I literally stay awake at night trying to figure out why so many people have been putting out the most intensely negative energy they can towards the Storm Ebike Campaign on Indiegogo that is currently at $3.1 million and climbing. The thread on Endless-Sphere is 19 pages long now with 7000 views and I can’t even read it anymore. The emails I’ve gotten from people out of the blue and negative posts made to the Storm Fundraiser page is enough to make anyone say ‘Enough !’. Where is all this energy coming from. At first I thought
“All these people are afraid that this campaign will fail.”
Then I had an epiphany. It’s not that people are afraid they will fail … it’s that they are afraid they will succeed. What Storm and Jon have done is unwittingly stumbled upon the most glaring problems in American Society.
Transportation Inefficiency
Compensating?
Transportation Inefficiency? What am I talking about? I’m talking about the amount of energy it takes to move a 170lb bag of mostly water from point A to point B. Lets say this bag of mostly water can move under its own power and use very little energy. The human body is an incredibly, remarkably, beautifully efficient machine. However moving under its own power it only averages, say 3 mph. Then lets say we can make a small machine, it’s not that expensive to make and it’s pretty light, and it is even MORE efficient than that person is under their own power. Lets say this machine can pretty easily go 10mph. We’ll call this machine a Bicycle for the sake of argument. Now lets assume we can take a tiny amount of electric power and make this machine even MORE efficient and move that bag of mostly water (that’s you by the way) at about 20 mph for a fifth of a penny a mile of electricity. Lets say that the machine that moves the bag of water 10mph costs $100 and the machine that moves the bag of water 20mph costs $500.
Well to heck with all that, there is ABSOLUTELY no money to be made in this scenario. Lets try again.
Let convince people they have to work all the time so they can move that 170lb bag of water around in fashion and style and drag around another 4000-8000lbs with them everywhere they go. Lets make that GIANT machine run on a non-renewable resource that we can closely control the availability (and the price) by pumping more or less of it. Lets convince all these bags of water that they absolutely MUST have one of these giant machines or they will be an outcast. In fact, lets design these machines so they stop working every 7 years and have to be turned into scrap again. Lets sell these giant machines for around $31,252 each (average selling price for a new car in the USA). Lets make there be so many of these machines that instead of being able to go 60mph they will be stuck in traffic for 38 hours out of every year. That traffic congestion should slow down the traffic so that the average speed that people have on their commute is a measly 30mph. Now people are paying an extra $30,753 a every 7 years (not counting fuel) to gain an average of an extra 10mph of speed on their way to work.
Are they scared enough yet? They should be.
Why do you think gas is $2 a gallon right now? There is no greater threat to the oil and gas monopolies than electric powered transportation. The powers at be want Tesla and every other electric car on the market to fail miserably. The best way for them to do that is to drop the price of gas so it is so cheap that normal sane people won’t even consider buying an electric car.
Wow, now things are starting to look pretty absurd. I think the best course of action is to sell that fancy electric bicycle for $4000 or more. That will keep the poor people from buying them, they will choose the cheaper $100 option with no motor or if they are smart and care about what other people think of them they will get the $31,252 option and look cool sitting in traffic.
When you put it like this, it starts to take on the kind of absurdity that would be in Dr Seuss’s Star Bellied Sneetch book.
Cars are cool, you have to have one or everyone will think you are homeless and poor.
Americans are trapped in a cycle of work/consume that must not be broken. For everyone that forsakes a $31,252 car and instead chooses a $499 electric bike we lose $30,753 dollars worth of labor. If every one of the 6500 people who sign up for the Storm campaign give up their cars this means that $200 Million dollars of labor will disappear from the economy every 7 years. Add in the cost of gas that these people won’t be spending over a 7 year period ($2120 a year) and you add another $97 million over 7 years. I think that this problem is great enough that president Obama should get involved to stop these guys, we cannot afford to lose $300 million dollars out of our economy. And this is just CURRENT backers it doesn’t represent future ebike buyers. This country became great by people working hard to buy things that they don’t really need to impress people they don’t really like. (Tyler Durden)
If Storm succeeds in this campaign then people will start wondering why all the other ebikes cost so much. $4000 for an ebike? Who can afford that? Why do I need to buy a $2000 Bosch drive system when hundreds of millions of Chinese get by just fine on a $75 Bafang Geared hub motor?
Lets litter the internet with our negativity and naysaying. Lets call for the failure of Storm/Ivars Sondors and his cohorts. In order to protect our way of life … they absolutely, unequivocally must fail.
And the duty falls upon each and every one of us to make sure that happens.
ElectricBike-Blog.com 
Reminds me of the argument that low gas prices are bad for America lol WTF!!! Good luck with that one shills.
I’m in pain from carrying around my heavier wallet, filled with unspent gas money. Someone please save me.
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you will be when lower prices drive down the prices of everything else. It’s called deflation and it’s just as bad as inflation.
