The Future of E-Bikes
As an ex-programmer, now bicycle mechanic working mostly on e-bikes I&#x27;d like to add a few things:<p>People love ebikes not because of barely having to pedal, but because they can reach places with the bicycles that are out of their reach with a regular bike. It can be long weekend rides for some, but it can also be living&#x2F;working on a hill. It&#x27;s like owning a horse in olden times when all you had before were your own two legs.<p>No idea what the author means with &quot;lacking a Toyota Corolla equivalent&quot;. (E-)Bikes come in wide range of price and range, often from the same manufacturer. It&#x27;s the components that dictate the final price, barely the frame, motor or battery where less choice exists than with the other components.<p>Drive by wire will be exotic for a long time, I can see it taking over certain niches like recumbent bike where you have an extremely long drive train. Everybody else will run on cheap mechanical drive trains for a long time to come.<p>Never ever will we see electronic or even wireless braking, it&#x27;s just madness and illegal everywhere. We will though see ABS from Bosch soon, not sure if that&#x27;s such a good idea or even necessary at the low speeds of a &lt;20mph ebike.<p>&gt;&gt; Most bikes are sold as toys or as overcomplicated hobbyist contraptions.<p>This is probably the US-centric view, but with a certain threshold of cyclists the wide middle of bike sales is practical bikes for short rides in the city with a hub dynamo a basket or rack for you shopping. Certainly not toys or sporty bikes.<p>The author shortly mentions removing batteries as optional, I must insist that removing and replacing a battery is a must-have to ensure the bike to be usable for a long time as many decent bikes do get ridden for 10, 20 or even 30 years.