Here's my take: you don't really own something if you can't repair it. Manufacturers prefer you don't really own their products: they own it, they service it, you use it, and they charge you for the "experience." It's created a throwaway culture that's an environmental disaster. We need to figure out how to right this course.
When people learned "recurring revenue" gets valued at, say, 10x revenue and "non-recurring revenue" gets valued at, say, 1x revenue, everyone decided to make their business look like it's recurring
If they don't, some PE will buy it and do it for them
I noticed that I've been experiencing a visceral backlash against this. There was a video talking about new woodworking products and almost every one had a recurring cost and they talked up how many patents they had. My first reaction was "I'm never buying this because I refuse to get locked into your ecosystem, and there'll be no supplier for these materials once you fold."
Well, they've made their "you don't own it" at least transparent by only ever selling you a license. This in itself is problematic-ish but still not as underhanded as physical products that you fully own.
They don't make it that transparent. They'll say "read the terms of service, you're only getting a license!" but UIs are plastered with the words "buy", "purchase", etc underneath the title of a movie just as they would be for a physical copy.
Ask anyone off the street what they're buying when they click that button and they'll say "a movie", not "a license to stream a digital copy of this movie for as long as they let me".
>but UIs are plastered with the words "buy", "purchase", etc underneath the title of a movie just as they would be for a physical copy.
1. This argument could have worked if digital stores were a new thing, but at this point everybody knows that when you "buy"/"purchase" something digitally, you're not afforded the same rights as buying a physical object. Therefore the argument that consumers are somehow being deceived doesn't really hold water.
2. What about other stuff you "buy" that you can't transfer? I'm pretty sure you can't transfer air fares or a costco membership, but I don't see people complaining that airlines or costco that they're somehow misleading consumers by their choice of verbs.
> but at this point everybody knows that when you "buy"/"purchase" something digitally, you're not afforded the same rights as buying a physical object.
I do not think that is the case. I do not believe that even a majority of people know that. I also think that it comes across as ignorant to generalize like this.
Everyone is distinct and like everything else, their knowledge will differ between them. If someone does not work in the tech industry, they most likely would not be aware of subtle differences in rules surrounding Intellectual Property especially as it intersects with digital vs physical goods. It simply does not matter to most people until it does.
Right to repair has become an issue, not because it is morally wrong or anything, but because farmers were seeing the difference not only in their bank accounts, but also in their crop yields because they were not able to simply repair a tractor and instead had to arrange for repairs which could include shipping the tractor somewhere which is expensive.
Similar issues have cropped up around not being able to have your car repaired unless you go to a specific repair shop and pay exorbitant prices for the repair.
Also, similar issues were cropping up around phone repairs specifically having the screen or battery replaced which are very common repairs.
None of these industries have tried to make it easier to repair their products. Nor have they tried to make replacement parts more readily available. Nor did they try to notify their customer base about it before the purchase. These are things that unless you have read their terms of service (with these concerns in mind) you would likely not know about them until you were trying to have the repair done.
Having people do things for you has become very expensive. I bought tires for my truck last year and had some other service done at the same time. Cost a bloody nickle and dime fortune. The tech forgot to secure a strut mount and they failed to sell me new tpms monitors that you must replace to get new valve stems. Never again.
It's plain to me why people are buying tire mounting equipment from harbor freight now.
I can justify a $600 wall mount strut compressor now.
Been watching engine teardowns to catch up on automotive tech (haven't been paying attention for about ten years). OMG...you would not believe how complex this shit is now. Ford is shipping engines in the F-150 that have a wet oil pump drive belt. It starts coming apart before 100k. It takes at least $2000 in labor just to get to it. Auto shops charge about the same rates per hour as my senior developer contracting firm.
Their priorities are MPG, power, with the least amount of weight possible and they are really pushing the engineering to get there. No one is going to replace that oil pump belt before it fails and takes the engine with it.
