Countless companies and industries enjoy making up scary stories when it comes to justifying their opposition to making it easier to repair your own tech. Apple claims that empowering consumers and bolstering independent repair shops will turn states into “hacker meccas.” The car industry insists that making it easier and cheaper to repair modern cars will be a boon to sexual predators.
Almost got scammed by Rad Bikes this way. Battery mysteriously failed 10 months into their 1 year warranty. Rad Bikes accused me of sabotaging the battery and refused to honor their warranty, but “generously” offered me free shipping on a $300+ replacement battery. Turns out the off-the-rack fuse they use blew; identical down to the manufacturer to the ones used in cars. Replacement fuse was <20 cents and fixed the problem instantly.
What tripped the fuse, though?
Rad City support could not or would not explain how my battery might have stopped working, but would only say it was “not covered by warranty”. They could also not explain what sort of causes of battery failure were covered by their warranty. It was pretty clear they just didn’t want to cover the expense of honoring their warranty (the battery is probably one of the single most expensive parts on their bikes).
That’s pretty shitty. They’re probably talking internally about the fuse as if it’s some type of tamper seal. But fuses blow sometimes, they’re literally sacrificial. So somebody has told their support techs that anyone with that fuse blown has tampered with their battery and they’re just repeating that line to customers (some guilt of tampering, some innocent).
Or maybe you just got unlucky with a dumb support tech. If that’s widespread, they deserve to get sued.
Apparently some earlier models of their batteries had a user accessible hatch to change fuses, so I’m inclined to think they intentionally moved from a repairable to non-repairable model.
A blown fuse there is a pretty good indicator that the wrong kind of charger was used, which actually warrants a warranty loss.
Either that or a small power surge happened. Or the battery was defective. There are multiple things that could blow that fuse, and having a blanket “blown fuse = voided warranty” policy is stupid.
This may be a combo business problem where they don’t have enough technically qualified people to troubleshoot with you. It’s cheaper to pay minimum wage for someone to just do replacement customer service than it is to pay someone with more valuable knowledge and sit on the phone for an hour with you. I have a bad habit of just tearing things open now, assuming the company can’t help me. But it usually works out
Obviously sabotage.
He weaseled his way into the company and changed an engineers documents without them noticing, causing them to over rate the motor controller…
Or just an over current, which could be as simple as surge when connecting due to a discharged capacitor.
Not saying the question shouldn’t be asked, but replacing the fuse should be the first thing. If it blows again, you have a problem. If it’s fine, you probably had a bad fuse. It’s more if you bypass the fuse that you are asking for trouble.
Do you recall the specific fuse? There was someone asking about ebike battery fuses on [email protected] a while back. Wasn’t really sure what to tell them, but automotive fuses make sense.
On my RadCity 5 Plus, it was a 10 amp red mini-blade fuse. I had a “variety pack” in my car that I’d gotten at a local auto part store, but looked it up any way, just in case. This may be different on other models/batteries. Ironically, it did require a warranty voiding opening on the battery casing. :-)
Fwiw those “warranty void if opened” stickers are not legal
Fwiw, any statement like this is worth less than what you’d have to pay a lawyer…
Wait a minute, why did the fuse blow in the first place? This might be a safety issue and should be handled by the warranty.
There might be a reason. But if the reason really is a safety issue, then it would also blow the second fuse.
That is what fuses are made for.
That’s partly why I have a cheap chinese ebike (still wasn’t cheap, but nothing like some of the silly numbers some manufacturers are quoting). The parts are all cobbled together from other chinese manufactures and are pretty much standard. If it breaks, I replace a bit (they sell most of the parts on their website), or upgrade it, depending how I feel. Nothing proprietary there at all.
What bike do you have, if you don’t mind sharing?
It’s a Hitway bk11. One of the most popular on Amazon (well I think the bk6 is).
The display for example is an S866, which are cheap and all over ebay/amazon. Heck, I could even interface an esp32 in there if I can find some documentation for the ubuiquitous ‘communication protocol no.2’…
This, and the propensity for manufacturers to hyperfixate on trying to make everything proprietary, is why I will never buy a prebuilt e-bike. My bike is a converted regular bike, and if any component fails I can just rip it off and replace it with any of a variety of readily available yum-cha components. The prices a lot of manufacturers are asking for these pieces of shit are astronomical, too. If you’re not afraid to run a wire or two, you can build a more performant bike with bigger battery capacity for half the price or less.
