Why are there hardly any electric bikes/riders designed for winter driving?
Posted by Hackkspett@reddit | ebikes | View on Reddit | 62 comments
The market for electric bikes has absolutely exploded in recent years, with new companies, new brands, new models, and upgraded models constantly popping up.
But how is it that the market for something similar for snow and winter-use is still completely dead?
Pretty much the only thing that seems to exist right now is "Moonbikes," https://moonbikes.com which feel like they’re entirely alone in this category – a winter equivalent of an electric bike.
Does anyone know of anything similar?
Is there’s anything like a Moonbike on the Chinese market? available on Alibaba?
P.S. I’m aware there are snow kits available for several models, including the Talaria Sting, Surron Light Bee and Ultra Bee.
But from everything I’ve read and seen, these kits aren’t exactly impressive.
And at the same time, a snow kit can cost nearly as much as a new e-bike.
8bitmuch@reddit
It's a niche market.
As PEVs continue exploding in popularity, im sure winterized batteries with an insulation sleeve, neoprene or similar, will come to market.
I think this market, although niche, could be dominated by a company that puts some engineers to work on it, and is full of untapped potential.
I can also see a 3rd party manufacture PEV battery insulation sleeves. Please, by all means, steal "my" idea.
Ok_Lengthiness_760@reddit
Moon bikes suck ass compared to a 25 year old snowmobile. My ‘97 Indy 440 sled goes faster, up steeper stuff, and through deeper snow than a moonbike, for $9500 less than the moonbike.
Alert_Ad3999@reddit
Fat bikes have existed for a long time my guy.
Also see studded tires, any bike can be a winter bike.
Mediocre_Superiority@reddit
People don't like broken collar bones?
bulshoy_3@reddit
Dunno if there's much of a market for these. Not useful for commuting except in limited circumstances (eg rural). For offroad stuff, everything this can do a snowmobile can do better. So there aren't many scenarios where one of these would be a better solution than what's already out there.
Western_Courage_6563@reddit
Noise. Hunting could benefit. There might be a market, someone have to try...
Johnyryal33@reddit
Don't think it's legal to hunt from a motorized vehicle unless you are handicapped. Not in Minnesota anyways.
Different-Side5262@reddit
I'm in northern Michigan and I could only use that for 1 out of the 5 past winters. Plus what everyone else said.
PitchRemote776@reddit
Many don't ride bikes in snow....Shark Tank would not invest in such a not needed ebike accessory. JS
finance-express@reddit
lovely bike !
binaryhellstorm@reddit
Limited market, expected long range, and cold is had on batteries.
hroaks@reddit
And they compete with snow mobiles in the same price range which have more range and all around a better option
thishasntbeeneasy@reddit
Have you seen a snowmobile up close? They are HUGE. There's basically a car engine in there to power it because people want to ride 40mph up a 40% grade.
Any little ebike is going to be so underpowered that it's not going to be very fun to ride on snow.
the_Q_spice@reddit
As someone who used to work on an SAE clean snowmobile team:
Snowmobiles are also designed for floatation.
You have to think of snow sort of like a liquid, you can sink or float.
As big as snowmobiles are, they aren’t terribly dense.
That all ends when you start putting extremely high density power sources in them.
Heck, we even trialed a more dense engine in one of ours - thing cracked through our simulated ice run. Would have killed the rider had one been on.
You basically can’t make snowmobiles more dense without making the tread and ski contact area bigger. But when you do that, you increase rolling resistance, requiring a larger/more powerful engine, which in electrics, starts a positive feedback loop of: larger motors need larger battery need larger tread and skis need larger motor… and so on.
The most efficient combination we came up with was actually swapping a whole-ass 3cyl 1.5L Ford Ecoboost from an Escape that we de-tuned from 180 HP to around 110-120.
Ended up doing about 60mph while also making a pretty phenomenal 54 mpg, even when tested at -20F, and would cold start in under 15 seconds at those temps while having almost a 500 mile range.
bentripin@reddit
To turn a dirt bike into a snow bike, you start with like a 450cc 4 stroke as a bare minimum.. it destroys smaller engines, really need gobs of power to turn those tracks.
E-Dirt bikes are struggling to compete with 150-250cc Dirt Bikes right now, they are not even on the table for snow biking.
Altruistic-Cress-540@reddit
A 250 yamaha yz kit is on the market an I seen them work across the lake I live on quite a concept been around for a while but that Moonbike is way out of price range for maybe 3months of good snow and my Ebike which I ride in the snow air down an lock suspension rides ok but the battery does loose charge quicker due to the cold tempature just a thought worth mentioning
DrDerpberg@reddit
I mean this this basically is a snowmobile. I wouldn't take it unless my route is 100% snow. Can't have that front ski dragging on pavement.
neurotekk@reddit
There are batteries with internal heater.
binaryhellstorm@reddit
Where does that heat come from on a vehicle where the battery is removed to be charged like the one shown?
neurotekk@reddit
https://www.amazon.com/Ampere-Time-Self-Heating-Temperature-Applications/dp/B09BR4MYBV
See for example..