Saw a teardown of the Nissan Titan engine. Jaw dropping reliability where engineers were clearly in charge of the design. They are dropping the truck line after this year. It can't compete with Ford's MPG+power. Chevy is following Ford fast and Stellantis is dropping ICE (expect to see this reversed with Ford leading everyone to hybrid). The electric trucks are not going to make the cut (too heavy and the charging infra is a joke). Tesla Cybertruck is dead on delivery as are the F-150 Lightnings. At best they are personal vehicles for commuting.
Today's auto mechanics are no longer the high-school drop-outs turning a wrench. They're mechanical engineering graduates. They typically know software and hardware.
This is also how you know we're at the end days for ICE vehicles. They're too complex and yet are only 25% as efficient as an EV vehicle. When people start getting the bill for today's vehicles they're going to consider an EV.
People all worried about a $10K battery replacement. Pffft! It doesn't take too many trips to the shop these days to hit that kind of money! Heck, I was recently watching on Engineering Explained where a brake job on a Porsche, now granted that's a higher-end car, but still, it was $2,500. For a brake job! I bought a 2003 Lexus LS430 a few years back (steal deal!) but one of the drawbacks is it's the V8 and changing the starter is $1,500 because they have to drop the engine.
I figure getting a new battery is akin to getting a new engine and $10,000 starts looking like it's really not a bad deal...
Reminds me of my own SAAB story. My first car was a used SAAB 900S, which I bought from a dealer. Luckily, I had also purchased a warranty.
SAABs had a quirky design where the ignition was set in the space between the front seats, on the floor. The ring gear in the starter motor got stripped, and they had to drop the transmission to get to it. That was a $9000 repair in the late 80s. I only had to pay the deductible, which was $100.
I did a $5000 brake job on a range Rover in 2000. The way people let things go I can easily see $2000 going up in smoke with one visit to the shop. EVs are not going to work out unless we double battery capacity and half the weight and charge times.
They will definitely work out when even a minor engine failure on the average new ICE car being sold in 2033 costs over $10k to repair and even the cheapest garages are billing $300 per hour to work on such complicated machinery.
Which seems to be the trajectory every automaker is going down to meet fuel mileage requirements.
>I do not think that is the case. I do not believe that even a majority of people know that. I also think that it comes across as ignorant to generalize like this.
And I think it's pretty patronizing to think that people are too dumb to realize that their digital products are not transferable. Even kids realize their fortnite skins aren't transferable, or that they can't "lend" their friend their copy of minecraft (without sharing the account).
>Also, similar issues were cropping up around phone repairs specifically having the screen or battery replaced which are very common repairs.
>None of these industries have tried to make it easier to repair their products. Nor have they tried to make replacement parts more readily available. Nor did they try to notify their customer base about it before the purchase. These are things that unless you have read their terms of service (with these concerns in mind) you would likely not know about them until you were trying to have the repair done.
I think this example is illustrative how people know but don't care. Hard to repair phones have been around for a almost decade now? Based on a quick search, Samsung Galaxy S5 (released early 2014) was the first phone from Samsung that had non user serviceable batteries. iPhones had non-user replaceable batteries for years prior. Unless you've never had to repair your phones before, and you've never heard of your friends/collegues replacing their phone, I think it's very unlikely that "you would likely not know about them until you were trying to have the repair done". There are still phones with replaceable batteries today, but they're relegated to niche status. What does this tell us? I say it's that most consumers give repairability lip service. They might be in favor of it in the abstract, but will cave the moment there's any trade-off involved, like waterproofing, thickness, or pricing.
You litterally don't own movies or books. You might own a physical (or sometimes digital) copy, but the work itself is not yours and you cannot legally redistribute new copies of it.
The concept makes some sense for many forms of media, but what's scares me is how it has spilled into traditional, physical goods.
I like this train of thought but at the same time, my understanding is that technology has always tended toward more complex and harder to repair. Like a modern smartphone for example has way more technology jammed into it than a 1920s factory floor does.
True right to repair must put some downward pressure on technological advancement, and of course even “reparability” is a very loose term that can point to any location along the spectrum of “can open the enclosure” to “can modify the CPU directly.”
