E-Bike Industry Blames Consumers For Fires In Effort To Undermine ‘Right To Repair’ Laws
E-Bike Industry Blames Consumers For Fires In Effort To Undermine ‘Right To Repair’ Laws
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…
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).
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 !micromobility@lemmy.world 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. :-)
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.
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.")
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.
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.
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.