What is the future of E-bikes ?

[HD462]

.........This continued until late 70's when with development of mopeds like yamaha FS1E (the infamous "fizzy" and boy did i love mine and for the prices they go now wish i still had it), suzuki ap 50 and honda ss50 all capable of well over 45 mph and basically small motorcycles although technically could still be peddled but i doubt anyone ever mad enough to try. The law was then changed to redefine them as not capable of more than 30 mph and removed the need to be pedalled.

I had a Suzuki A50, I didn't realise at the time, being only 16, and my dad coming ot buy it with me, but it wasn't strictly legal. I only realised years later, as it didn't have pedals. It was the same as an AP50 but without the pedals. Never went as fast as my mates Fizzy though.

So in reality Mopeds have never gone away just morphed into something else. Ironically now more likely to be scooter like in design with small wheels as what the point of a bike that looks like a full blown motor bike and only capable of 30 mph. The main killer of mopeds (and scooters and motorbikes) has been the motor car which now out numbers motorcycles 100 to 1.

I do think the moped could rise again as a electric version with a range of 100 miles or so but would fully expect it to have all the rules of current mopeds (30 mph,license,road tax,MOT etc). Which is also why Ebikes will never be allowed to do 30mph .

They've already been available for some time. Looks like a scooter/Vespa etc, but electric. Here's a couple of examples:

>>>Click Me <<<

>>>Click Me 2<<<

 

[flecc]

I bow to your superior knowledge and experience but to me those early add on motors are what morphed into mopeds (after all things like puch maxis etc were still pretty much beefed up cycles with add on engine).

But boy did mopeds roar back for a while in the 70's

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I think scooters (as in vespas etc) are called scooters because you can hop on and of them and also have small wheels just like a push scooter. I guess also at a push if broke down you could actually scoot one.

I have to disagree, the true mopeds were much earlier and preceded the add-on bike motors. I'm speaking of autocycles like the Excelsiors etc, 98 cc with pedals to start off and start the engine. The 1970s "mopeds" were never as bigtime as either the autocycles pre and post WW2, or the add-on bike motors (well over 1 million of these registered at one time in the 1950s), or even the scooters. It was scooters that dominated this light two wheeler market from about 1960 onwards, but by the 1970s it was cars that began to dominate our roads with all powered two wheelers in sharp decline for three decades. That was when numerous bike and motorbike dealerships vanished in the collapsing two wheeler market. Fortunately I was well clear of the trade by then!
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[GaRRy]

I have to disagree, the true mopeds were much earlier and preceded the add-on bike motors. I'm speaking of autocycles like the Excelsiors etc, 98 cc with pedals to start off and start the engine. The 1970s "mopeds" were never as bigtime as either the autocycles pre and post WW2, or the add-on bike motors (well over 1 million of these registered at one time in the 1950s), or even the scooters. It was scooters that dominated this light two wheeler market from about 1960 onwards, but by the 1970s it was cars that began to dominate our roads with all powered two wheelers in sharp decline for three decades. That was when numerous bike and motorbike dealerships vanished in the collapsing two wheeler market. Fortunately I was well clear of the trade by then!
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Well we live and learn

 

[GaRRy]

I had a Suzuki A50, I didn't realise at the time, being only 16, and my dad coming ot buy it with me, but it wasn't strictly legal. I only realised years later, as it didn't have pedals. It was the same as an AP50 but without the pedals. Never went as fast as my mates Fizzy though.



They've already been available for some time. Looks like a scooter/Vespa etc, but electric. Here's a couple of examples:

>>>Click Me <<<

>>>Click Me 2<<<

Boy where did your dad find that ?

I seem to remember there was a a100 as well.

The which was faster fizzy or ap was the big argument of the day

From my memory a fizzy was faster after a service but a AP kept its perfomance better as time went on

As i said wish i still had mine. Have you seen how much a good one sells for !!!!

Yep i know about the e scooters but currently they seem be crap ( slow and no range but cheap) or ridiculously expensive.

 

[yselmike]

Saw my first ever tv adverts for e-bikes on dutch tv a few days ago for the Sparta range.

 

[mike killay]

I agree with Flecc and think that if the battery problem can be solved, then scooters will be the way forward.
But only if using cars becomes too expensive!!!!
The advantage of the Lambrettas and Vespas was that within reason, you could wear ordinary clothing topped up with gloves and a corker crash helmet.
This gave rise to the 'Mods and Rockers' who I believe were originally Stock Exchange employees. The MODerns wore fashionable clothing and rode scooters, the Rockers wore black leather and rode motor cycles. Also their taste in music differed dramatically.
Then we had the fashion of scooters with numerous front lights, radio aerials 10 foot long and the riders dressed in ex,army parkas.
Who knows, maybe history will repeat itself?