Curious if you have any good model for how to think about the trade offs here?
I think there's a difference between not having the skills to repair it and being prevented by some arbitrary barrier put up by the manufacturer. I can't repair my car's engine, but that's just because it's complicated and I don't have the skills. That's different than if the car manufacturer requires that a code that only licensed repair shops have must be entered into the car's software, otherwise when I open the engine casing (I don't know if that's actually a thing, but substitute real car repair words as you please) the car stops working.
A standard that says you can make products as complex as you want, but you can't do things specifically intended for the sole purpose of blocking repairs seems fine to me.
> I think there's a difference between not having the skills to repair it and being prevented by some arbitrary barrier put up by the manufacturer.
I'd go a step further and state that repairability is a design trait. The amount of skill you need to repair a product is the output of a design requirement. Case in point: only a few of us have woodworking skills, but every single one of us can easily put together a Ikea table, because that was Ikea's design goal.
The only reason any ebike might be hard to repair is if the company that designed it wanted the bike to be hard to repair. Simple as that.
This is similar to what Bob Martin (Uncle Bob) has said about software testing - something that is hard to test is badly designed. In this case something that is hard to repair is badly designed. As you point out, you have to design for repairability, it doesn't just happen.
I’m not sure it’s “bad” so much as it’s a dark design pattern.
Apple loves that they can sell apple care plans and encourage consumers back into apple stores when their by design not durable phones get damaged.
But this is basically the industry's line. That skill and the right tools are required, otherwise a substandard repair is performed. And for some products that is dangerous.
And the industry will simultaneously complain that it would be too burdensome to make tools and documentation available so someone with the right skills can do it properly.
To that I say the burden of proof is on them to prove significant danger to the public.
Automobiles are probably the most dangerous product ever produced by mankind. We have a whole century behind us during which people were allowed to repair their automobiles. Independent mechanics are still commonplace today and many non-professionals still choose to repair their own vehicles.
That sets a precident. Manufacturers should at least have to prove that indpendent repairs of their product represent a more significant threat than independent automobile repair. Otherwise, their arguments about safety should be dismissed.
My take is that the tools should be available and the product not locked down such that only 1 blessed supplier or repair place can service.
So long as competitors can arise in the repair space beyond the manufacturer, then there’s a sliver of hope that pressures against monopoly repair.
This only induces product design that is remotely repairable, vs always discard, at high enough price points that refurbished or secondary market can command value.
I struggle to see how lower priced items could have “be repairable” as some enforceable tenant absent a standards group which always trend toward incumbents and reduced innovation.
I watched an interesting YouTube short last night from a guy who replaced an iPhone 14 back glass, but after doing so was no longer about to take photos with flash.
He was able to determine that the problem was because he didn't take off the wireless charging coil and put it on the new replacement glass. He did so, and no longer had any issues.
Companies have become (possibly have always been) hostile to the end user. There is no reason an exact same part should cause malfunction. Specifically if it's an OEM part. Apple is notorious for serializing parts and locking them to a particular device. Their reasoning isn't terrible: security reasons. But the WIRELESS CHARGING COIL?! If that has any security level ramifications, it's at government level espionage. By which point, they already had your device to replace the part. And it should have long since been considered compromised.
I believe you are conflating "things should be simple enough for your average consumer to fix" with "I should be able to have a professional who knows what they are doing replace a part", and not have to pay an arm and a leg to have a manufacturer send out that professional. See many of the horror stories of John Deere.
Louis Rossman is an excellent example of a professional I'm referring to. The man can seemingly work miracles. Apple seriously does not want him to. They fight him tooth and nail to make it hard for him to fix Apple devices.
Apple does care about government espionage, especially for journalists, human rights activists. But if a government can hack a device, so can criminals or people trying to make a quick buck by 'refurbishing' the phones with fake parts.
I can't take anything Rossman says serious since his 'miracles' can't be performed at scale. Apple doesn't fight him, they simply have different priorities.
If you have lost physical control of your device long enough for hardware to be replaced, you should consider it compromised and untrustworthy if you are working at that level of attack risk.
