Originally Posted by
veganbikes
Real data? You are giving anecdotal evidence as well! I don't own the shop but I have worked in shops for a while and seen a lot of different bikes come through over the year. Some people get lucky and don't have a lot of problems and some people also have loads of problems and don't notice or care enough to deal with them till it gets really bad. Whatever.
I realize my experience is anecdotal, hence the reason I asked for real data with numbers.
I realize that I am lucky to have two e-bike shops in Brooklyn that sell, service & repair these cheap e-bikes from China every single day; both seem to seem to have plenty of spare parts & experience to deal with most common (if not ALL) issues on these cheap e-bikes; more importantly, they are both within 3-4 miles from my location.
If these cheap e-bikes serves my riding purpose and I don't have to shell out $4-5K for a name brand e-bike that I have to transport to a park just to ride or transport to get services; they are well suited for my needs, along with hundreds if not thousands of delivery folks on e-bikes within the 5-boro.
I think those are real numbers to consider, but I haven't been able to find the real numbers like:
-How many cheap e-bikes vs name brand e-bikes are operating within the 5-boro?
-How many of them suffer electronic failures & how often?
-How frequent the maintenance are required for these e-bikes vs name brand?
-Do the name brand e-bike have usage similar to the cheap e-bikes such as daily operation in all weather?
To announce:
"Cheap ebikes are trouble. Period." without considering the real numbers, seems a bit premature.