Sur-Ron, Quadix, Talaria, Zero, etc. have been around for quite a while. Recently, many more brands been coming up with such a size. None is new here.
I’m still not ready to buy an electric bike. I’ve thought about it if my wife ever showed interest in riding (I got my motorcycle license about 18 months ago and have a 400cc bike), but companies aren’t sticking around long enough to give me any confidence in the future for parts and maintenance. I also don’t have a great sense of what charging would be like where I live (rural northern Japan), but that seems like a more solvable problem and we mostly use bikes for errands that don’t fit walking/cycling and don’t require my bigger vehicle (kei car 660cc).
I took the plunge and got a cargo e-bike. Combined with rain proof cold weather gear, it is amazing. It was about 1,000 USD and has a range of about 30KM with no need for pedaling if I choose. I like riding my bike, so I do pedal, but it’s not necessary. It’s charged by my wall socket every 3 or 4 days or so. The cargo capacity is about 100kg, depending on how it’s loaded. I do have a car, but I don’t use it much anymore.
In Japan, that would be considered a motorcycle so anyone wanting one would need a license of at least however many kw the motor output is. I got pedal-assist bicycles for both my wife and I when we moved out to the country and, although they’re not cargo bikes, they are rated for enough weight to work in that regard to a degree. We just drop the batteries in the charger whenever we need. They’re legally capped at something like 12km/h (so the assist will cut off if you go faster than that; you can still ride faster if you pedal faster).
Yeah my pedal assist is capped at 32kph, but no motorcycle license is required here.
50cc (soon to include special 125cc) bikes are capped at 30 here, heh.
I don’t think this fits well here.
Regardless, what are normies going to do with a short range, dirt-focused, eMoto?
This wouldn’t even get me to work and back.
It’s made for the fun.
There’s so much power that you can (nearly) drive straight upwards, but you don’t care about the range because you fall off so soon :)
No, yeah, I get it as a dirt bike. I just mean that dirt bikes aren’t really micromobility. Lol
They’re powersports, ORVs, toys, etc.