And they absolutely could be done at scale. If more people were in the field and had the know how, it could absolutely be done at scale. In many of his video he remarks that it's difficult for him because he can't source parts, because Apple refuses to sell them to him. He has to go to eBay to buy parts for many devices he fixes.
> True right to repair must put some downward pressure on technological advancement
I don't agree. True right to repair means that there are no intentional barriers to you repairing things. Complexity isn't such a barrier. When new tech requires new skills to repair, it is still possible for people to learn those skills.
Smartphones are a good example of this. There's nothing inherent in a smartphone that prevents home repair -- it just takes a different set of skills to do. What prevents home repair are intentional barriers such as digital signing of components, abusing the DMCA, making custom components unavailable, and so forth.
I'm okay with cryptographic requirements as long as it's a potential vector for an attacker.
What do you think about things like the use of glue? It makes things harder to repair, but certainly not impossible. And a well glued device can feel better in the hand than one that flexes and creaks and is almost certainly easier to manufacture.
I'm more bothered by things like solid state storage being soldered to the motherboard. That's a component that will fail eventually. Usually long before the device isn't useful.
Also, short OS support cycles need to be ended. Any device that connects to anything else should require a ten year security update cycle. If the manufacturer does not or cannot fix the device in that window, retailers should be forced to accept returns for 100% refunds.
> I'm okay with cryptographic requirements as long as it's a potential vector for an attacker.
Yeah, I'm not. I don't for a moment believe that it was implemented to prevent this, considering that it's an attack vector that is incredibly rare. It was implemented to prevent anyone but Apple from repairing things. The cost/benefit ratio of this is extremely unfavorable.
The glue thing is problematic to me, but for environmental reasons rather than reparability reasons. It does make fixing things more of a pain, but it doesn't prevent fixing things.
Solid state storage (as well as other things, such as soldering in batteries and such) being soldered onto the mainboard is similar. It doesn't prevent replacing those components, but it does make it more of a hassle. I think that it would be better to make consumables in a device so that end-users can easily replace them without electronics skills would be ideal, and I do hope the industry finds a way back to when that was standard. But, strictly speaking, that speaks to convenience of maintenance, not the ability to perform maintenance.
In the automotive world it is not that simple. Ford has been building increasingly complex engines to reach design goals related to power output, mpg, and weight. Those have nothing to do with serviceability which has suffered tremendously. The cost to service has gone through the roof. On top of that they require more frequent general servicing or they literally blow up. The net yield is going to be engines failing or vehicles discarded earlier.
The reason they are doing this extreme engineering is to prepare for the hybrid fleet. I don't think it's going to move needle at all for climate change (a lot of the development is gov funded). They are engineering extremely complex gas engines and aluminum bodies to save weight for the batteries. Lots of throw-away stuff is showing up to the party.
No one is going to be hanging out with friends and drinking beers when they try to replace the timing chain on these trucks/cars. The job is ridiculously complex and fraught with pitfalls and gotchas. Dealers and independents are getting software dev hourly rates now.
There is a difference between building something easily repairable and actively preventing it from being repaired by not offering parts and serializing components just because.
I am replace the angle lid sensor on my Mac. But then the angle doesn't work simply because Apple says no.
>>you don't really own something if you can't repair it.
Exactly! (add to that, "sell it")
EBikes seem like a very ripe opportunity for open source solutions that could be even better than many packaged products (most of which seem to me to be insanely mass-heavy; a bicycle should be lightweight).
All that's really needed is a battery, motor, controller, and mounting for each. The control scheme could be anything from a simple throttle to tracking pedal pressure.
Indeed, a quick search turned up two OS efforts [0] and [1], and it seems there should be many more — maybe others can post any they know about so as to build a list resource here?
> Here's my take: you don't really own something if you can't repair it
What if the bottleneck is the "owner's" repair skills? See cars.
I wonder if this might be closer to what you mean "You dont really own something if it's not repairable." Of course, "repairable" has a lot of gray area but that's a separate issue.
