I think the simple answer to the OP's question is no. Nobody has built an e-bike optimized for utmost reliability.
Some other value always precedes reliability. Here in this forum, it's often performance. For most people, it would be cost. Some others would put looks before reliability, and a few probably value serviceability higher than reliability. In any case, the results are plain to see. E-bikes break down more often even than reciprocating engine motorcycles, which have a much more challenging job to do.
You can run a washing machine every day for years and years (or at least it once was possible do so), without doing anything identifiable as maintenance. When is the last time you performed a tuneup on the garbage disposal in your kitchen sink? Like it or not, an e-bike bears a much closer technical resemblance to a washing machine than it does to a vehicle with an internal combustion engine. A Cushman or Taylor-Dunn electric truck that's driven daily around an industrial plant site often does exhibit reliability more characteristic of a washing machine than of a motor vehicle.
The keys to reliability in this case include constraining the vehicle's performance envelope (to simplify technical requirements), loading electrical and mechanical components at much less than their maximum ratings, and being more obsessed with things like permanent lubrication and high-cycle fatigue characteristics than with ride qualities or glamorous features.
So if you are happy to have an e-bike that weighs 100 pounds, tops out at 12mph, is tedious to repair or service, costs a few thousand dollars, handles like a loaded wheelbarrow, and looks like something a road crew would keep in the back of a utility truck, then you could almost certainly enjoy the sort of faultless reliability we're talking about. But it would still require substantial development to reach that level of reliability, so a lot of other folks would have to be willing to buy one just like it.
The more people bought one, the more resources could be spent on development. A possible result could be that some of the missing ingredients like performance, handling, ease of service, economy, comfort and appearance would be improved without harming reliability. That's how cars became so good, when they are not even obviously a good idea in principle. ("Hey guys, i have an idea! Let's put a couple of couches on a wagon, and make it roll itself down the road by burning a highly flammable and toxic liquid from a tank sitting behind the couches.")
E-bikers have a real advantage to their vehicle construction in that they start with a bicycle-- a machine that has been continuously refined and improved for more than a century and a half. It has already been made almost as perfect as it can be for its cost and other constraints. But optimizing the bicycle for an acceptable level of cost and efficiency has resulted in a certain tolerance of fragility and occasional repairs. Furthermore, electrifying the bicycle expands its duty envelope in terms of weight, speed, and loads on specific parts, with increased failures as a consequence. Then there is the matter of the e-bike's electrical system, which is the opposite of technically mature and worked out for its purpose.
At this stage of the e-bike game, high reliability is something you'll probably have to build in for yourself. Most people want an e-bike so cheap that it can't be made very reliable, and most of the rest want speed and thrills. But in this community of interest, there are many people working on details that add up to a more reliable state of the art. Some are improving wheels, some are working on motors, others on power electronics. They are fiddling with wire connectors and bearings and seals. It all converges on the same goal. This is slower than a crash development program, but it does not rely on having a single business interest sponsoring it. And these folks are sharing their information with each other, with us. So the state of the art will move forward even if there is little commercial support.
At the same time, there is a parallel process happening in China, where there is more commercial support, but less customer demand for performance, reliability, or quality. Their market will benefit from development done here, just as our scene benefits from technical breakthroughs within the Chinese market.
Chalo
. The only issues I face is me wanting to tweak things a bit and human error.
) CAN bew counter-balanced, I reckon, by the builder pulling apart the components before building the e-bike, and ensuring quality is "up to scratch", and ensure if not bullet-proof, at least within known parameters of reliability when the build is completed. (IE localised QC, and not relying on unknown levels of other peoples QC)
