Back

Trailerduck is a smart e-bike trailer

104 points3 yearsautoevolution.com
carlob3 years ago

At what point do we start stretching the definition of what can be allowed on a bike path?

300 kg of cargo at 25 km/h is very close to the momentum of a moped riding at 50 km/h, which is something I definitely don't want to share a bike path with.

For what it's worth when I'm in the mood for racing and I have my good road bike I tend to avoid bike paths as a courtesy to other cyclists (and to avoid getting stuck behind someone slow).

teekert3 years ago

I feel that this is a discussion very must about to become mainstream in the Netherlands. Electric vehicles of all sorts and sizes are entering the once relaxed and predictable bike lanes (which here are often not just lanes but complete separate roads with no car-roads around, ie. through a park or forest).

It's not just e-bikes and their unexpected speed, everywhere now you can rent "e-choppers", with a wide steering bar and a relaxed attitude. However they are much faster and wider than normal bicycles and you can see the annoyance on the faces of people constantly overtaken by them. 25 KPH is really fast on a bike path, and then they are also silent so they pop out of nowhere. It's not a good combo. Many of these bike lanes are of limits to gasoline scooters ("Fietspad dus niet brommen") I'm guessing many of these things are going to forced onto the car-roads by law, like we did 20 years ago with scooters (max 45 kph, require helmet, they are partly forced on car-roads, here is an example where scooters leave the bike path to enter the road: [0]).

[0]: https://goo.gl/maps/RxWxazWic2dduqU67

beckman4663 years ago

> Electric vehicles of all sorts and sizes are entering the once relaxed and predictable bike lanes

> I'm guessing many of these things are going to forced onto the car-roads by law, like we did 20 years ago with scooters

Maybe we should repurpose some older 'provinciale' roads (which often run parallel to some of the major highways) for these new types of compact electric hybrid vehicle-bikes (transportation without an 'inside' or car-like cabin, that leaves the driver exposed), since expecting them to go on car-roads is inconsiderate.

That way these new greener alternatives can take off, and their drivers are safe. We should never expect people with e-trailers (and similar) to compete for space with 35 ton lorries/semi trucks. I think this an infrastructural transition/move worth carefully tending to and designing for.

teekert3 years ago

Yeah I like that idea!

radu_floricica3 years ago

How's the regulation there? I'm often riding Limes which are capped at 25kph (about 15 mph, I think), and I keep comparing my speed with delivery people (Glovo, Uber and so on). Turns out the 25kph is a very well chosen point - it's about as fast as a bike rider on a delivery - maybe 1-2kph faster than the average, and a bit less than one who's really in a hurry.

If your legislation allows for faster electric vehicles to share bike lanes, that's a big mistake IMO. Impact energy is proportional with the square of the speed, so crashing at 35 is already double the damage. 50kph is four times as bad, not to mention reaction times.

mrsuprawsm3 years ago

Broadly there's a few categories of bicycle paths/roads in NL:

- bicycle path (fietspad)

- bicycle + moped path (bromfietspad) (same as a bicycle path but a bit wider)

- the road

In terms of the vehicles, there's also a few categories:

- bicycles (i.e. unpowered)

- e-bike with pedal assistance that stops at 25km/h

- moped (max speed 25km/h, "snorfiets")

- high-speed e-bike ("speed-pedelec"), max speed 45km/h

- moped (max speed 45km/h, "bromfiets")

The first 3 types of vehicles can usually ride on both a bicycle path or a bicycle + moped path [1]. There is no explicit speed limit other than the 25km/h limit on the e-bike/moped itself. (I guess that on a non-electric bike you can ride faster than 25km/h, as fast as you can go)

The second 2 types of vehicles can ride on a bicycle + moped path, but must otherwise ride on the road. For the second 2 types of vehicles, you need a numberplate and a helmet, and a mirror. On a bike + moped path inside the city, you can ride 30km/h, outside the city 40km/h, and on the road, 45km/h (less if the road has an explicit speed limit).

A table illustrating this: https://www.catchlegal.nl/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Afbeeld... (snelheid == speed, toegestaan == allowed).

[1] notable exception being inside the city of Amsterdam, where mopeds must ride on the road with a helmet (which is not normally required elsewhere), but e-bikes can remain on the bike path.

Animats3 years ago

Here's the chart for California.[1] That's very similar.

[1] https://currentebikes.com/ebike-classes-california/

avianlyric3 years ago

Not the person your replying too, also don’t live in the Netherlands just fascinated with those bike infrastructure, but my understanding is that this is a historical quirk that came into existence when smaller mopeds where less common.

In Amsterdam it used to be possible to ride mopeds under a certain power on bike paths, and these bikes could be identified by their number plates. Additionally micro cars, that in theory are meant to be accessibility devices for those with physical impairments are still allowed.

But this is all slowly going away due to the exact issues you mention. The rise of cheap electric vehicles has meant that occasional fast vehicles sharing generous bike infrastructure has gone from acceptable to frustrating and soon to be dangerous.

I think these rules are handled at the city/municipality level. So the rules are different city-to-city in the Netherlands, with some cities changing the rules quicker than others. But the writing is on the wall, cycle lanes in cities will soon be bikes, e-bikes, and more strictly regulated micro cars only in the near future.

teekert3 years ago

It's difficult to find examples because obviously Google Streetview cars don't enter pure bike paths, but here is one of these paths where you won't make friends with a somewhat broader and faster electric personal transport device [0]. A better example and one where I did ride around on an e-chopper, annoying people on bikes ;) [1] (not me in the image). These small path are pretty common in nature reserves here [2].

[0]: https://goo.gl/maps/yZXH4ggVQ6vXRcNy9

[1]: https://weekendtoerist.nl/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/mooiste...

[2]: https://www.myfootprints.nl/nederland/fietsen-en-wandelen-in...

Someone3 years ago

> because obviously Google Streetview cars don't enter pure bike paths

Their cars don’t, but their bicycles sometimes do (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View#Data_captur... shows a trike. At the bottom of the page, there even is a photo of a pedestrian wearing a camera backpack)

+1
radu_floricica3 years ago
sneak3 years ago

I think people who are concerned about safety and people who ride electric scooters are mutually exclusive groups. Those things are death traps.

+2
Toutouxc3 years ago
LeifCarrotson3 years ago

25 kph is about 15 mph, which is not particularly fast in a bike lane here in the US. It is a lane, not a path; basically a painted shoulder theoretically closed to vehicles. However, most cyclists seem to be riding for sport, few people ride at a sedate pace because you're on the bike to burn calories and improve your fitness, not to get somewhere in normal clothes without becoming sweaty.