I think the ability to take it to an independent repair facility almost as important as being able to repair something with your own hands.
Sometimes there are specially pieces of equipment required in order to service something. Not to be confused with deliberate sabotage by a manufacturer hiding reset functionality behind undocumented interfaces, cables and unbelievably expensive software.
1) Good design can - to a certain degree - allow most people to replace parts. E.g. headlight bulbs or modules, which are held in place by 0-3 screws and a simple electrical connection. Similar things with door seals or floor mats. Many parts can be made repairable by low-skill users if they are just accessible and not glued in. Unfortunately many designs work against that, perhaps on purpose. This is also a massive accessibility issue for disabled and elderly people. Think lower grip strength.
2) Anti-repair design stops people from developing skills in the first place, similar to how kids who grow up on fixed-software devices often cannot hack the devices to develop technical understanding.
I think it's a matter of substituting "you" with "any person competent with the necessary non-specialized tooling", where competent means "able to follow a service manual", and obviously "non-specialized" excludes expensive brand-specific one-off tools.
Cars are a mixed bag, because on one hand you have OBD2 and lots of parts can be easily ordered, and on the other hand you have un-obtainable parts, manufacturer-specific code and special tooling (even when there is no business putting custom stuff). And they are also becoming less repairable and have a lot of mechanic-hostile design (it's a meme in the industry).
I have some insight in that because I have actually started repairing cars as a hobby, including non-trivial stuff.
I think "can" is being used in the sense of "may". "You don't own something if you may not repair it". I don't possess the skills to work on my house's circuit box, but the only thing stopping me from trying is that knowledge.
Not even the homeowner? I can understand requiring a certification to do paid electrician work, but it seems a bit unreasonable to say you can't do work on your own home.
There are limits to what a homeowner can do without having their work signed off. For example adding a whole new circuit to their fuse box wouldn't be allowed. However, it is possible to have your work signed off by the building regulations authority. Even a full rewire could be done this way, obviously it needs to be compliant to be signed off though.
State-scale purchasing could be a huge leverage to keep manufacturers on message.
.gov to Apple: "We expect a full public service manual repo and parts ordering service, and until one appears, not one government employee gets an iPhone provisioned."
A particularly recalctriant Apple could say "Here's the iPhone 18G with repair specs but other intentional degradations". It would be fun watching the government respond to someone responding to their orders with the equivalent of a "kick me" sign, and then watching as real consumers go up and ask for the 18G because they're more interested in being able to fix the damned thing cheaply and easily than four more frames per second in Genshin Impact.
This is just about the laziest unimaginative solution. What drove you to this solution? Do you have such low interest or investment in the problem so you would prefer some larger entity like the government just hand wave away this problem?
With how many examples exist of the government getting involved at levels of industry they clearly don’t have the expertise for and how everything gets batshit expensive when they get involved or how many examples you can draw from communist countries, a normal person would get the hint that this kind of blanket regulation is toxic and evil and would stop being proposed as solutions.
What are you talking about? This whole thread is discussing how private enterprise is failing consumers. Meanwhile, countless examples exist of government-run entities and non-profits that are well-liked and less expensive for consumers.
I don't think a large-scale repair entity created by the government is the answer to this problem, but it's clear you have a bias towards business, and in the repair industry, business is the problem and we need a government solution. I don't understand why anyone ever has your attitude. Any organization can be run poorly and its leaders susceptible to corruption, whether that be a government one or a private entity. You have to understand the problem to offer solutions and in many cases, a profit motive simply does not provide the best outcome for consumers.
That's why they don't get involved in the industry, they get involved in something they do understand, administration. If you offer a product that you claim is too complex for anyone but you to service that's fine, we believe you. We won't tell you how to build your product, but in exchange that means your product is legally designated a subscription service with an initial deposit for the cost of the appliance.
And so to make it so your products don't all go to the landfill when they break each product requires a state-administered/regulated subscription service which is charged based on some fixed percent overhead and the rest going directly to the cost of repairs. And every repair except intentional destruction is included in the price.
