Countless companies and industries enjoy making up scary stories when it comes to justifying their opposition to making it easier to repair your own tech. Apple claims that empowering consumers and bolstering independent repair shops will turn states into “hacker meccas.” The car industry insists that making it easier and cheaper to repair modern cars will be a boon to sexual predators.
Almost got scammed by Rad Bikes this way. Battery mysteriously failed 10 months into their 1 year warranty. Rad Bikes accused me of sabotaging the battery and refused to honor their warranty, but “generously” offered me free shipping on a $300+ replacement battery. Turns out the off-the-rack fuse they use blew; identical down to the manufacturer to the ones used in cars. Replacement fuse was <20 cents and fixed the problem instantly.
Do you recall the specific fuse? There was someone asking about ebike battery fuses on !micromobility@lemmy.world a while back. Wasn’t really sure what to tell them, but automotive fuses make sense.
On my RadCity 5 Plus, it was a 10 amp red mini-blade fuse. I had a “variety pack” in my car that I’d gotten at a local auto part store, but looked it up any way, just in case. This may be different on other models/batteries. Ironically, it did require a warranty voiding opening on the battery casing. :-)
Fwiw those “warranty void if opened” stickers are not legal
This, and the propensity for manufacturers to hyperfixate on trying to make everything proprietary, is why I will never buy a prebuilt e-bike. My bike is a converted regular bike, and if any component fails I can just rip it off and replace it with any of a variety of readily available yum-cha components. The prices a lot of manufacturers are asking for these pieces of shit are astronomical, too. If you’re not afraid to run a wire or two, you can build a more performant bike with bigger battery capacity for half the price or less.
The prices a lot of manufacturers are asking for these pieces of shit are astronomical
This is one of the reasons I haven’t bought an E-bike yet. You can buy a road-legal motorcycle for the price of some E-bikes. It’s just too much for what they are.
Even a cheap car in my country. The car might actually cost less
Ar one time that was true here, but anymore used cars have become as expensive as a new car.
The car EV market is standardizing to NACS connector. Any car with that connector (and those with adapters) can charge. There should be no incompatibility. The e-bike industry needs to follow suit, but take that one step further. Standardize on the battery connector, the chargers, and also on the batteries themselves (kind of like how we have size AA and AAA and C and D).
All these manufacturers complain that the reason bikes are still expensive is because of the batteries. Well nothing will drive down the cost more than one standard type of cell and only a handful of different sizes. Only one type of connector and every charger should be the same.
Well nothing will drive down the cost more than one standard type of cell and only a handful of different sizes.
That assumes that the manufacturers want to bring down prices. If they all keep using proprietary batteries they can use that as an excuse to keep prices high without looking greedy.
This is a purchased item by bike makers. If the prices for the batteries goes down, it saves them money as well. This is why industry tends to jump onto standards because it is better for everyone (USB, NACS, various ANSI, ISO and IEEE standards). Quality (and safety) can go up, prices can go down, and availability of parts increases.
