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I built an electric bike powered by old laptop batteries... 18650's....

There are plenty of battery salvage stories on Endless-sphere, and though I tried, I never was was able to find a cheap source of batteries. All in all, my e-bike escapades were pretty much failures in terms of transportation. You need more than ingenuity to be a successful e-bike maker. You need some money.

You're Incorrect, misread, borderline ridiculous and you must not ride a bike either.

I ride both an e-bike an a human-powered bike, and yes, I, personally, ride in the right *part* of the lane, but my policy is by no means universal, many people, particularly other e-bike riders, don't agree, and it certainly is not mandated by the law. Also, your interpretation of "Meaning on or to the right of the white solid lane marker" is something no one beyond you believes. Finally, in real life, if you ride a bike (even for just an hour in this town, Kansas City) keeping to the right part of the lane, and you go slower than traffic, many people will come dangerously close - certainly closer than 3 feet. Then, if you ride long enough (say, a few months), you'll have a side-swipe story to tell.

People in cars think because they are in bigger vehicle they have more *right* to be there. Many even believe a bike has no right. I see it as a basic inferiority complex. Someone with this complex gets an opportunity to bully, and they do - to feel more superior about themselves. It happens more frequently in less-civilized parts of the world. In Boulder, Colorado, the motor traffic is generally polite to bikes. In the blighted dirty cities, you get just the opposite. This is a well discussed subject. Every bike forum addresses it from time to time.

When you charge a battery, you are ALSO doing an energy conversion from electrical to chemical. That's much more hazardous.

Defend your assertion that storing energy in chemical bonds is more dangerous than forcing combustible fuel-air vapors from a gas tank by injecting more gasoline.

If something goes wrong, in the best case you kill your battery (excess heat), and in the worst case it blows up sending shrapnel everywhere

Name a single modern electric car that *either* of these have happened to. There were thousands on the roads in the late '90s/early '00s, and there's now thousands of Tesla Roadsters. Heck, point me to a single case of a phosphate or a manganate cell exploding under *any* circumstances. These things are used for power tools, RC planes, etc now, you know.

The sort of abuse these cells can take is just absurd. Have you seen A123's latest cells? Check them out. They're pumping 300A into 15Ah cells and they're barely getting warm from it. These sort of cells can be discharged down to zero, ran under extreme temperatures, and all sorts of other stuff, no problem.

The guys at this forum have already done many projects similar to this at a fraction of the cost. I guess for a sports car, the cost is about right, but not everyone needs to do 150 mph. Sometimes people just want to the take the family and friends out to dinner, doesn't look like you'll fit more than a few people in most of those. It's still cool though that more are interested in building electric hot rods instead of the ICE counterparts.

Find a lot of the pioneers in the forum below.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/

(Edit: ICE = Internal Combustion Engine)

A lot of us already have. I've converted my crappy mountain bike to electric and have been commuting to work on it for the past year. It does 50km/hr without peddaling, uses batteries out of dewalt drill packs bought off of ebay for reasonable prices and a simple hub motor. It goes in the rain, through snow with studded tires and is much faster than driving my car in traffic to work. Costs 5 cents a charge. I save 5 bucks a day in gas and 25 bucks a day in parking. And I've got this stupid grin on my face most of the day because it really is so much damn fun! I can even pedal if I want and get some exercise.

http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums

Get an ebike. Check out http://www.ebikes.ca/ and http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums. I had the same problem, no showers, must dress professionally etc. With the ebike, I use the throttle going to work, charge at the office and pedal like a mad man on the way home. Don't pay for gas, don't pay for parking, its a hell of a good way to commute.

Real Geeks ebike to work! http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums

This is not the exact battery in question, but this is not the first time some voltage cut off problems have been observed with those batteryspace.com packs. You'll find a very detailed posting about the 37V/8AH Lipoly here: http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5 05 This was back in March, so the problem existed in earlier batteries as well. As a NiMH battery owner from batteryspace.com I've been a happy customer, but I can't speak for the Lipoly batteries as I have not tried them myself.

No more maintenance that any other battery. If you want to get some feedback from people that are already using these, check out this electric vehicle forum. http://endless-sphere.com/forums/ I think they are already ahead of what most think is possible with electric vehicle transportation.

I certainly agree that range is really where it's at. On average, I need to do about 10 miles a day for errands and other business related things. That's why instead of hauling around my SUV or even getting a hybrid electric car I made an hybrid electric bike. I can bypass all traffic in my town, it gets me around very fast and it only cost pennies to run. Plus the added health benefits, and fresh air can't be beat for the price. Really though , as futuristic as my bike may seem, the same thing could have been built 20 years ago and it's not really using modern technology. If you want some more info or screen shots, you can find it all in the link below for the curious :-) http://endless-sphere.com/index.php?option=com_con tent&task=view&id=13&Itemid=27