Edit: Okay maybe it's only for charging.. Dunno if it heats it while discharging
velo443@reddit
No heat while discharging.
fb39ca4@reddit
Just have to use enough power that the pack keeps itself warm
PicaDiet@reddit
“Limited macket, expected lawng range, an’ cold is had on bat-chries.”
FTFY
samthekitnix@reddit
...snowmobile the word you're looking for is snowmobile
2secondsleft@reddit
Yea exactly, what has this to do with an ebike. Next is electric cars
FredSirvalo@reddit
Wouldn't it be great if they invented a cargo ebike to transport your whole family and luggage over long distances? Maybe use 4 wheels to spread out the weight and balance rolling resistance. Wrap it with a metal exoskeleton for aerodynamics safety. /s
ruly1000@reddit
Maybe because electric snowmobiles are better?
https://www.taigamotors.com/en/snowmobiles/
https://ski-doo.brp.com/us/en/models/electric-snowmobiles.html
missionarymechanic@reddit
There's "winter," and then there's "snow."
Treads eat a ton of energy, skis don't work on roads/ice, cold battery range is pathetic. Take your pick.
Fat tires with studs are the best we can get before you really need a different vehicle. Even then, that's an infrastructure issue, not a bike issue. Plenty of places with active bike trails all winter that get maintained. You can ride on hard-pack with little issue.
sparhawk817@reddit
There are some niche options out there to convert your bike to tracked, or like, children's balance bikes get converted to ski bikes with a kit pretty easily, but they aren't readily available or universal products.
What I really want, is an Ebike company that sells their own track kit that has its own dedicated hub motor, and all you have to do is take off your rear wheel and bolt on the kit, plug the motor into the exact same port because it's OEM, and away you go. Whether you strap a snowboard on the front wheel or not is up to you.
Then you aren't wrecking your original motor running it in salt and snow, you aren't ruining your tire using it to push a track, and you get just a little more flotation from the larger contact patch of a track, hopefully getting you more on top of the snow than slicing through it.
Edit: that said, where I live I would use it maybe 3 days a year if I didn't travel for it specifically, and my bike shuts off in below freezing temps so I would need a heated battery bag or something. Maybe a battery bag with those chemical hot packs for shipping?
missionarymechanic@reddit
No chemical packs. You can't easily/accurately regulate temps.
sparhawk817@reddit
If it's good enough to ship tropical fish in Wisconsin during a snowstorm, it's probably good enough for an Ebike battery. Also, wouldn't be hard to set up a little thermometer with a probe inside the bag so you can monitor battery temps yourself.
I'm not talking about hand warmers, I'm talking about like a uniheat 40 hour shipping pack or similar, super slow release, not that high of a temperature emitted.
If you needed, you could even put unheated gel packs or something in between the chem pack and the battery, so the heat gets dispersed through more thermal mass before hitting the casing of the battery. It would just be layered pockets in the insulated battery cover, really.
Advantage of heat packs is they wouldn't reduce range by drawing off the original battery, disadvantage is they're disposable. Microwave heat packs generally don't stay warm that long, or get too hot, but maybe the thermal mass trick would work there for people inexperienced with reliable chemical heat packs.
fb39ca4@reddit
At that point you might as well power the whole thing with chemical energy such as gasoline.
sparhawk817@reddit
Lmao WHAT
fb39ca4@reddit
The nice thing about ebikes is you just plug them in, no consumables to frequently replace. You'd end up spending a lot of money in heating pads using them regularly.
sparhawk817@reddit
Yeah, but this isn't an electric snowmobile, it's an Ebike that didn't come with a heater built into the battery.
Yes a manufacturer creating the little track design like I want for their specific bikes would also create a heated bag or something, but for me, and probably most people, where I just happen to have some days of the year where the wind chill or ambient temp is enough to trigger the low battery temp shutoff... Shipping heat packs are safe, reliable, affordable, and don't affect your range. They also need to be replaced. I feel like I said all this already, so I'm not sure why you're arguing like it's new information? But yeah, I agree, you could theoretically design something that doesn't require external input like a microwave gel pack or a shipping heat pack, but even sewing your own hot pads into a battery bag would still need something to disperse the heat and avoid hot spots on certain cells in your battery etc. Which I went over in earlier comments.
Shipping heat packs are a pretty reasonable option for most people who aren't riding in sub freezing temps more than a month or 2 out of the year.
And also, nowhere near as polluting etc as a gas engine lmfao.
thelostgeographer@reddit
This 👆.