This isn't making things more expensive, it's effectively a transparency law so that consumers understand the real cost of the goods they're buying and manufacturers can't hide it behind expensive repair bills.
This would require dismantling a large part of capitalism itself. Since this approach makes more money, it's always going to be preferable to businesses, and notably, shareholders, which almost all large businesses are beholden to.
>Here's my take: you don't really own something if you can't repair it.
I agree, however ; e-bikes ARE different from BIKES.
I have been a daily biker for decades. (I literally just rode 5 miles ten minutes ago) - I have worked in bike shops, my first design in Autocad Class in 1990 was a bike, I just sold my original 1986 Gary Fisher (the inventor of mtn bikes)(controversial) -- blah blah, so I have SOME bike cred..
-
I have a current e-bike that is a modern awesome thing, and I love everything about it.
An Orbea Rise H30 - I love it, but it has flaws, and ALL ebikes have THE SAME FLAW.
==
THEY REQUIRE A POWER GRID TO EXIST
==
THEY REQUIRE A BATTERY RELIANT ON A GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN
THEY DO NOT PROVIDE A MECHANISM FOR LONG HAUL CHARGING (hauling a solar panel capable trailer/pannier/whatever that can adequately recharge off-grid, such as in the Yukon)
THEY CANNOT BE SUBMERGED IN WATER
THEY REQUIRE A POWERBRICK THE SIZE OF YOUR FANNY PACK
THEY HAVE A FLIMSY 'SEAL' TO COVER THE POWER PORT - if that breaks off (twig, brick, tree or foot) - your F'd SEE: SUBMERSION.
THEIR SUPPLY CHAINS ARE FAR MORE COMPLEX
THE MOTORS ARE FROM ALL OVER THE PLACE - AND QUESTIONABLE MFRs
DEALER RELATIONSHIPS SUCK (orbea and mikes bikes parted ways, santa cruz and others are bidding btwn various bike vendors, and a bunch of other financial complexities in the bike industry -
mikes started out in marin area as a "youre local bike buddy" and now they are fuly in the MBA corporate quagmire of catering to their market balanced by their own economics...
Vendor hostility and preferential treatments abound (just like any industry)
But the majority of bike frames come from Taiwan, and the high end components are from majorly Japan, Italy, France, Germany, CHINA - and I would put US at same level technically, but a tier 2 on prestige.
(I have had people ask me if the e-bike motor was from china, and if so - no-buy. They only want Japanese (shimano) or German (bosch) -- no random china...
But what I find odd, is not the motor - but the battery...
THE BATTERY INDUSTRY IS THE PROBLEM
(A, AA, AAA, C, D (why no B) -- (the battery industry is the biggest threat to global anything)
Where the heck am I to get a battery for an ebick thats custom molded to my stem in my 100 year old bike?
But can I pedal my stupid legs through the ruins of MIT on a bike I made from BAMBOO? Yep... Build me a battery from the rubble of your lab?
--
If you were at all aware of the supply chain shortage of bikes in the pandemic, I did some research on that and found a lot of details on whom were to control the supply of bikes to the US (most went east coast (size of "market on east coast" - vs, the value of supply on bikes on the west coast -- (this is anecdotal, but the west coast spends more on bikes, but the east coast is higher volume due to pop dense)
Anyway... Let me see if I can find that write up on the supply chain...
No B now because very few people use battery powered vacuum tubes any more. B batteries were mainly used for vacuum tube plate voltage.
I remember in the early '70s as a kid building a Radio Shack one tube radio kit [1] and using a Radio Shack 22.5 V B battery [2].
I think that was the last time I ever encountered a B battery. By the '70s tubes were on the way out in consumer electronics. On that page I linked with the Radio Shack kits there are 6 radios and only one of them uses a tube.
THEY REQUIRE A POWER GRID TO EXIST: no they don't, solar panel if this is that important to you.
