Don't confuse data used to persuade investors with end-user features and benefits. The article has quotes where Gafni talks about initial feedback from investors; I think it's reasonable to assume that the $9/$60 figures are efforts to establish a notion of expected margin, not a marketing pitch.
The bicycle doesn't need to be cheaper than the traditional alternative. In fact, it'd probably sell better if it were slightly more expensive than the alternative, while emphasizing its apparently significant advantages elsewhere: disposability, fashion novelty, and "green"ness, the latter always being valuable social signal, perhaps especially among people I know that are enthusiastic about bicycles.
I'm completely with you, but take it a bit further. Steel bike frames are basically perfect until they're useless. That is, if you don't let them rust, then they are literally as good as new until you fall over hard enough to crack or buckle them. Properly maintained, a quality steel frame could easily last 50 years.
A real eco solution would be to make cheap and simple 'supermarket bikes'
At the moment the $75 bikes in Walmart are terrible - but mostly because they try and copy $750 bikes with 24gears and full suspension.
If you wanted a green solution make very simple, single gear, hub brakes, steel frame bikes in the same factory for $50 and make millions of them.
There is a city bike rental scheme here, but like all the other rental/free bike schemes around the world - it uses some 'novel' bike design which somehow end up costing $1000 each! And so either require credit cards and security or they only distribute 10 of them around the city.
I didn't check it out much, but at the local sporting goods store in Seattle (Big-5) I saw a single speed with 700c rims, steel frame for about $110 I think maybe more maybe less.
If the crappy bike manufacturers of the world aren't making simple steel utilitarian bikes, they should be. I'd buy one and I already have 2 bikes.
Steel frame, steel handlebars (for safety), sealed bottom bracket, 5 speed rear derailleur and friction disc brakes. 25-30 lbs is fine. Doesn't need any aluminum except for the rims and the chainring.
I'd buy that - except I live in a city with 1:4 hills!
Here even the outdoor gear coop charges >$900 for a single speed and says it's ideal for "urban life' - which tells you everything about the market for them.
> I'd buy that - except I live in a city with 1:4 hills!
sitkack and I live in Seattle, where our downtown area has hills up to 19% incline, and other areas near downtown (considered bike-friendly areas) have up to 26%.
When speaking of tree-derived products, is recyclability a green feature?
Trees fix CO2, so having an excuse to grow more trees, sucking CO2 from the atmosphere, and depositing it in the form of bikes, may be a benefit.
It likely comes down to the amount of energy used in the manufacture. I don't actually know, but intuitively I'd guess that steel manufacture (or aluminum on lighter bikes) uses a lot more energy to manufacture.
The bicycle doesn't need to be cheaper than the traditional alternative. In fact, it'd probably sell better if it were slightly more expensive than the alternative, while emphasizing its apparently significant advantages elsewhere: disposability, fashion novelty, and "green"ness, the latter always being valuable social signal, perhaps especially among people I know that are enthusiastic about bicycles.