It feels too dangerous to be a couple feet from all our big SUVs and pickup trucks at 100 kph/55 mph unless you're also going an appreciable fraction of that speed.

dfxm123 years ago

However, most cyclists seem to be riding for sport, few people ride at a sedate pace because you're on the bike to burn calories and improve your fitness, not to get somewhere in normal clothes without becoming sweaty.

This is quite the hasty generalization.

LeifCarrotson3 years ago

It's definitely a generalization, but during my bike lane commutes or when I drive along a bike lane, I see a ton of Lycra-clad middle-aged men bent over in there best aero positions going 20 mph+.

There are not a lot of upright riders going slowly.

It's definitely a generalization, it's anecdotal and specific to the streets I frequent in my Midwestern US city, but at least here it's a true generalization.

shafyy3 years ago

Your city is doing bike lanes wrong :-)

+1
scrose3 years ago
u801e3 years ago

> It feels too dangerous to be a couple feet from all our big SUVs and pickup trucks at 100 kph/55 mph unless you're also going an appreciable fraction of that speed.

Most bike lanes are on city streets where motor vehicles are going anywhere from 0 to 35 mph (0 to 55 km/h). Most people on bikes are going 0 to 20 mph (0 to 30 km/h) which really isn't much slower, so bike lanes or separated paths really don't make sense.

Where traffic is moving faster, you rarely find bike lanes or separated paths.

slaymaker19073 years ago

I think 25 km/h is not all that fast in the US for a bike path. It is extremely easy to maintain that speed on even a cheap mountain bike much less a road bike. 25mph is very fast for a bicycle which some ebikes can reach and even exceed. People should definitely only be riding at that speed on roads.

Vinnl3 years ago

Yeah, in more and more places I think they're sending everything above 25 km/h to the road. At the same time, we see "bicycle streets" emerging more and more, which are just as wide as regular streets (and which can be used by cars), but where the bicycle is the primary vehicle. I think they mostly rose in popularity in response to congestion on regular bike paths, but I feel like they also help with the width and speed issues - although above 25km/h is still quite fast. As I get more used to them though, the ones with a limit of 25 feel less problematic to me.

mrsuprawsm3 years ago

I quite like the bicycle streets, for example in places where there isn't room for a proper segregated bike path, it still makes it clear that drivers are guests in the street (and explicitly calls this out on signs), which definitely makes me feel safer when cycling on such streets, versus regular roads.

+1
petre3 years ago
fennecfoxen3 years ago

Here in NYC, we already see Amazon (via Whole Foods) abusing the bike lanes. They have a fleet of electric bikes with several large bins towed behind in a trailer. The trailer takes up the whole bike lane (preventing any passing). They've turned massive swaths of the sidewalk outside their Bowery store into a staging area, and the bikes make frequent trips over places like the nearby Williamsburg Bridge, where other cyclists are trying to travel; I consider myself fortunate that I only need to bike in that area occasionally.

Of course, these bike lanes are also home to a growing moped infestation, and law enforcement doesn't care about that, either, and they don't do much about the (privately operated) school buses that routinely park in the Vernon Boulevard bike lanes near the Department of Education facility at 44th Rd, either, so, I guess there's just an open invitation to abuse the commons.

stickfigure3 years ago

It's natural to feel upset about bike lanes being over-capacity, but maybe look at it this way: Now there is demonstrated need for expanded capacity, and a deep-pocket lobby (Amazon) on your side.

Perhaps getting a larger coalition of users on board is exactly what we need to expand bike infrastructure. The scarcity of bike lanes is wholly artificial and easily fixed by transitioning more automobile infrastructure.

clairity3 years ago

yup, i read that and thought, "yes, a reason to double-wide the bike lanes!" i mean, i get it, someone abusing the commons is annoying, but it means we need more human-oriented commons (vs. the car-oriented).

cars get too much of our shared space. we should consider repurposing most city streets, such as: one lane (each way) for cars, 1 lane for buses, and 1 protected lane for bikes. most lanes are about 10 feet wide, so we can take a foot away from the car lane and give it to the bus lane to promote traffic calming, while the protected (with curb or bollard) bike lane can be split in two to provide a passing lane.

+1
Steltek3 years ago
+1
u801e3 years ago
u801e3 years ago

> The scarcity of bike lanes is wholly artificial and easily fixed by transitioning more automobile infrastructure.

Wouldn't it just be easier to just have all vehicle types share the same infrastructure (roads)? They're already built out and can be used by any wheeled vehicle by following the rules of the road.

Roads are designed to be used by any type of vehicle, not just automobiles.

+1
piperswe3 years ago
omgitsabird3 years ago

Is there any evidence at all that this is going to happen? Speculation doesn't craft reality.

stickfigure3 years ago

Road and highway capacity is expanded based on usage. Why would bicycle lanes be different?

yellow_lead3 years ago

The NYC mention reminds me of Bike Lanes by Neistat[1]. Sounds like the situation has deteriorated, I'd be interested to see a 2021 version.

[1] https://youtu.be/bzE-IMaegzQh

rdiddly3 years ago

The cops themselves park in the bike lanes near precincts all over town, too.

fennecfoxen3 years ago

Oh, the cops just park all over everywhere. Fire department, too. On the sidewalk, half on the sidewalk, in the crosswalks, over the ADA sidewalk ramps in neighborhoods where they get good amounts of use — hardly worth mentioning the bike lanes at that point.

Check out this massive permanent NYPD/FDNY parking-lot that starts on the freeway shoulder and goes along Tillary St / Gold St. These guys are here basically every day:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6970284,-73.9813054,3a,75y,3...

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6962375,-73.9813369,3a,75y,6...

And that's not even a bad day; there's only one or two cars parked on the long narrow triangle where the onramp merges with the street.

And the ambulance drivers park in the bike lanes to take a nap or for their lunch break. And the Post Office parks wherever and they just doesn't care, because they're federal, and you can't fine them.

mapt3 years ago

Well that sounds illegal.

Ever tried a citizen's arrest?

(Last time the cops in NYC got angry at civilian oversight they kidnapped the Mayor's daughter and posted her mugshot on Twitter, and a Freudian slip of the SBA's announcement declared that they would "Win the war on New York City". The population should maybe do something about that.)

aidenn03 years ago

I don't know about NYC, it varies state-to-state, but usually a citizen's arrest is limited to directly witnessed felonies. Illegal parking isn't a felony.

