regards terry

Regarding the ease issue, my point stands. Either it is your legs doing the work, in which case the heavier bike works against you, or the electrics are providing some mechanical advantage, in which case it’ll cost you just as much as the marginal difference, which is lessened by the fact that the bike is now laden with electronics. The 60 year old doesn’t get to go up hills for free!

Regarding price, I think I was being fair. Like I said, for a stock Trek bike, it jumps from a $500 standard to $2000 for the electric version. The bike shown here is not a stock bike by any measure. It might just be a concept now, but even if it were produced it would be almost all custom parts, and that’ll add a lot to the price.

That said the price tag of $5000 does not seems reasonable. is it the price of this bike?

No fuel: A powered *anything* requires energy. Just because it is electric instead of gas doesn’t make it free. And even if it did, you can already get electric scooters (and some lesser electric motorcycles) for under $1.5k that will be more useful to most people than a bike like this one.

No insurance: Motorcycle insurance is vanishingly inexpensive compared to cars. And it buys you the privilege of going on major highways at much higher speeds than a bike. If you’re simply trying to skirt the law/insurance issues with motorized vehicles going at lower speeds, you might as well try to market an “assisted velocipede”, or find some other way to do away with the pretense of it being something you expect people to pedal like a regular bike.

No special clothing: What world do you live in that doesn’t have a specialty market for cycling clothing? You are no more or less obligated to wear a t-shirt and cut-offs on a motorcycle than on a bike.

The real question, though, remains whether or not the marginal increase in ease with an electric bike offsets all the negatives associated with it compared to a regular bike. I don’t see how it’s worth paying 4 times as much, for starters. It would always be a hassle to charge/replace the battery. I wouldn’t look forward to pedaling the extra weight if the battery was drained.

As to where the innovation will come from, I can’t say. All I know is that electric bikes for $5k and cars for $60k are not long-term solutions to our transportation needs. Bikes should certainly play a greater role in the future, but electric bikes like this one do more harm than good.

Also concerning innovation from car manufacturers: looking back at the last 100 years, innovation in cycling does not come from the bike industry (racing gear apart). Cargo bikes, folding bikes, recumbents, bmx: none of these come from a major brand. So I guess good ebikes probably wont come from trek or giant, but rather from a company not usually concerned by UCI regulations and success in the tour de France.