The prices a lot of manufacturers are asking for these pieces of shit are astronomical
This is one of the reasons I haven’t bought an E-bike yet. You can buy a road-legal motorcycle for the price of some E-bikes. It’s just too much for what they are.
I mean sure, but at the low end of the market you can get a decent ebike with Shimano Altus shifters, disc brakes, etc for like ~$1000 which is basically getting a $700 regular bike + $300 for the ebike components.
Right, you’re better off building your own.
I got one for ~$700 with that (though Tourney, not Altus). The tradeoff however was power (it’s 250w) and size (plus build quality, probably… also, no suspension or ignition) but it does work. I’ve tried an XP 2.0 so I do have some frame of reference, it still works for me.
I wonder if I’d like an even smaller bike (currently already 20" wheels, somewhat short wheelbase, 45lbs), though I might just want a lighter bike (which would cost more). Well I would wonder, but from what I’ve seen I’d need to buy something used (and it’s more of a UK thing) to get a small (non-electric) bike for under $700. Sometimes just the frames for those cost over that. Also, searching for this size of bike is difficult (results give small motorized things (even w/bicycle), bike models, clown bikes (no gears)).
Even a cheap car in my country. The car might actually cost less
Ar one time that was true here, but anymore used cars have become as expensive as a new car.
I bought and sold my kawasaki ZR7 for around ~3k, half of what even some of the cheapest road legal E-Bike costs, more like a third of the price if you look at average.
I bought and sold my kawasaki ZR7 for around ~3k, half of what even some of the cheapest road legal E-Bike costs, more like a third of the price if you look at average.
The inclusion of “even some of the cheapest” here confuses me. And the idea that 3k is a third of the AVERAGE price?
Some of the cheapest from specific brands, maybe. A Trek eBike will put you out a significant chunk of cash, sure.
But the cheapest eBikes are not $6k, and the average eBike is not $9k.
My Aventon Level.2, a class 3 eBike which will pedal assist up to 28mph/45kph and which I regularly ride on roads, was a little under $1800. Plus $40ish dollars for the oval 52T chainring so I can actually sustain that 28mph. And Aventons are sort of middle-of-the-road, price-wise. Not cheap, not excessively expensive.
I think it’s the terminology. I was referring to an EMotorcycle, something that is street legal on every motorway, including highways. Those tend to range between 10-25k, there are cheaper models for like 5-6k, but most don’t have the best reviews.
Ah, gotcha.
Someone else pointed out how if your looking for a pedal bike type setup, you can buy conversion kits for $200-400 on Amazon or Ali if you have an extra bike laying around. Kits have all sorts of different setups, you can convert to assist, or even full electric.
I might do that, I would use my bike more if I didn’t have to exert so much energy to get anywhere worth going. Will also be a much easier sell to my wife🤣
I hadn’t considered something like this until after I already had my ebike. My “acoustic” bike hangs forlornly in my garage now.
Yum-cha?
Lifted and corrupted from Chinese, broadly: commodity made-in-China parts, gadgets, or other tat that’s all largely interchangeable and cheap. Brandless or with a functionally meaningless non-brand label. The type of stuff you used to get from Chinatown, but these days you’re more likely to get from Amazon, eBay, or Aliexpress.
(“Yum cha” could be less idiomatically translated from Cantonese as “drink tea,” more broadly to “go to the dim sum place,” or later even more broadly than that, “straight from Chinatown.”)
Given that I understand yum Cha in a different context (drinking tea), isn’t using this phrase to describe shitty Chinese parts a little… racist? Or at least, some form of cultural appropriation (I can’t think of a better phrase to us right now).
Well, is it more or less racist than just calling them shitty and Chinese? Or shitty because they’re Chinese?
I dunno. It’s been in at least semi-common use since the early '90’s as far as I can tell.
Well, I was curious too, don’t have an answer for you. I just feel a little uncomfortable with a phrase that I know (and have used when speaking to Cantonese people) being used in a negative fashion for a completely different thing. But maybe it’s just a cultural clash, so I wanted to clarify.