+1
dmix3 years ago
blacksmith_tb3 years ago

I'd probably feel differently if I had to ride through that on my morning commute, but presumably replacing diesel delivery trucks with (even obnoxious) electric bikes is on balance a good thing? As for trucks and buses parking in the bike lanes, in most states unfortunately traffic laws provide loopholes for that, sadly.

hunterb1233 years ago

They aren't replacing delivery trucks that stock stores, it's adding to personal deliveries usually done by normal bike or sometimes car depending on the traffic density.

The-Bus3 years ago

Amazon deliveries in NYC are done by a mix of bikes with trailers, the US Postal Service, Amazon's own Sprinter vans, and third-party contractors using their own vehicles (e.g. Lasership). The bikes and trailers are replacing these vehicles, not a normal bike.

withinboredom3 years ago

Not if the people who ride bikes switch to driving because it’s more dangerous or slow to bike.

hinkley3 years ago

Traffic legislation is written in blood. Many cities put traffic lights on corners that have had traffic fatalities, and no amount of complaining about near misses gets them to pay the costs. They want numbers. And those numbers are insurance claims.

It's probably going to take someone plowing into a tour group of kids before anything changes, and then that change will be shrill and reactionary.

kevin_thibedeau3 years ago

Are they legal pedal-assist e-bikes or do they have a hand throttle like all the takeout delivery guys use? If the latter you can get the city to crack down since they aren't permitted under NY law.

hellbannedguy3 years ago

This sounds like a simple fix.

Charge large companies fees to use use their large delivery vechicles on any road.

Those fees, and taxes, could build more bike paths, and repair streets.

(I would like to see governments charging large companies to use our infrastructure. Only charge the large companies. They are the ones abusing the privilege usually.)

u801e3 years ago

A more simple fix would be to repeal VAT 1234[1] and allow cycles to ride on the roads. If the bike lanes are blocked, then they're useless and cyclists should legally be allowed to ride in the center of the general purpose lane without getting cited for it.

[1] https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/VAT/1234

fennecfoxen3 years ago

> Charge large companies fees to use use their large delivery vehicles on any road.

Meh. We can't even charge delivery trucks to use the commercial-loading-area parking meters. They just double-park in the street, and the cops have given up on all but the most convenient forms of enforcement.

specialist3 years ago

Freedom Markets™ theology prohibits taxing megacorps who abuse the commons.

+2
fennecfoxen3 years ago
chrismorgan3 years ago

For the last couple of days I’ve been contemplating the idea of converting a grand piano into a road-legal tricycle, with either no motor (which would mean it’d need some extremely low gearing) or no more than 250W (the limit in Australia). It’s more an amusing idea than anything else, but who knows, if the velomobile and trailer I’m planning (with my 11.5kg Yamaha P-45 digital piano built into the trailer as well as a small fridge and other such stuff for indefinite touring as I cycle round the country) goes well, maybe eventually I will convert a grand piano just for fun. It occurred to me today while cycling and mulling over the legal requirements of bicycles in Victoria that if the piano was playable while in motion, it might not even need a bell… (Road Safety Road Rules 2017, 258(b): “a bell, horn, or similar warning device, in working order.”)

I’ve also been amusing myself imagining ways this grand piano tricycle could be prepared for certification as a self-contained vehicle in New Zealand (typically the domain of RVs and some vans). If you didn’t care about complying, the basics of camping would actually be fairly simple—sling a hammock underneath it!

crtasm3 years ago

A grand would be amazing, find someone to accompany you on double bass like Rimski & Handkerchief! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foXwSW34Bmk

chrismorgan3 years ago

I think I’d like it able to be used as a single- or two-seater in some way or other, so you can get single-instrument duets—not quite the same, but something. Possibly some kind of modular seat/drivetrain linkage so that you can have zero, one or two. I haven’t planned this, it was just a stray thought yesterday that caught my sense of humour so that I’ve been dwelling on it further.

omnicognate3 years ago

I had a memorable dream once where I was going down the motorway at the keyboard of a grand piano. Please make this a reality.

chrismorgan3 years ago

Look, honestly, if someone delivered a grand piano to me with this request but no expectations, I’d probably try converting it before going ahead with my velomobile. Although it’d require some heavier-duty design (e.g. it’d need something sturdier than my recumbent trike’s two 90mm drum brakes, and typical bike suspension parts would probably not be adequate but I think it’d need suspension, unlike my recumbent trike), it’d be easier in most ways because you’re already acknowledging you don’t care much about weight or aerodynamics, and it’s expected to be fairly ridiculous.

(… if that’s you, email me.)

bserge3 years ago
radu_floricica3 years ago

Energy goes with speed squared, so you have only 75kg at double the speed. A fully loaded moped with passenger (we're comparing apples to apples, right?) would be at around 250kg (75+75+100).

Also at 25kph both the vehicle and the passengers have more time to react.

So yeah, fully loaded the driver/rider would have to pay more attention, but that's true for anything that's fully loaded. Given the shape of the problem, this solution is pretty damn good: green, quiet, small, good looking and reasonably safe. Possibly very safe, if its auto braking works well enough.

carlob3 years ago

Energy goes with speed squared, that's why I said momentum, which doesn't. Also a 50 cc moped with a single passenger would be closer to 150 kg.

Pedantics aside, probably the most annoying thing about having this on a bike lane would be the 1 m width, especially considering that some two way bike lanes are just 2 m wide.

radu_floricica3 years ago

I doubt we'll be seeing them behind every bike. And if by any chance we will, most of them will be a lot smaller.

I'm big on having this kind of small e-vehicles on the roads, because I think they're the best chance we have on having truly nice, open, clean cities. Using a half-ton monstrosity to go buy a loaf of bread is a horrible waste of, not just resources, but commons. As you said, the worst thing is their size, and that is by necessity limited in urban areas.

So if we're going to have this kind of things replace cars, we'll have to be open to a larger ecology of e-vehicles, for various use cases. Including larger ones for cargo, and also the sick grandma that can't ride a bike.

Probably the biggest difference of opinion between us is that I see them as replacement for traffic, and so I want them scaled up and separate them from pedestrians as much as practically possible.

petre3 years ago

Mountain bikes are close to 1 m now with all the 80+ cm handlebars. 1 m is rather insufficient for a bike lane, it would be like <2.5 m lanes for cars.

IshKebab3 years ago

Yeah he said momentum, not energy.

avianlyric3 years ago

The momentum point is very valid. But the slower speeds provide more time for drivers and others to react. That in turn gives you much more time to break and scrub off that extra momentum.

At 50kph your reaction distance is about 15 meters, at 25kph it’s half that at 7.5meters. (Assuming reaction time of 1 second, which seems to be a realist value).

