Learning more about DIY ebike builders and ebike owners

Hey Guys,

As of now I am part of a team of students that wants to make the e-bike experience better. In order to get a better feel of the market, I am trying to conduct some zoom customer interviews in order to guage whether our target market would be responsive to a product we are trying to develop.

Furthermore I would also like to get a feel about what the current problems are - customizing e-bikes, build quality assurance, specific battery frame problems, etc. and also some of the alternatives they have thought about it.

So if you have ever had problems with building an ebike or are dissatsified with the ebike performance, we would like to hear from you.

In order to incentivize the same, I will be conducting a lucky draw prize of 50 CAD Amazon gift card to one of the participants of the zoom interviews. Not sure if this post belongs here (apologies if it doesn't) but if you would like to participate in zoom interviews or just have something to say about ebikes please dm or comment here !

A website where you can get a bit of idea and also register for an interview - https://voltiply.150startups.com/

Apologies if this breaks any rules or regulations.
Reply

Maybe here:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=5

Another option is to read the forum posts, since they provide a flavor of the challenges encountered.

The best thing for the e-bike market would be for all the marketing professionals to leave it alone. The good things about e-bikes are due to the work of users, makers, and engineers. Pretty much all the useless BS in the sector comes from hustlers and marketing wankers.

Bikes are for doing more with less. They're an anti-business business. Go waste your time on something else.

+1 :lol:

8 years ago I help this guy open up a pedego bike store two to three times a week someone come in from Eastern Europe and or Florida just to show off their electric bike line.there's so many inventors in the electric bike market-making all kinds of different things. lucky he never signed the contract to be an exclusive pedego bike dealer and he was able to sell all kinds of bikes and the pedego bikes too he finally stopped selling pedago and moved on to higher end bikes. Lots of people go broke trying to invent and sell electric bikes. It's like the restaurant business as far as failure rate. But this covid-19 shirts at the bike market all types of bikes on fire.

E-HP said:

Maybe here:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=5

Another option is to read the forum posts, since they provide a flavor of the challenges encountered.

Click to expand...

Pfffft!...research by reading actual forums that discuss the pros, cons, and otherwise? I see you'll never be a marketing guru...LOL! :lol:

What you stated is the first thing that came to my mind. These forums have about every conceivable angle of success, failure, heartbreak, and delight that you can think of...and some you didn't think of. If one doesn't get a feel for the weather as it relates to ebikes by reading at least 3 or so of the bigger ebike forums, I doubt you'll get a better picture from the smaller number that respond to the inquiry stated here.

TNC said:

E-HP said:

Maybe here:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=5

Another option is to read the forum posts, since they provide a flavor of the challenges encountered.

Click to expand...

Pfffft!...research by reading actual forums that discuss the pros, cons, and otherwise? I see you'll never be a marketing guru...LOL! :lol:

What you stated is the first thing that came to my mind. These forums have about every conceivable angle of success, failure, heartbreak, and delight that you can think of...and some you didn't think of. If one doesn't get a feel for the weather as it relates to ebikes by reading at least 3 or so of the bigger ebike forums, I doubt you'll get a better picture from the smaller number that respond to the inquiry stated here.

Click to expand...

I think the couple of places for the post are as I mentioned, or the help wanted section, since it's basically a $50 investment to gather information rather than having to read the forum, which cost more based on the time value of money.

Thank you for all the responses.

I feel that reading through the forum would definitely be an exercise that would solve some of my problems. But I feel that a problem is best checked and understood straight from the persons mouth. Besides the opportunity to gather extra details about the situation at the same time is something that is not met through old forum post where somethings can be interpreted way differently than what they were intended to and the original poster cannot clarify things.

As for people saying that this space isn't for marketers, I respect your sentiment. We are a student run initiative trying to bring the best quality build of ebikes to lesser experienced ebike makers and want to bring the eco-friendliness of ebikes to even more people - by making the building of an ebike simple enought that someone with little to no engineering experience could participate in it. I thin kthis is a great initiative that doesn't want to just leach of you guys and would benefit a lot from your experiences to build a product that future ebikers can enjoy.

Hopefully this clarifies my intentions and makes people more receptive to an interview

Enjoy the forums. There is a lot of good info here. Well worth the read.

nicobie said:

Enjoy the forums. There is a lot of good info here. Well worth the read.

Click to expand...

Reading the forums provides the absolute broadest perspective of this site's members and informmation. It doesn't take long to understand the perspectives. Members have different ebike expectations, and they show.

There's a trade off between gaining the broadest/balanced perspective (by reading) and the effort required (reading time). The trade off, if I understand the student project's business model, is to obtain as broad of a perspective possible for a $50 investment. Alternatives could be to divide up the reading between the student team, who of course opted to chip in $10 each.

The project, may or may not need to include the $50 data acquisition cost in their results, depending on what subject the class is for. They are leveraging technology, which may be considered as part of the business strategy, or extra credit.

The website is inconsistent with the "objective", showing an integrated Faraday-ish ebike, and stating the service is what appears to be consulting. To build, or buy? Picture suggests buy. Or maybe that's part of the decision making tree. They repeatedly use the word "build", but use "own" as well. Unclear.

The biggest problem with DIY is building a bike that looks nice, and that means how to find and mount a battery that doesn't look like a rear rack bag or like a wart on the frame. One can dress the wires/cables, but hard to hide a battery. For riding around home, which is a 25 mile ride at most, I've gone to using smaller battery packs.

I see the biggest problem with commercial ebikes is that they weigh 50 pounds and up. They use huge frames to integrate a 12aH battery. The cost is a separate issue.

If you really want to know DIY'ers and owners' perspectives, build one!! Build a mid-drive and a hub drive. Compare torque sensing with PAS. Look at controller options, etc. Nothing like street cred!!