I have a bike laying around and a bunch of tools I inherited and rarely use… have a guide or a place to start? I have always been interested and am not afraid to rework something a dozen times or order stuff straight from a mandarin only supplier on Alibaba or the like, I just never really knew where to start.
What I did was get a full rear wheel conversion kit, which comes with the motor speed controller, throttle control, most of them come with some kind of pedal assist sensors, and obviously the hub motor and rear wheel assembly. I already had a bicycle lying around. These are almost always bring-your-own battery affairs. Everything else in the kit just plugs together, and you get to decide where to route the wires down your bike frame. Maybe bring some zip ties. E-bike battery kits are readily available on Amazon or eBay, or you can have a go at making your own battery pack out of bare cells. I was lazy, so I got a premade battery pack. The only real DIY aspects I had to deal with was mating the battery pack connector to the power input on the motor speed controller box, which required some soldering (or you could use crimp connectors, I guess) and also figuring out where to mount the battery pack and motor controller to the frame of the bike.
I also decided to make my life difficult by wiring alongside this an entire secondary 12 volt system to run brake and tail lights, turn signals, a headlight, and a horn from a car (!) because if anyone runs me over they’ll have no excuses. But you could easily omit all of that nonsense and deal with a lot fewer wires in your life.
I bought all of my conversion parts from Amazon. My buying strategy was just to look for stuff that had non-shill looking reviews.
Oh, that makes it real easy! What do the conversion kits cost? Other than installing and fitting, did you have to do a lot of tinkering, or was it basically out the box to go (-battery)?
In my case it was all plug and go, aside from fiddling around finding the best wire routing strategy.
The exact kit I got was this one, which appears discontinued but there are oodles just like it. It’s around $250. The battery was this one, and again you can find tons that are identical and probably stamped out in the same factory. It was around $270.
Ooh, I found basically the same thing for like $180 on Ali! There are cheaper ones, but they look iffy. You can some real interesting kits for $300 lol.
A hacker mecca sounds great!
Yeah, what’s the problem, Apple? Afraid of fostering a little innovation?
The fucking irony of Apple saying that when they literally arose as a company from a hacker mecca. Woz and Jobs were hanging with Cap’n Crunch and got the seed money for Apple helping him run a phone hacking business.
But jobs is dead and Woz was chased out and still an absolute maniac in the best ways possible. It’s not their Apple.
The car industry insists that making it easier and cheaper to repair modern cars will be a boon to sexual predators.
“I just fixed my own car, now I’m off to go rape someone.”
Chicks dig aftermarket accessories?
Let’s counter that with Prius. Featuring built-in virginity protector.
I’ve never thought about it this way before. This must be why some places refuse to invest in public transport. Just imagine the consequences if they didn’t even need to fix their cars at all
[…] Apple claims that empowering consumers and bolstering independent repair shops will turn states into “hacker meccas.”
What does that even mean?
The car industry insists that making it easier and cheaper to repair modern cars […]
Afraid of someone doing a better job than your own service?
[…] will be a boon to sexual predators.
What?
All of that is explained if you just read the multiple very biased articles.
Hint: the right to repair people go way out of their way to stretch the truth for sensationalism and clicks, same as every other “news” site nowadays.
This is the dumbest statement I’ve read today.
lol you guys are hilarious.
I’m pro right to repair, but wtf does that have to do with the fact that website is indeed extremely biased towards the right. It’s no different than any other lobby group. They are going to cherry pick to make their side look better.
I don’t think I ever before this comment stated which side I was on, but I don’t blame y’all for getting emotional over something so important.
Well, you claiming the “the right to repair people go way out of their way to stretch the truth for sensationalism and clicks” certainly painted a picture of you.
But since you are one of those “right to repair people”, your comments are also made by “stretching the truth for sensationalism and clicks”?
I only ever claimed that about the website my dude, and I stand by that. It’s run by some sort of industry group the Copia institute, and they specifically lobby for smaller technology companies. This is literally what they do, they are by the very nature of the thing biased towards the right to repair and lots of other tech friendly laws. I reiterate, I’m all for that, but again, why does that mean I need to instantly throw away logic and reasoning to be blind to their biases?