7.5 meters is quite a bit of distance, and in a busy city will make a lot of difference.

nanis3 years ago

> But the slower speeds provide more time for drivers

I can't react to something coming straight at me on my six. And, the drivers of these motorcycles tend to be busy on their phones.

avianlyric3 years ago

Those are separate issues to do with driver responsibility and enforcement of existing laws. Applies to existing bikes just as much as e-bikes etc

Also how are these people using their phones? Last I checked you need to keep your hands on bars to prevent you from falling over.

frozenrouter3 years ago

I regularly have to ride my (pedal, non-e) bike one handed due to injuries to one arm and hand. At low to medium speed this is very easy, only becoming an issue with uneven terrain or high speeds. Brakes for one handed operation are also available.

CDRdude3 years ago

You only need both hands on the handlebars when starting from a stop. It is very easy to ride with one hand even at slow speeds, and bikes can be ridden with no hands at moderate speeds.

Animats3 years ago

Someone who is into both e-bikes and motorcycles has a good answer to this. He put an e-bike hub motor with a motorcycle-sized wheel on a motorcycle frame. The result has about the performance of a class 3 e-bike, but it's a better vehicle.[1] You sit lower, so the CG is lower, and if something goes wrong you tend to slide, not go over the handlebars. You have motorcycle-grade tires, brakes, and suspension, so the stopping distances are much shorter than with an e-bike.

But you can't take the thing in a bike lane. And it requires a motorcycle license.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM8Xli2KTzI

baxuz3 years ago

I'm so glad that e-bikes are assist limited to 25km/h in Croatia.

bserge3 years ago

Haha, seeing huge tricycles and cargo ebikes all the time I've been wondering the same.

Legally they must be propelled by pedaling... However these ebikes really stretch that definition, the pedals do not directly drive anything, they just work as a throttle.

So, if the battery is discharged, the pedals are useless.

I've actually been thinking of a similar system, except the pedals drive a generator that charges the battery.

This way the bike is motor propelled, you can have a longer battery life by charging it as you ride and it's technically more of a cycle since you could cycle to provide power to the motor.

My main thought is that it would reduce/even the load on your knees since you wouldn't need to start/accelerate as often.

emj3 years ago

In Europe you can classify things as a bicycle even though they have no pedals, there are some special rules for it one of them is below 20 kph "anything goes".

nanis3 years ago

How about we start with not allowing motorcycles on the sidewalks? Whether the engine is a two-stroke or electric motor does not matter. In the NYC metro area (including cities/towns in NJ and CT), being on the sidewalk means having to duck heavy electric motorcycles and scooters doing about 20mph with no regard to anyone's safety. In most places, it is already illegal to bike on sidewalks, a rule that is conspicuous in the lack of adherence, but there is absolutely no enforcement.

carlob3 years ago

I was once fined for riding a bicycle on a 10 m stretch of sidewalk because the road was congested. A moped and a full sized enduro were on the sidewalk at the same time and got the exact same fine, which is kind of annoying.

For reference this was in Paris more than 10 years ago.

ohazi3 years ago

Are these trailers big/bulky/scary enough to convince someone driving a car or truck to finally pass a bike safely (i.e. by changing lanes completely rather than whizzing by?).

If so, it might be a useful addition for cyclists who want to drive in a car lane without getting run over.

u801e3 years ago

> 300 kg of cargo at 25 km/h is very close to the momentum of a moped riding at 50 km/h, which is something I definitely don't want to share a bike path with.

Why does the mass or momentum of a particular vehicle driver combination matter in terms of sharing a particular resource? Drivers of motor vehicles like cars share the road with other motor vehicles that are significantly more massive, yet no one says that they shouldn't have to share the road with those heavier vehicles because of their mass and/or momentum.

slaymaker19073 years ago

I love ebikes, but I agree further regulation is needed to limit the amount of power these bikes can have rather than just limiting speed like laws do right now. I have asthma and climbing big hills next to a bunch of cars (which happens a lot where I live due to lots of hills) is very difficult for me to do. It's because of this that I would use an ebike even if it were only able to carry me up said hills at 10mph (slow but still fast enough to be stable) while avoiding giving me an asthma attack.

gnarcoregrizz3 years ago

We don't limit the amount of horsepower or top speed of cars and motorcycles.

Limiting power and top speed is futile. You can actually enforce speed limits with radar, but checking power output requires testing it on a dyno, which can easily be cheated with a switch or remote.

Half of ebikes for sale are technically street illegal anyway. Federal law limits them to 750w 28mph until pedal assisted... while some stick to this, they can do 2kw burst and cruise at 750w sustained. Some just flat out ignore it and pull 5-7kw off the shelf. Some conversions pull 15kw and do 80 mph.

Here's a regular looking SCOOTER that does 75mph https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn-IqhezeZw

datavirtue3 years ago

Came here to bring this up. I'm consistently seeing adults and many under driving age flying down bike paths at 20mph through congested pedestrian and bycicle areas.

My wife was almost hit by a cyclist that was thrown off course and had to perform an emergency stop because of two clueless fucks on hover boards.

I really have zero problem with ebikes making cycling and mobility possible for people but they are a flip of the wrist away from fucking up someone's life on an otherwise peaceful and very safe bike path.

btbuildem3 years ago

Thank you for considering this in terms of physics. I believe vehicle rules should vary depending on the potential for damage a vehicle can do. A cyclist running a stop sign would have negligible consequences compared to a fully loaded dump truck doing the same.

A heavy cargo trailer towed by a cyclist (who thinks and acts like a cyclist, not a driver) definitely does not belong on a bike path.

MisterTea3 years ago

> For what it's worth when I'm in the mood for racing and I have my good road bike I tend to avoid bike paths as a courtesy to other cyclists (and to avoid getting stuck behind someone slow).

Thank you. As a casual cyclist who enjoys a weekend ride along the bike paths in NYC I cant help but hold contempt for some of the entitled road hog racing cyclists.

skocznymroczny3 years ago

I think it depends on the bicycle paths in your country. In Poland, most bicycle paths are fairly thin, barely allowing two people to pass each other. There isn't any extra space for anything remotely resembling a trailer.

josefresco3 years ago

> when I'm in the mood for racing and I have my good road bike I tend to avoid bike paths as a courtesy to other cyclists

Please share this advice with your fellow bike racing enthusiasts. I reside on Cape Cod, which has a rather famous and busy bike trail. My kids and I have been almost run over, and scolded by spandex wearing weekend Tour de France warriors several times. If you want to race, stay off bike trails.

datavirtue3 years ago

Cincinnati here. Might want to hit them up too. There are droves of "dentists" riding $10k road bikes in $2k worth of gear pretending to be on the Roubaix and acting the total asshole on a multi-use trail. As an avid cyclist I make it a point not to ride the same bikes or get all kitted out because I don't want to be associated with that crowd. I also observe the rules of the path...enough to make one stand out.

lolc3 years ago

Am I too cynical in not giving this piece of overengineering the slightest chance to survive actual use? Just get a cargo bike. Or a car. I don't see what niche this is supposed to fill.

