[mattio]

I am not sure why everyone thinks they are expensive. Just the bike is about 2000 euro.

There are eBikes costing 4000 euro.

My van moof was about 2800 because I bought the 2 packages taking care of theft and repairs. Because of their image I never have to lock the bike besides their amazing kick lock bike, so getting on and off the bike with locking and unlocking it is a matter of seconds.

This is not expensive at all.

*their image amongst bicycle thief’s makes the bike unattractive. They hunt down stolen bikes if you bought their theft service. If they can’t find it you get a new one.

[holoduke]

They are expensive. All parts are cheap chinese crap components. I had to dismantle the main motor because some slip ring got worn out. Turned out to be a cheap motor you can find in parts on Alibaba/expess. The brakes are bad. The electronics are bad. They almost always fail after a while. The only thing what is good about VanMoof are the looks. Everything else is just shit.

[abyssin]

And where they could use standard pieces, they don’t. It took me ages to replace a bottom bracket because the cheap one they had installed was bent and replacement was nowhere to be found easily, except at their shop for an outrageous price.

[usrusr]

Well, unless you think they are ugly (I very much do)

[estomagordo]

> This is not expensive at all.

I mean, you can get a regular bike for €300, €700 if you want to splurge. But of course, the downside of that would be that you'd get more exercise.

[moooo99]

I mean, you can also easily spend >2k on a bike. In terms of e-bikes the prices for Vanmoof and their competitor Cowboy aren’t particularly cheap, but they aren’t incredibly out of line either.

[oezi]

You can get a cheap bike for 300 where every part except the frame fails within a year.

Otherwise 500-700 is the low end for quality bikes.

[ornornor]

You can also exercise with an ebike. I push just as hard as on my acoustic bike when I feel like it instead of all the time. It’s 30C outside? I don’t have to arrive all sweaty with an ebike. I have a meeting or go into work? Same.

But when I choose too I can lower the assist level, pedal hard, and/or go faster and longer.

Best of both worlds. But I have a European ebike with torque sensing, not the glorified escooters with pedals where the motor is either full torque or no torque: I still have to pedal to make the bike move.

[verbify]

People have different requirements. I had a commute that on an ebike took 50 minutes, and on a regular bike took me about 1:15 minutes each way. I couldn't do 2:30hrs of cycling every day, 5 days a week - it wasn't an option both in terms of time and effort. Maybe with a serious training program (and if I was older it would be even more difficult).

45 minutes of cycling on an electric bike was still plenty of exercise, and if I hadn't done that, I would've probably taken a train.

[foepys]

Have the prices come down lately? When COVID hit, it was nearly impossible to find cheap new bikes.

[mjhagen]

> This is not expensive at all.

> If they can’t find it you get a new one.

Can't figure out why they weren't profitable.

[Arnt]

Seriously: They bought a lot of expensive machinery to build things, rented and furnished a lot of shops, and hired a lot of people to staff those, and sales didn't grow to to use their production capacity, sales area and staff time.

Their prices for that trace-or-replace service were quite a bit higher than what my insurance agency charges me for my theft insurance. That operation may have lost money, but that's not obvious.

[haspok]

They are expensive for what is essentially a commuter bike. I think they simply chose a wrong strategy, because if you have a cheap(ish) bike and a good U-lock, you can leave it anywhere without much stress. It will most probably not be stolen (because the value of the bike is low), and if it does get stolen, then it is cheap to replace - you can buy at least 5 commuter bikes for the price of a fancy one. In fact, in the past 20 years I had exactly one bike stolen from me from an open basement where the bike was not locked, and there were construction works in the building (=my fault). I do have bikes worth >2k but I don't use them for commuting and I don't leave them around for more than 10 minutes even locked.

ps. I also happen to own a Brompton, which is another strategy - fold your bike so you can take it with you anywhere. Even it was heavily overpriced (~900 GBP IIRC), and it has propietary parts so servicing is not easy. My excuse for buying it is that it paid back it's price in about a year of commuting (by not having to pay for public transport).

[rerx]

They wouldn't be expensive for that price if they used quality parts and assembled them well (I don't think VanMoof offered a good deal because those crucial aspects were lacking). The market for a quick city e-bike is a bit different than the one for a throwaway commuter bike. People pay for being faster and enjoying the ride. Accordingly, I would make sure such a bike is insured against theft and use a quality lock.

[scotty79]

How do you secure the battery with ulock? Or are there bikes with non-replaceble batteries? How do you charge them?

[Arnt]

To clarify: I personally don't see them as expensive. My neighbour who bought an e-bike this year called them expensive, because they were well above the cheapest things on offer.

They have some fine features that IMO justify their prices, but I'm guessing that I'm an outlier wrt judging bike values and my neighbour more mainstream, so I called them expensive.

[nixass]

> I am not sure why everyone thinks they are expensive. > There are eBikes costing 4000 euro.

Is this coping mechanism where you justify yourself you got a good deal from them?