hundreds if they are lucky would not be worth importing ,£500-£600 decent ebikes sold through a large nationwide company would change things drastically ,instead halfords would proberbly stock out of date over priced giants or izips that anybody with computer can see are not worth the hassle .
Can you imagine if halfords sold woosh bikes at woosh bikes prices half the ebike online shops would be in trouble who would ever buy a whispa again it's ok ereyone can bleat on about superior bits and bobs but most of these bikes are the same frame , motor , controller and battery just vastley different prices .
Since I am on my high horse whyt is it you can buy a bike for £150 that has choice of frame sizes yet in electric bikes they nearly all come with tiny chinese adult size frames but cost over £1000 and come with massive long seat posts (I am a 6ft 3" regular bike rider who can see a midget bike when he is looking at one without being told it is suitable for upto 6ft 3" ridders ,pull the other one)
Why is it so cheap to import a battery from almost anyware rather tham buy it from a main stream ebike dealer ?
It must be nice to be an electric bike dealer in this country right now with all the over inflated prices and woffle keeping prices high.bring on the elctric bike revolution thats what i say.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

The way I see it is that the majority of people interested in the idea of an electric bike are seeking to use it as a means to an end. They have the idea that they can save a bit of petrol money, save a bit of polution and get a bit of fresh air and excercise as long as it's not too difficult, uncomfortable, costly or inconvenient. For them, the market is sub £1000 -deally sub£500. The minority will be or become enthusiasts and are probably already interested in aspects of cycling or they're gadget freaks or whatever. They will have a diverse range of requirements: some will want highest spec, some will want technically advanced, some will want the ultimate in any single characteristic of a bike like lightest weight, most comfort, longest range depending on what they want to do with it. There's niche markets for these minority players.

In my opinion most of the expensive bikes (£2000+) are under-specified and/or over-priced. I'm really disappointed in particular at the crappy suspension forks fitted to most of them and lack of decent rear suspension that makes long rides so much less comfortable (if not painful). Now that I've got a bike with decent suspension, I would never go back to one without. The nearest equivalent to mine is the Haibike XD at over four times the price.

Coming back to the lower cost bikes for the majority: There must be an ideal spec., but most buyers wouldn't have a clue what it is. They probably also don't know how to fix or adjust anything, so they need a seller that can provide the necessary backup without conning them into buying something they don't need. I guess most of them will go to the local bike shop (probably Halfords) and see what's on offer. I doubt that what's on offer would suit their needs, so there's a bit of a lost opportunity there, but some will buy anyway.

Our government and councils are making driving more and more uncomfortable, so more and more people will be looking for alternatives. Therefore there'll most likely still be steady growth in the numbers of electric bikes for a while yet.

Some products took off for no apparent reason without sophisticated marketing campaigns. I can remember skateboards CB radios and the microcomputer boom in the '80s and motorcycles in the late '70ss early 80's. Maybe it'll happen with ebikes. Who knows?

 

[Caph]

'serious' road bikes are over a grand, serious mountain bikes are over 2 grand.

Yes, but they are never going to be used as ebikes. There are two curves on the bike/cost graph, the initial curve is for quality vs cost, then the second steeper curve takes over which is weight vs cost. Most ebikes are at the lower end of the first curve. None make it to the second because the weight of the motor and battery make it pointless, plus I wouldn't fancy your chances of surviving a year on a carbon frame with all that extra ebike weight if you start to do some semi-serious off roading. So you need to focus on the first curve and look at the quality of the parts you get before you start paying premiums for reduction in their weight. At this price point, as I've already pointed out, you can get some quality MTB kit for £500. Anything over £1K and your money is being spent almost exclusively on reducing weight.

 

[dmcgoldrick]

Could be better advice to yourself than you might imagine! I've very recently bought a new Suzuki SX4 SZ5 (catchy model name you must admit ) and I much prefer it to the very popular Nissan Qashqai that I just got rid of very easily.

Anyway, modern SAABs are just modified Vauxhalls to varying degrees.

flecc please stick to the ebike debate.....you obviously know nothing about high powered saab's.........get in my 3 litre made in sweden, a real driving machine. have been driving them for over 20 years. unfortunately a lot of uncertainty about the future of saab again (they were briefly owned by gm who have since unloaded having stolen a lot of the technology)........suzuki and nissan got to laugh at that one comparing to saab........my friend is a suzuki dealer...drives a merc......

regards