> Because the specially-designed drawbar with which it attaches to the bike is packed with sensors, it takes its cues from the towing vehicle and performs all maneuvers (braking, acceleration and maintaining speed, and turning) on its own.

At least they were smart enough to not try and wing it with cameras only. Even if the graphics in the article suggest it.

mschuster913 years ago

> Just get a cargo bike. Or a car. I don't see what niche this is supposed to fill.

Right from the article: Cargo bikes can't pull the weight, cars are going to be all but banned or be impeded by tolls from inner cities whereas this is supposed to be licensed as a bike trailer.

The prime target market will be tradespeople and couriers.

thescriptkiddie3 years ago

Cargo bicycles (well, tricycles) capable of carrying a 300kg load are available.

brnt3 years ago

Here in NL, we've had cargo bikes like these in use for a while (century?) now:

https://www.nijland.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bakfiets-...

They exist in electrified form, and also smaller ones which are much more commonly privately owned (Dutch soccer moms drive these instead of SUVs): https://dutchcargobike.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/bak...

Trailerduck does seem more ergonomic (lower floor) and suitable for a larger volume of cargo, but not sure you've then already crossed into cargovan territory.

emj3 years ago

There are alot of "new" cargo bike producers out there. This specific trailer seems like a mix of Veloves four wheel bicycle (+300kg capacity) and Carla Cargo (150 kg capacity). It is made for large cargo capacity and is a big difference from the ordinary Bakfiets cargobikes. Full suspension, a well thought out cargo hold and good motor is a must.

https://www.velove.se/electric-cargo-bike https://www.velove.se/news/armadillo-40-german-newspapers-du... https://www.carlacargo.de/products/ecarla-ready/

arpinum3 years ago

Regulations require electric bikes to be 'pedal-assist' and is holding back sustainable transport. Let lightweight vehicles travel 25kmph without pedalling and these regulatory hacks won't be needed. It will likely lead to safer vehicles too compared to these regulatory hack solutions.

calpaterson3 years ago

My personal experience sharing space with electric bicycles/scooters in a large town (London) is that the public is very quickly getting sick of 25kmph vehicles that travel on the pavement and to - a lesser extent - even when they are cycle lanes.

25kmph is about the max speed for a street cyclist but vehicles that sustain this speed for long periods and can achieve it with no effort on the part of the rider are qualitatively different from the bicycles whose shape they share.

Drivers of these vehicles also usually don't want to go on the road proper so I am not very sure where they will go at all. Removing pedal-assist is only going to make these things more anti-social and people won't put up with it for long.

radu_floricica3 years ago

Try tracking delivery riders. They're pretty constant at 23-24 kph.

Also, you can't have an omelette without breaking eggs. Moving away from the big, polluting, dangerous cars will necessarily involve a transition path for those that can't or don't want to use muscle power. Having small, clean, relatively harmless electric vehicles is honestly by far the best transition path I can see. Hell, I wouldn't mind seeing them with a roof in a few years.

There should be limitations, but they should well thought out. Speed capped at 25 is a big one. Separating them from pedestrians is a huge one.

But overall, please also think of the upside. Having a e-something in the streets ensures that at least half a car is staying home that day.

rcMgD2BwE72F3 years ago

>Having small, clean, relatively harmless electric vehicles is honestly by far the best transition path I can see. Hell, I wouldn't mind seeing them with a roof in a few years.

Why not put them on the road instead of the bike lane, then?

+1
ip263 years ago
calpaterson3 years ago

Sorry, a 25kmph electric go kart ("e-scooter") with a roof (!) is not a bicycle and is not the right vehicle for a cycle lane.

Sensible transport segregates vehicles by their performance characteristics. In order to travel in the cycle lane you need to be going at bicycle-level top speeds with bicycle-level acceleration. More or less. E-scooters have a much higher top speed than most normal cyclists actually accomplish in the real world and, much worse, have far steeper acceleration curves. If there were lots of vehicles of the kind you imagine in cycle lanes they would be going much faster than real cyclists actually do and consequently overtaking constantly.

This doesn't really happen much in practice for a couple of reasons. Firstly, e-scooter's wheels are too small and their wheelbases too short to comfortably travel in the cycle lane (or on the road) so they travel on the pavement and drive pedestrians barking mad. Secondly, partly because they are made of chocolate and partly for inherent design reasons, they don't last long (shortish MTBF, near infinite MTTR) - this does a lot to keep them off the roads - except when operated at a loss by venture-backed startups from California.

And your idea that if people weren't on e-scooters that they would be in cars or something - not really. In my area they would be on public transport.

worldmerge3 years ago

I'm in the US, where I think the limit is 25mph /750w for ebikes.

> 25kmph is about the max speed for a street cyclist but vehicles that sustain this speed for long periods

I'd agree with you if that was 25mph. On my road bike I sustain 20 mph for most of the ride. 25mph would be sprinting.

Also, I'd bring up a different point about ebikes. It takes a while to get steering and quick reaction time skills for going that fast, ex. having your inside knee up and being comfortable banking a turn.

Also the market for ebikes : older/entry cyclists might not have the reaction time needed at those speeds. And a lot of ebikes have upright geometry not aggressive road bike geometry.

I built an ebike to commute around on, bafang conversion kit on a mtb. Ebikes have their place, and I'm excited to commute with it in the snow. I think the main issue is we need larger paths for bikes. Not these single track lanes that exist in cities. A lot of time the time in my area it makes sense to just ride on the road than deal with a bike lane when riding my road bike (pedal power).

And the product in the article is insane in a bike lane. I think it really highlights my point about the size of lanes. They need to be bigger if bikes are going to become a more viable form of commuting for everyone.

Symbiote3 years ago

No, 25km/h is the normal maximum speed for a normal person cycling.

> On my road bike I sustain 20 mph for most of the ride.

A few people manage 32km/h in the Netherlands or Denmark, but only if they have a long commute through the suburbs or a rural area, often for recreation/leisure/exercise.

In towns, other people aren't expecting Lance Armstrong to appear, and can step/swerve into your path. You can see from [1] (at the linked point) that there's no way you'll be going fast through the centre of Amsterdam. The path isn't wide enough, there are far too many other cyclists and pedestrians, and the car drivers yielding at the junctions would be startled, at best. The same at 4m32s (a park). At 9m37s it looks like the kind of place you'd get some road/fast cyclists (in fact the narration says so).