 

[HD462]

Boy where did your dad find that ?

I seem to remember there was a a100 as well.

The which was faster fizzy or ap was the big argument of the day

From my memory a fizzy was faster after a service but a AP kept its perfomance better as time went on

As i said wish i still had mine. Have you seen how much a good one sells for !!!!

We got it at a car and bike auction, £50. Was well rusty, but did me for a few months until I saved some more money up, and got a newer TS50 with a seized engine, and did the engine up. That did me till I was 17 and got a Cortina. Never had a bike again till I took my test when I was 29.

I think there was an A100 too yeah, I don't think mine was set up right, as my mates AP50 did 60+, mine would do 35, 40 on a good day, downhill with the wind behind it....lol But I didn't know much about how they worked then, so left well alone. My mates Fizzy did nearly 60, so think the AP just had it. His Fizzy engine must have been rebuilt once a month though...lol

I was a Fizzy at a classic car and bike show a few weeks ago, looked brand new. There was an RD350LC there too, that had been rebuilt down to the last nut and bolt. Looked like it had just come out the showroom.

 

[Scimitar]

I think scooters (as in vespas etc) are called scooters because you can hop on and of them and also have small wheels just like a push scooter. I guess also at a push if broke down you could actually scoot one.

Oh boy, and how.
A friend's brother pushed a Vespa 150 ten miles home when it broke down. The fault? A broken wire at the coil. HoHo.
Took five minutes to find and fix it.

 

[flecc]

if the battery problem can be solved, then scooters will be the way forward.
But only if using cars becomes too expensive!!!!

Yes, love it or hate it, the car will always be the potential winner, history showing that time after time for more than a century, China now being the latest example.

With all the excited talk about electric cars and other EVs and hysteria about "peak oil", people forget that there is still loads of oil around and much more yet to be discovered. People will still be driving petrol/diesel cars for many years to come, probably at least fifty years and certainly beyond many of our lifetimes. Yes, the petrol and diesel will be expensive, but that never put anyone off using them.

And there's another source of petrol that always gets forgotten. In the days of sanctions against them, South Africa simply made their petrol from coal, a well understood process that any not particularly advanced nation can do. And coal is an incredibly abundant resource all around the globe with thousands of years of known reserves and goodness knows how much yet to be discovered.

So if we crack carbon capture and I'm sure we will eventually, the petrol car could remain king almost permanently, since it has such huge advantages.

 

[neptune]

When , inevitably, we see big improvements in battery tech, there is little doubt that electric scooters and motorcycles will be available. I do not see them replacing the ebike. Back in the day, to ride a petrol assisted push bike, you had all the legal hassle of driving license, insurance, and so on. So the step to a Lambretta was just more of the same, and you already had your license. So the step from ebike to electric scooter is a large one.And an expensive one, that not everyone will want to take. To me , one of the big plusses of the ebike is the lack of legal BS.

 

[HD462]

That's true, I doubt they'll replace the eBike, unless they decide to tighten the rules on eBikes to make them need testing, insuring etc, which would kill the market.

Those electric scooters I linked to earlier are already subject to licensing, insurance, etc. To me if I was going to the bother of all that, I'd rather get a 50cc scooter that would do the full 30mph, or more safely have a 100cc or 125cc bike that can do more realistic speeds but still return decent mpg.

eBikes fill a gap as they are now, with no legal BS as Neptune says, move up to more restrictions and expense to own one, and they'd lose their appeal.

 

[NRG]

We got it at a car and bike auction, £50. Was well rusty, but did me for a few months until I saved some more money up, and got a newer TS50 with a seized engine, and did the engine up. That did me till I was 17 and got a Cortina. Never had a bike again till I took my test when I was 29.

I think there was an A100 too yeah, I don't think mine was set up right, as my mates AP50 did 60+, mine would do 35, 40 on a good day, downhill with the wind behind it....lol But I didn't know much about how they worked then, so left well alone. My mates Fizzy did nearly 60, so think the AP just had it. His Fizzy engine must have been rebuilt once a month though...lol

I was a Fizzy at a classic car and bike show a few weeks ago, looked brand new. There was an RD350LC there too, that had been rebuilt down to the last nut and bolt. Looked like it had just come out the showroom.