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Deflation is bad for people who are ignorant about it. Deflation is super good scenario to get a lot of things (specially real estate) at bargain prices (and why not, ebikes too) 😉
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Deflation is good for you because other people’s companies are cutting their prices. It becomes bad for you when your company has to cut its prices to compete. This means they have to lay you off. Once laid off, you can’t afford to spend as much, so the goods you buy fall in price. This causes more people to lose their jobs. Sure, the prices will be low, but nobody will have any money to buy anything.
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Great article and perspective! It’s certainly a big contributor to the negativity about the Storm. Then we have the stung egos of a bunch of e-bike snobs – not all e-bike hobbyists, just the snobs who seem threatened by the idea of a decent beginner ebike that costs less than what they’ve got. Or maybe they don’t want a flood of newbies encroaching on their turf.
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I followed the early promotion of the product. They said there would be a launch on February 1. They sent me an email that morning, with a link. My problem is, up to the point where I clicked that link, I thought I would be buying an ebike, from a website, a store front. That isn’t what happened, and I didn’t sign up. This is very strange way to offer a product. Why not just sell it? Why go with an crowdfunding site that has had some problems. A site that openly encourages half-baked ideas?
Fine. Get the best deal you can on Alibaba. Make an interesting bike at a great price. And just sell it. Do what Bikes Direct does. Whether Storm succeeds or not, nothing changes. It’s clear what the cost structure is in China. It’s clear they are making better quality products, and they make millions of ebikes. They have economies of scale. Alibaba provides a platform. Storm is irrelevant to that. We don’t know what the Storm model is. We don’t know if they will be around, have a store, offer any other product, or provide a warranty. We don’t know anything about Storm. Is $500 the best price to aim at? If you really want a decent bike, but a pure China import, what is the best price? Is a fat even the best bike, especially for transport?
The flip side is that if they provide a bike that is half decent, it would change things. I don’t have to believe they will do this, but it’s fine with me if they do, for all the reasons you give. I just wouldn’t make too much of Storm. It’s a goofball way to do things, and I think people thought they were buying something. They weren’t, and they are not in a great position to complain if things go south.
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Your first two Storm articles were reasonable, but this one has gone off the rails.
There are plenty of $1200 eBike with a long history, dealer, network and a warranty.. If people were that interested in eBikes as transportation they could be buying them all day..
If someone thinks a $700 Fat Bike from Storm is the answer to their dreams, well, it might work out or it might bust. History isn’t on their side, but we will see.
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Bill wrote, “It’s called deflation and it’s just as bad as inflation.”
That’s false. Deflation is far, far better than inflation. It slows the economy, which reduces the bumps in the boom/bust cycle and makes growth more robust. Deflation discourages borrowing and encourages saving for a rainy day. Deflation reduces the need to get rid of dollars quickly, so it rewards people and companies that build high-quality products for the long term, and discourages get-rich-quick scammers.
You’ve been told your whole life that deflation is bad, but who tells you that? Bankers, connected to the Federal Reserve. Politicians who are trying to make you dependent on them, to increase their own power. Lenders, who want to make money off of a buy-it-up, use-it-up, throw-it-away, buy-it-again culture. People who don’t care about you or the hard work you do for your money, your future, your savings for your future, or your quality of life.
Deflation is better than inflation. *Stability,* neither inflation nor deflation, is best, but difficult to achieve. Just, never believe those who tell you that deflation is bad. They’re trying to rip you off.
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Magnum,
I never knew economics was opinionated but I guess so…
Persistant deflation is the cause of massive economic depressions.
People hording their money because they are waiting for prices to fall lower leads directly to labor force contraction and decreased wages. People without jobs can’t make payments and default on mortgages. People don’t demand stuff so supply goes up and prices continue to fall
The Fed is keenly aware of this threat. Why do you think the Fed has been printing so much money with their Quantative Easing? It’s an attempt to increase the money supply and thus the power of the dollar.
Is the success of eStorm or a lower oil prices a path to deflation? Probably not but all things do not remain equal. If, as this article proposes, electric bikes start replacing cars and the price of oil continues to fall, who knows what can happen?
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Deflation is good for you because other people’s companies are cutting their prices. It becomes bad for you when your company has to cut its prices to compete. This means they have to lay you off. Once laid off, you can’t afford to spend as much, so the goods you buy fall in price. This causes more people to lose their jobs. Sure, the prices will be low, but nobody will have any money to buy anything.
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I am happy to live in a relatively free society in which I can make the personal decision as to whether I want to own a car, electric bicycle, motorcycle, and/or any other mode of transportation. No car manufacturer is in fear of a $600 electric bicycle eliminating the need or desire for a car. My car gives me the freedom to travel anywhere at anytime I like – so long as a road to get there exists. An electric bicycle will not allow me to travel from SoCal to NorCal to visit family and friends over the weekend.
I truly hope that Storm succeeds for Indiegogo contributors, crowd funding in general, and the lower prices that would come from competition amongst electric bike manufacturers.
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Freedom to me means having an array of options to get where I’m going that make sense, including driving, taking a train, taking a bus, taking a bike and walking. I have that where I live now. This isn’t directed at you particularly, but I’ve never understood the notion that freedom is about a single means of getting around.
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