People who want to go as fast as you would usually select a different route, where possible.

[1] https://youtu.be/M8F5hXqS-Ac?t=62

mrsuprawsm3 years ago

>And the product in the article is insane in a bike lane. I think it really highlights my point about the size of lanes. They need to be bigger if bikes are going to become a more viable form of commuting for everyone.

I don't think so, they mention that it's only 1m wide, which is 25cm wider than the average bike.

Here in NL, for example, it would fit pretty much perfectly in the existing bicycle infrastructure. (barring the occasional small bridge with poles/gates at the end to slow cyclists down)

masklinn3 years ago

> I don't think so, they mention that it's only 1m wide, which is 25cm wider than the average bike.

And thinner than a Canta.

IshKebab3 years ago

> the public is very quickly getting sick of 25kmph vehicles that travel on the pavement

> Drivers of these vehicles also usually don't want to go on the road proper so I am not very sure where they will go at all.

This is really great news - it will create a much stronger incentive for the government to put in proper cycle lanes.

calpaterson3 years ago

Sorry if I was unclear: I don't agree. I feel pretty mixed about "pedal-assist vehicles" in cycle lanes and oppose scooters and everything else.

wongarsu3 years ago

I have no problems with pedal-assisted vehicles or scooters on proper bicycle paths that are at least 2m wide (per direction, so 4m if there's oncoming traffic). There overtaking isn't an issue, and 25km/h vehicles are somewhat average in terms of speed is there's no incline (leisure bikers are slower, while a good road bike goes faster).

The problem are those 0.5-1m wide "bike lanes" they squeeze in as an afterthought in cities. Overtaking on them is basically impossible without breaking some rules, so scooters and pedal-assisted vehicles make it worse than it already is.

avianlyric3 years ago

You can already buy an electric motorbike today that isn’t pedal assisted, and they’re pretty much the same price as a good e-bike.

Why force normal cyclists and pedestrians to deal with these much faster vehicles in cycle lanes and pavements when we already have roads, and conflicts between road users today is already problematic.

siosonel3 years ago

I average about 10mph or 16kph on my e-bike, and gets passed by routinely by 'normal' cyclists going faster than my pace. E-bike users do not necessarily ride faster; I use one to help with the many hills in my area, not to go fast. I don't think it'd be fair to force me to use roads and mingle with cars just because I use an e-bike.

avianlyric3 years ago

I think our perspectives are in complete agreement, and your comment proves that allowing e-bikes to go faster than 25kph, or operate without use of the pedals isn’t necessary.

I’m certainly not advocating that e-bike should mix with cars. I’m saying the than an e-bike that assists beyond 25kph, or doesn’t require peddling, isn’t an e-bike. It’s just an unlicensed motorbike pretending to be an e-bike.

tonyedgecombe3 years ago

Even at the cutoff of 25 km/h you will get passed by roadies all day long.

patall3 years ago

For the city, maybe. For everywhere else, I doubt it. When I am up in the regional hills with my bike, I am (almost) the only one without battery. Its still okay but has become a lot less remote. If you now remove the pedaling, it becomes even more interesting for all those 'down-hillers' that run down narrow forest paths at insane speeds. If have also see people with insane carge-bikes in public transport. If we continoue that way, we will have to bann all bikes from there.

There are electric motorscoters and there are ebikes. Only the latter should, in my honest opinion, use the full bike infrastructure.

choeger3 years ago

I'd say 30kph. I never understood the 25kph rule.

Make 30kph the default speed limit in cities and let e-bikes drive with that speed on most roads, what's problematic with this approach? Are 5kph more really that more dangerous that you need to create a speed difference between even slow cars and bikes?

avianlyric3 years ago

25kph is average cycling speed of a male cyclist, 20kph for female.

The limits there because these devices are just meant to be cycling assistance, not replacements. You don’t want to be mixing two distinct classes of transport together (this is whole reason why protected cycle ways are so important), because overtaking etc is inherently dangerous.

There’s nothing preventing people from just creating electric motorbikes etc and driving them on the road with other road traffic. But having vehicles like that mix in close proximity to pedestrians and un-assisted cyclists just moves the problem we already have with car-bike conflict on to cycle lanes and pedestrian spaces.

Also that extra 5kph is gonna have a pretty negligible impact on transit times, so is it really worth all the extra problems?

mauvehaus3 years ago

"25kph is average cycling speed of a male cyclist, 20kph for female."

Wait, what? I bike commuted for a while in both Cleveland and Boston. I can pretty handily maintain 30kph, and regularly hit over that when either warranted by traffic conditions or on a slight downhill.

I do not consider myself a fast cyclist by any measure.

I am quite confident that even the most casual group ride of semi serious cyclists would drop me in 5 km on a good day.

Is my view of cycling speeds that skewed, or is the distribution very weird in some way?

As for the extra 5kph making a difference, no it's not a huge deal in time. It's immensely important to riding safely in faster traffic. I find that the closer you can ride to the speed of traffic, the fewer boneheaded things people do to get past you.

Being able to do 40kph for short stretches to basically match the speed of cars through a dodgy intersection is a huge improvement in safety. 30 isn't 40, but every little bit helps.

+1
avianlyric3 years ago
+1
teekert3 years ago
choeger3 years ago

Ok then how about a speed limit of 20km/h on bike lanes?

avianlyric3 years ago

How are you planning to enforce that?

stdbrouw3 years ago

The 25 kph is on the assumption that people will use these e-bikes on bike lanes. Pretty much everyone who bikes regularly hates race bikes and speed bikes and anything else going over 25 kph, or frankly, going over 20 kph, because it's dangerous and unpredictable for other riders.

masklinn3 years ago

> The 25 kph is on the assumption that people will use these e-bikes on bike lanes.

In fact the 25kph is so they are legally bicycles across europe, no questions asked.

Countries can allow faster or more powerful devices, but the european baseline is that a pedelec is a bicycle period.

carlob3 years ago

As an owner of both a road bike and a shitty commuter, I agree with you: if you wanna race, use the road.

frosted-flakes3 years ago

Cities tend to have speed limits closer to 50 km/h. (Is "kph" an accepted spelling?)

carlob3 years ago

Bike friendly cities are converging towards 30 km/h.

Kph, mt, sec: are all widely used but wrong.

avianlyric3 years ago

As an example (for GP) many London boroughs (city councils/districts) now enforce a global 20mph (32kph) speed limit on all their roads. With recent legislation making it trivially easy for boroughs to do this (I think it used to require consultations etc, but now they can be unilaterally applied with consultation with the public).