THEY REQUIRE A BATTERY RELIANT ON A GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN: Tesla absolutely manufactures batteries in the USA, and virtually every major economy now recognizes national battery manufacturing ability is a national security issue. Lithium sources exist domestically. Sodium ion chemistries as good as LFP used in the current gen of ebikes is in mass production. Sulfur chemistries will probably come in 5 years.
THEY DO NOT PROVIDE A MECHANISM FOR LONG HAUL CHARGING: Uhhhhh.... okay, there are people that have made "charging trailers" for ebikes and don't even need to pedal. If this very fringe requirement is necessary, do that. You can't even bike into the Yukon wilderness FYI, where ... all of civilization is lacking.
THEY CANNOT BE SUBMERGED IN WATER: ok, neither can cars, etc. Yes, don't throw your vehicles in water.
THEY HAVE A FLIMSY 'SEAL' TO COVER THE POWER PORT - if that breaks off (twig, brick, tree or foot) - your F'd SEE: SUBMERSION. :: semilegitimate long term parts replacement concern I guess, but ... probably DIY'able.
THEIR SUPPLY CHAINS ARE FAR MORE COMPLEX: Bikes have frames, handlebars, seats, brakes, cranks, chains, derailleurs, cogsets, wheels, hubs, rims, spokes, and all are very frequently sourced from companies all over the world. Adding "motor, battery" to that isn't some tipping point of complexity. Compared to an ICE ... anything (lawnmower, etc), ebikes are very simple.
THE MOTORS ARE FROM ALL OVER THE PLACE - AND QUESTIONABLE MFRs: Yeah.... there is a bit of concern about disposable electronics here. But if enough of one brand is made, then the junkyard strategy of finding a crashed/broken second model and cannibalizing works here. Also, most electric motors aren't perfectly manufactured to application, they are of a more general spec (one of the advantages of electric drivetrains). So if you want to swap out the motor... probably can.
DEALER RELATIONSHIPS SUCK: it's a wildly evolving marketplace with a potential customer base in the billions.
"Where the heck am I to get a battery for an ebick thats custom molded to my stem in my 100 year old bike?" --> likely you'll slap in a battery that is about 1/3 the size and 3x the range. If you want to, you'll figure it out. Current batteries are pretty standardized in form factor and spec, even in the EV space (1865, 2170,4680)
....
EVs are fundamentally simple: battery, motor. I think there will be an explosion of people that get back to knowing how to do basic repair and adaptation on electric motors as part of the EV revolution.
I really like the idea of a front or rear motor wheel that you slapped into a regular bike, but in-frame motors are probably cheaper to put in / design in the beginning and more plug and play for consumers.
One of the beauties of ebikes is that if the battery fails ... you just bike without power to get home. The cost for these will rapidly plummet in the coming years to probably $500 or so. Tire flats are a bigger concern than anything.
Playing devil's advocate: unless it's a simple single-speed motor, there's another important component between these two, the motor controller or inverter, and that component is where most of the complexity is located.
Totally true, but controllers are relatively interchangeable for these types of motors. A BLDC motor like almost all of the e-bike manufacturers have settled on can be controlled by any BLDC controller.
If manufacturer X goes belly up and I need a new controller for my Manufacturer X bike, I can use one from manufacturer Y. Of course I might need to replace the controls, but If I can access the DC power source, and the three windings on the motor, I can make that motor spin with a variety of available controllers.
The same is true for a lot of bike parts; If a fancy click shift derailleur kicks the bucket after manufacturer support ends, you can get a different one. You may have to replace the handlebar controls, but the whole bike isn't bricked by any means.
THEY REQUIRE A BATTERY RELIANT ON A GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN: Tesla absolutely manufactures batteries in the USA, and virtually every major economy now recognizes national battery manufacturing ability is a national security issue. Lithium sources exist domestically. Sodium ion chemistries as good as LFP used in the current gen of ebikes is in mass production. Sulfur chemistries will probably come in 5 years.
This is not what I meant...
An bike will not last N years... how do we define N?
I want a bike with minimal physical BS skills to be able to last 150 year.
PERIOD..;.
Lets make a bike that lasta !150 years without N global BS?????