This is what they literally are. They try to scare small businesses into giving them money for services.
Policy 911 Startups, entrepreneurs and hackers devote pretty much all of their attention to actual innovation. Things like policy often take a backseat — for a good reason. Policy tends to be slow, unpredictable, laborious and, most importantly, not innovative at all. No one should want or expect startups to be focused on policy. Copia understands that, while also understanding that policy and policymakers are often important to startups, which is why we offer our Policy 911 service: a drop-in policy task force for startups in need. Worried about the impact of a new law? Wondering how policymakers will respond to a new service? Struggling with the differences between European and US law? Copia will put together a team of innovators to help you deal with the issue without having to build your own policy staff. Get an analysis of how policymakers might respond to your new offerings, and figure out how to best position them to avoid setting off a regulatory firestorm.
And on top of that, it’s also pay to play:
Joining Copia We cannot do this alone. We need your help. To continue what we’re doing, we need support from the wider innovation community — and that needs to go beyond the largest players, who have their own agendas. And we’re not just asking for donations: we’re offering the ability to sponsor both Copia events and the widely recognized and read Techdirt blog, letting you broadcast to the world that you support an open internet, greater security, and policies that make the internet better for the public. Check out our sponsorship tiers below, and contact us at [email protected] for more information.
$5,000 Startup Package (For companies under 100 employees.) Get your name listed on Copia and on Techdirt pages as a startup sponsor for one year. Two tickets to Copia Summit. $10,000 Bronze Package Listed on Copia and on Techdirt pages as a Bronze sponsor for one year. Five tickets to Copia Summit. $25,000 Silver Package Listed as a Silver Sponsor on Copia and Techdirt (mid-sized logo). 10 tickets to Copia Summit. Sole sponsor of an expert lunch discussion on a topic of mutual choosing. Have someone on the Copia Summit planning committee. $50,000 Gold Package Listed as a Gold Sponsor on Copia and Techdirt (larger logo). Unlimited tickets to Copia Summit. Sole sponsor of on expert lunch discussion and one dinner salon on a topic of mutual choosing. Join the Copia Summit planning committee. Get one sponsored post (our content, tied to a particular topic of mutual choosing and sponsored by you) on Techdirt per month. $100,000 Platinum Package Top sponsorship logo on Copia and Techdirt. Unlimited tickets to Copia Summit. Join the Copia Summit planning committee. Sole sponsor of one expert lunch discussion per quarter and two dinner salons. Get two “sponsored posts” on Techdirt per month.
Can you explain your point of view?
Biased as I am, as I live in a country where the right to repair is by default granted, discussion ofwhat someone can or cannot do to what is rightfully theirs is… nonsensical.
Even before Apple allowed for third party repairs, here there were shops replacing iPhone batteries, screens, etc, because we can. We paid for it, that’s it.
But the right to repair a vehicle? And the argument against involving children? What sort of reasoning is supporting that claim?
How much were you paid to say that? And don’t bother with the lie that it was “nothing”. No sane person actually believes anything these corps have to say.
The car EV market is standardizing to NACS connector. Any car with that connector (and those with adapters) can charge. There should be no incompatibility. The e-bike industry needs to follow suit, but take that one step further. Standardize on the battery connector, the chargers, and also on the batteries themselves (kind of like how we have size AA and AAA and C and D).
All these manufacturers complain that the reason bikes are still expensive is because of the batteries. Well nothing will drive down the cost more than one standard type of cell and only a handful of different sizes. Only one type of connector and every charger should be the same.
Well nothing will drive down the cost more than one standard type of cell and only a handful of different sizes.
That assumes that the manufacturers want to bring down prices. If they all keep using proprietary batteries they can use that as an excuse to keep prices high without looking greedy.
Sure, if they want the wraith of the EU on them.
The EU has a tendency to intervene when a market is unable to regulate itself.
This is a purchased item by bike makers. If the prices for the batteries goes down, it saves them money as well. This is why industry tends to jump onto standards because it is better for everyone (USB, NACS, various ANSI, ISO and IEEE standards). Quality (and safety) can go up, prices can go down, and availability of parts increases.