Additionally TfL have had the entire of central London (within the congestion zone) 20mph.

sparsely3 years ago

There's a big difference in perceived (and probably actual) safety between sharing a narrow bikelane with current pedelecs and an electric moped. I do think that the use cases for bikelanes should be made more explicit and varied, but unless cities start building substantially bigger ones I don't think they can get much faster.

In any case, in cities something which can go over 25kph without pedaling is likely safe enough to drive like a vehicle.

NoGravitas3 years ago

Fine, as long as you don't allow them on the sidewalk or the bike lanes.

furyg33 years ago

I think this is solving a problem too literally: "I have a bike, but sometimes want to carry more stuff."

Though the problem is actually: "I have some stuff, and I want it to get somewhere"

It's cute that a little car can follow my bike home from the hardware store with my stuff, but I don't actually care about the following. Just let me summon a trailer, put my stuff in it, and tell it to meet me at home in 20 mins. That way I don't have to pick it up somewhere, or drive it back when I'm done.

Of course the issue is that self-driving isn't a thing yet, in which case I may as well drive the thing. Just give me some kind of cargo pickup scooter like a Stint (https://stintum.com/pickup/).

ohazi3 years ago

It seems like this is essentially the same technology, but they use the "needs to follow a bike" property to deal with the fact that your proposed AI trailer likely wouldn't be street legal, and also as an easy way to deter vandalism or theft.

yarcob3 years ago

> that your proposed AI trailer likely wouldn't be street legal

I see this statement all the time (that legal issues are holding AI back) but I'm pretty sure the legal issues could be fixed pretty quickly if there actually were self driving things.

In this case, if you look at the videos it doesn't look like this trailer is doing anything smart at all, it just accelerates/breaks when you pull/push on the draw bar.

wongarsu3 years ago

> In this case, if you look at the videos it doesn't look like this trailer is doing anything smart at all, it just accelerates/breaks when you pull/push on the draw bar.

Seems like a smart solution to the problem "I want to transport stuff, but bike trailers are too heavy"

jjoonathan3 years ago

A car fully solves all of these problems simultaneously.

dylan6043 years ago

Way to miss the point. I've been without a car for about 18 months now. Yes, I miss having a car, but I don't miss payments, insurance, or maintenance. I've dealt with small grocery runs with my pedal bike, but it has limitations. Delivery fees have just become part of my budget, but those fees still do not add up to a car payment or insurance fees. As much as I miss my last car, I'm not ready to jump into that level of commitment again any time soon.

jjoonathan3 years ago

Way to miss the point. Any niche between cars and bikes has to compete with both cars and bikes -- and you can aggregate things into cars to get utilization up, as you have discovered by paying for delivery.

Bike infrastructure is underdeveloped. Car infrastructure is not, and cars are good at cargo. Shifting cargo-hauling duty onto bike infrastructure is a great way to put bike infrastructure overcapacity, but not a great way to haul cargo. We should reserve bike infrastructure for people, because getting people out of cars and onto bikes is where the magic happens. Turning bikes into small cars -- which is where this idea is clearly headed -- is gross.

furyg33 years ago

A whole lot of city dwellers, especially outside the US, don't have a license.

On top of this they may be wishing to get stuff to/from places that aren't very accessible by car, and additionally rental car prices are heavily determined by the price of the vehicle, the operating costs, and maintenance. The numbers on something like this are much lower than on a van.

b3morales3 years ago

...while creating several others.

ctrlp3 years ago

I've been hoping someone would come out with something like this for a beach cart. Dragging a heavy cart over soft sand has to be one of the biggest problems of our time.

gangstead3 years ago

You think it's bad dragging a tent, chairs, and a soft sided cooler over the dunes now? Once you get the powered buggy the family is going to expect you to bring BBQs, couches, and enormous bomb proof yetis and you'll miss the simpler days when you could just say "that's too much stuff!".\

dun-hn3 years ago

Interesting idea, but not sure how would be possible to ride a bike on a soft sand :/

TheSmiddy3 years ago

The cart will more likely follow a person walking than someone riding a bike.

xeromal3 years ago

There's a piece of luggage that does this. Maybe they can use the tech for one of these beach buggies.

ctrlp3 years ago

Right, maybe you have a wristband or something and it just follows you at a short distance.

Johnny5553 years ago

https://gearjunkie.com/biking/beach-sand-fat-bike

The bike has a 10-inch-wide ATV tire on front to give float. The company touts you can “easily glide over soft beach sand as well as deep snow, mud, high grass, gravel, and anywhere else that regular bikes can’t go.”

It has a 4.6-inch rear tire and a 500-watt motor for pedal-assist. A special fork lets you swap the massive rubber up front for a normal fat tire when less float is required.

bebna3 years ago

fat tires, like an udx for example

ctrlp3 years ago

Lol, yeah.

CivBase3 years ago

Is it really a "trailer" if it moves under its own force? It's basically just a tiny EV that follows your bike around. It's neat and all, but why not just drive that instead?

jsight3 years ago

I was thinking the same thing. How about one that you can sit in, and maybe attach your bike to the front or rear?

I guess that's the next step and we can call it bikeless trailer or something.

throwaway0a5e3 years ago

>but why not just drive that instead?

cost of compliance

masklinn3 years ago

Powered trailers exist so why not.

That there is no physical coupling feels dubious though.

vel0city3 years ago

It seems like its for people who need a car, but don't want to admit they need a car.

entropicgravity3 years ago

To expand the scope here a little, personal electric transport will take over city centres over the next five to fifteen years and managing that transition will be tricky and divisive.

The fundamental driving force of this change is that electric vehicles scale much better than fossil fuel power vehicles. A 500watt ebike is perfectly quiet, clean and reliable whereas a gas engine of similar power and weight is messy, polluting and loud.

Start with bike paths. In North America, the standard is becoming 20mph/32kph. I ride an ebike often and I find this is more than fast enough and probably equal to about an automobile's 40mph with traffic lights.

Vehicles allowed on these paths should have a limited width and the allowed speed should depend upon its weight. It's not necessary to restrict motor power since speed is regulated by weight. So yes, if you're on a pedal bike you still have to follow the speed limits even if it's down hill. Some jurisdictions already follow this scheme with police and speed guns (Calgary is one as I recall).

The next step is to transition fossil fuel traffic to electric traffic in the city core. The most effective approach here is to initially allocate an entire lane on say, every fourth road, to electric (but not pedal only), vehicles of all sorts. The reason for excluding pedal only, ie normal bikes, is that their acceleration is too slow when starting from a dead stop at intersections. Whereas electric bikes have excellent acceleration, even better than cars from a dead stop.