I live in the Canadian North and ride a 4" fat tire bike to commute year-round. I put studded tires on for the winter and I'm golden. A snowmobile bike like the one shown by OP would be super impractical even for the far north.
XT2020-02@reddit
Nice. I figure, the best was is to pedal and keep warm. But fat tires with studs will get you around most places. I need to try that, I think 3" is the fattest I can mount on my MTB.
wreckedbutwhole420@reddit
A 3in tire is in "plus" bike territory. Should be decent in the snow
GiganticBlumpkin@reddit
Gas motors are much more effective in the snow/cold
Wizardofsmiles@reddit
Because snow doesn't really exist anymore 😉
Total_Coffee358@reddit
Winter is fine for cycling. 🤷
foxfirek@reddit
Ha- I’m right there with you- that’s what our weather in CA was like yesterday. It was quite nice.
fb39ca4@reddit
I love my winter commute.
allislost77@reddit
Liquid. There are many out there, super expensive
sandark77@reddit
Fat tire bikes.
davpad12@reddit
You can't even ride on soft sand with 5" fat tires even if you air down to 5 lb. Been there done that.. don't believe the hype. Snow would be a joke.
cgjeep@reddit
For a whole year I didn’t have a car in Michigan and exclusively rode my custom fat tire ebike. Multiple inches of snow no problem. Just air down the tires.
davpad12@reddit
You weren't actually riding on top of the snow. You were crushing it down to the hard surface under it which is a different thing.
tarmacc@reddit
Hate to tell you about what happens on powder days... It still goes
chungyeung@reddit
How about a e-trike in snow?
Intelligent_Jump_859@reddit
Because the majority of the planet only experiences snow 1/4th if the year if it all mean there's less demand for winter based everything.
trackerbuddy@reddit
Global warming, duh
dano___@reddit
An electric snowmobile thing will only work on snow, and that’s just not something that will be useful to commuters or delivery drivers. What city has groomed snow trails running through their downtown cores for these to ride on?
If you actually needed a snowmobile you’d just buy a snowmobile. These e-sled things don’t list a price, but considering that $1000 is only a deposit on one I guarantee that you can find an actual snowmobile for cheaper that will outperform and outlast that moon thing in every way.
ChevyBolt@reddit
Most winter cities have a frozen river to commute on. In the summer they offer boat taxi’s. I’m really surprised in Winnipeg’s most affluent neighborhood’s built on the river will have not single ski doo track. Drive out the suburbs & out of city limits that are built on the same river, you will see numerous ski doo’s ripping it up. And their houses are just as big.
dano___@reddit
Ok, you groom a trail along the river downtown. Then what? You leave your funky e-sled on the riverbank and walk to work? Why would this ever work better than a e-bike with fat tires that would roll down a groomed snow trail without a problem?
ChevyBolt@reddit
It says you don’t need to groom a trail unless speed is important. These things don’t even go that fast. and yes, you sure can lock them up like a bike on the riverfront and walk to your job. Is it going to be there when you get back? Lol. Check out the forks in Winnipeg they have bike valet and the river trail practically surrounds the whole downtown. The Moon-bike costs $9kusd. But a cheaper pedal option is a Envo Flex for $4kcdn. I’m not saying they’re any better than a fat tire bike. It seems more of a pricy/gimmicky option to get to A to B. But the days on the river are numbered so not really practical.
dano___@reddit
Ok, well at $9000usd it’s pretty clear that this isn’t a viable product. These look like cheap Chinese e-bikes with a track and ski, no one with money for a good condition 600cc sled is going to consider this moon thing instead.
Proper_Key_206@reddit
The abysmal performance of lithium batteries at freezing temperatures probably doesn't help
Singnedupforthis@reddit
Abysmal performance is an exaggeration. If you start with a warm battery and ride the whole time, the battery doesn't get cold. You can enclose the battery so it doesn't get the wind cooling it. I have a few em3ev batteries that let you know when they are too cold to operate properly, and that light has yet to come on this winter even though it has been used in negative temperatures fairly regularly. The fat tires with low pressure drain the battery far quicker then the cold on the battery.
HonoratoDoto@reddit
Depends greatly on the bike. I put a neoprene and some thermal insulant on my tiny battery and still gets cold after a bit and goes from full to showing like 20% battery in a second when it's negative temperatures
Singnedupforthis@reddit
I have 6 batteries that I use regularly in negative temperatures and none have that issue, sorry about your bad luck, but that isn't common. I also ride with several people whose batteries are just fine in the cold.
HonoratoDoto@reddit
Maybe yours is higher end bike? Mine is a low low end commuter folding bike.
In another winter ebike post I've seen lots of other people complaining about battery autonomy dropping in winter. Mine is an extreme case because the battery is tiny (I've chosen like that so I can bring with me to the office everyday), so I have to charge it basically everyday in winter against every 3-4 days in summer.