A fizzy or AP50 doing 60! Yeah right, pushed off a cliff maybe! LOL! and certainly not as standard...all my mates of the time had fizzy's but I had an AP50...it would do a genuine 48~50 on the flat, none of the fizzys could match it, just that little bit slower and I didn't have to premix the fuel!

 

[HD462]

Yeah, well indicated speed obviously. I doubt they were that accurate. I doubt there were many standard bikes, especially Fizzys, I think everyone ended up fitting a Micron exhaust didn't they?

 

[GaRRy]

A fizzy or AP50 doing 60! Yeah right, pushed off a cliff maybe! LOL! and certainly not as standard...all my mates of the time had fizzy's but I had an AP50...it would do a genuine 48~50 on the flat, none of the fizzys could match it, just that little bit slower and I didn't have to premix the fuel!

Didn't have to pre mix the fuel on my fizzy either so at a guess they were riding older bikes. As I said from what a I remember a just serviced fizzy was quicker than a just serviced AP50 but a AP50 seemed to stay in top tune for longer and after a few hundred miles tended to be the faster of the two. what i really don't understand is why old fizzes seem to be worth far more than any of its then rivals. Oh and I agree 48-50 was more like reality.

 

[flecc]

When , inevitably, we see big improvements in battery tech, there is little doubt that electric scooters and motorcycles will be available. I do not see them replacing the ebike. Back in the day, to ride a petrol assisted push bike, you had all the legal hassle of driving license, insurance, and so on.

The real point is as I've often remarked, most people don't want to pedal, ever. That and the weather protection is why e-mopeds are likely to win out over e-bikes for most if batteries radically improve. The VED is waived (free tax disc), insurance costs are low for mopeds and the legal BS as you put it doesn't put off the existing 2 million powered two wheeler UK users. I've found motorcycle ownership less hassle than that with cars, nod through very low cost MOTs for example.

 

[GaRRy]

The real point is as I've often remarked, most people don't want to pedal, ever. That and the weather protection is why e-mopeds are likely to win out over e-bikes for most if batteries radically improve. The VED is waived (free tax disc), insurance costs are low for mopeds and the legal BS as you put it doesn't put off the existing 2 million powered two wheeler UK users. I've found motorcycle ownership less hassle than that with cars, nod through very low cost MOTs for example.

Only problem here is that those that don't want to pedal also want to travel at 30+ mph. They can do that now they just don't want to go through the process to allow them to and think that allowing pedelecs to do 30 mph with no tax insurance etc is a way around it. When in reality if it is ever allowed it will also come with licenses etc the same as what is currently available. ergo proper ebikes may become available as alternatives to petrol ones but can't see them becoming any more popular than whats already there.

 

[Woosh]

The real point is as I've often remarked, most people don't want to pedal, ever. That and the weather protection is why e-mopeds are likely to win out over e-bikes for most if batteries radically improve. The VED is waived (free tax disc), insurance costs are low for mopeds and the legal BS as you put it doesn't put off the existing 2 million powered two wheeler UK users. I've found motorcycle ownership less hassle than that with cars, nod through very low cost MOTs for example.

e-mopeds are nearly as cheap to produce as e-bikes and yet, I can't see us ever selling them.
Why? because they are just too heavy to pack!

 

[flecc]

But they aren't good enough yet Hatti, unless the odd extremely expensive one like the Vectrix.

As Gerry says, cars are the first choice, but e-mopeds will be the second choice if batteries do get very much better, with e-bikes a very small trailing sector as they are now. I repeat, most people won't pedal, ever.

 

[NRG]

Didn't have to pre mix the fuel on my fizzy either so at a guess they were riding older bikes. As I said from what a I remember a just serviced fizzy was quicker than a just serviced AP50 but a AP50 seemed to stay in top tune for longer and after a few hundred miles tended to be the faster of the two. what i really don't understand is why old fizzes seem to be worth far more than any of its then rivals. Oh and I agree 48-50 was more like reality.

Yes, the later fizzys had the oil tank and they also came out with front disk AFAIK but these where even slower than the older versions for some reason, any how by then I had graduated to the RD250 so didn't care! BTW, Mark, I checked the speed on my AP50 using those 100m distance markers on a local dual carriage-way thats now part of the M25...

 

[GaRRy]

Yes, the later fizzys had the oil tank and they also came out with front disk AFAIK but these where even slower than the older versions for some reason,

err then someone must of tuned mine up when i wasn't looking as it was faster then any of my mates older ones.