Why build an electric bicycle?

You may be wondering why you should build your own bike when you can buy an electric bike or scooter at your Wal-Mart or Canadian Tire at a reasonable price. The main reason is that these bikes just suck. They are underpowered with small motors, low amperage controllers and weak batteries. This is fine if you just want to cruise slowly at 18 mph (30 km / h) on a flat road to the local corner store and back and don't mind pedaling up a hill, but I don't see them as a replacement for a car. You see them pedaling like crazy to go up a small hill or sometimes push them because their battery ran out. Traffic backs up behind them on narrow roads because they move so slowly and cars cannot pass them.

There are some companies that make very good high-quality electric bikes, but only if you're willing to spend up to $ 10,000 and most of them aren't quite as fast as a bike yet, it can be built for a fraction of the cost. If you are serious about replacing your car and cutting the umbilical cord to the oil companies you need to build the bike yourself, choose good quality components by hand and modify some parts to increase performance and reliability. In this way, you can build a bike that perfectly suits your specific needs and will last for many years.

You may be thinking why not just build an electric motorcycle instead of using a bicycle as a platform. Well, the bicycle has several advantages. In most places, you don't have to license or insure an electric bike, which can save you thousands of dollars a year alone. You can also ride an electric bike on designated bike paths and trails. On a motorcycle, you're bound to obey the same rules as a car, so you're stuck waiting in traffic with any other vehicle. A bicycle weighs much less than a motorcycle chassis, which means it will require less power to move it. This translates to a more efficient vehicle that can use a smaller (therefore, cheaper) battery to cover the same distance. A final advantage of a bicycle is that it can be locked in a bicycle rack instead of parked in a stall saving you even more money by not buying a parking pass. https://www.hotebike.com/