Allocating a full lane to electric traffic (even Teslas) will be a big incentive for commuters to switch to electric transport. Another benefit is that it's much cheaper to do it this way than to create bespoke bike lanes. Just the low concrete dividers on top of the lane lines is enough and they can be laid down or removed very easily and cheaply for flexibility. As more commuters adopt electric transport more lanes can be allocated to them. Before you know it the city core will be all electric excepting delivery trucks.

rsj_hn3 years ago

The problem with bikes is the collision safety issues as well as protection from weather. It's not so much that pedalling is hard, but that it's not safe, and requires a high trust society. While there are small island of high trust urban socities still around, they are not the norm. Yes, I know of all the bike riders in Holland. I also know that the rest of the world is very different from Holland.

This is why ever larger SUVs are popular. That's not to say that they can't be electric, but the future is more with the frigthteningly large cybertruk clad with bulletproof glass that provides someone comfort driving through a dystopia of riots, assaults, and protection from other cybetruck drivers running into them, rather than a version of happy milk-maids bicycling through meadows of flowers.

This vision of bike riders, while certainly very pretty, is lost in the Julie Andrews past, and will remain a dream as long as we continue to live distrustful, isolated lives. Unfortunately nothing I've seen has made me believe the west is even capable of turning that around, and whether it turns around or not has nothing to do with urban planning or technological advances.

MivLives3 years ago

My biggest concern when I'm on an ebike is parking it. Bike racks and locks aren't really designed for the thicker tubes. My bike is suddenly worth 5 or 8 times as much as it was without the motor. When I used to ride a One Wheel around, at least I could take it with me. With a car I could at least be sure it likely wouldn't be stolen.

entropicgravity3 years ago

Much of this could be remedied by ebike makers including a front wheel lock that keeps the wheel at an angle. Almost all mopeds have this and it's cheap and effective. Because the lock is integrated with the steering breaking it involves breaking the bike. Because the wheel is "turned" a thief has to either carry it or but it in a vehicle both of which attract attention.

rsj_hn2 years ago

As long as you can lift a bike and stick it in the back of a pickup truck or load it into a van, bikes are going to be much easier to steal regardless of physical locking mechanism.

But one interesting idea is some kind of electronic kill switch and GPS tracker, particularly on the electric bikes that have juice. I think that would be the direction I'd like to take anti-theft defences for bikes. But as you start adding more valuable components to bikes like batteries and motors, you will start getting bike chop shops like you have with cars.

entropicgravity3 years ago

What I'm talking about here applies to the urban downtown where traffic is usually congested and slow. The situation you're describing is more like stroads and highways where bigger is better. Driving a cybertruck in congested downtown traffic is not something that most drivers would look forward to. A zippy ebike would get them where they're going faster and more conveniently.

asdff3 years ago

It's not easy for people to pick up that confidence to be honest. I know people who would be freightened to share the road with such heavy traffic. Even when I lane split I hold my breath, because in gridlocked traffic drivers typically muscle over between lanes without looking and rarely signalling, prime opportunity for you to hit an unexpected broadside. Not to mention the risk of being doored going past streetparked cars, people have like died from that.

When I bike in town now I have to navigate around these heavy trafficked sections, favoring roundabout residential roads that usually take me longer than the direct path on stroads (bad in traffic for above, bad when they are clear since people go 60mph if no one is ahead of them).

It's just not pleasant riding out on these congested streets or open stroads after you've had a number of close calls. I used to do it a lot but I've lost my appetite for that unfortunately, and my city is not building bike lanes at any decent pace in my neighborhood which is depressing. I support transit and bikes but at this point I'm taking a car out for everything because its three times as fast as the bus, and I'm not worrying about getting my head smashed by someone texting in a G wagon like on my bike.

asdff3 years ago

I think a big issue with these is that for one people are buying them with cash, for two the used market is questionable owing to battery/abuse/etc and overall not much cheaper than new, and three they aren't insuring them. in an urban area, this means if someone steals your ebike, you are out like over $1k sometimes with no recourse at all. We have systems to deal with this for car theft (insurance, cops that care more about car theft than bike theft), but nothing for small transit like a bicycle. Most people will probably give up after a single theft if they have a car still in their garage. $1000 is a lot of money for the vast majority of people.

To make these sustainable they either have to be cheap cheap, like less than $100 cheap because for some people that's over a days wages, so that when they are stolen they can be replaced rather than alternatives sought, or we have to invest heavily in securing these bikes and going after theft. I'm not sure if the latter can actually be done considering I've had my own bike stolen in my city from my underground, gated, surveilled apartment parking garage, and I'm not sure what's left to prevent that from happening to anyone again short of a guard standing watch 24/7, and you can't practically have that on every corner of the city.

dreamcompiler3 years ago

Follow-the-leader is much easier AI technology than full self-driving. Almost certainly we'll soon see this in cross-country tractor-trailer highway freight "trains" where only the lead vehicle needs a human driver.

frankus3 years ago

There’s a related product (can’t find the link) that has a physical connection to the bike that includes a load cell that drives a motor in the trailer to keep the net force (when accelerating or braking) at zero.

In fact if you know the gross mass of the trailer you can get pretty close with just an accelerometer, but I don’t know of a commercial product that does this.

btbuildem3 years ago

Their logo implies that eventually they may want to daisy-chain these to make a "trailer train" led by one cyclist.

Cool idea, but keep these off bike paths. Too wide and heavy to safely share that space.

mschuster913 years ago

Interesting concept, but... it's developed here in Germany? The country that took years to legalize electric bikes and e-scooters?

As a German, hats off to them and good luck, they will need it.

jack_riminton3 years ago

Side note: the design of that site is horrible. The colours, contrast, search bar which is inline with the main body all make it really hard to read for me

jsilence3 years ago

Carla Cargo is a very similar product: https://www.carlacargo.de/

annoyingnoob3 years ago

Is it really 'smart' when its just running a program?

Not to be offensive, I have yet to see a truly 'smart' device of any kind.

wongarsu3 years ago

Smart is an ill-defined marketing term just like AI.

But in the end everything is just hardware, and some of it runs some software. If "just running a program" is your yardstick I'm not sure what could satisfy your definition of "smart"?

annoyingnoob3 years ago

When the world gets past 'just running a program' we'll know. Until then the creator might feel clever but the device is not smart.

I suppose a space like HN is a place to be honest about what our technology can and cannot do. I think of this as a place where its okay to question ill-defined marketing terms and even do away with them when they don't apply.