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Xiaomi Launches Foldable Electric Bike QiCycle At a Price Of $450 (indianexpress.com)
Xiaomi on Thursday unveiled its first ever electric bike -- the QiCycle Electric Folding Bike. The bike, made of carbon fibre, packs a host of sensors and weighs just 7kg. From a report on IndianExpress:QiCycle has an integrated electric motor, which can be used for propulsion. The bike is powered by 250W-36V electric motor, and uses Torque Measurement Method (TMM) to assist the rider's pedal-power. It comes with Shimano Gear Shifters to let users switch gears based on the terrain. It also has a bike computer display to show all the fitness-related parameters such as calories burned, distance traveled, speed, etc. Xiaomi says the QiCycle has a large Panasonic 18650 battery, which can last up to 45 kms on a single charge. Qicycle can be folded and kept in the trunk of a car.The QiCycle is priced at roughly $450, and is currently only available for sale in Chinese cities.
its 18mm by 65mm, the 0 means its round. the bike probably has a battery pack with much more than just 1 single 18650 in it...
Can I just cruise around on it without pedaling? I have shitty knees but would like something to run up to the corner store or cruise the neighborhood. Motorcycles are too expensive. I'm a cheap bastard.
the increasingly common chinese government backdoor for data collection? A technology appliance from China somehow feels incomplete without it.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
I went to an ebike store and the guy was showing me bikes in the range of $4,000-$6,000. Who would pay that much? Ridiculous. You know they are being manufactured in China for $200.
They are a $20 billion dollar company. They can buy plenty of vowels. Also, I think i, a and o are all vowels.
"[...] which can last up to 45 kms on a single charge.
Sorry to be pedantic, but I really hate it when people pluralise units by adding an "s". Forty-five kilometres is written "45km". "45kms" would be forty-five kilometre-seconds, which is a rather different quantity.
I say bullshit. Even the lightest Brompton without e-assist is heavier than that. Drastic weight reduction methods required to bring a purely muscle-powered bike down to 7 kg - let alone a folder, and especially let alone an *electric* folder - would bring it into multi-thousand dollar price tag territories.
So... Bullshit.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Yes. But let me introduce you to a revolutionary concept: if you connect several 18650 cells in parallel, you get multiples of a single cell's capacity. And if you connect several groups of 18650 cells in series, you get multiples of a single cell's voltage.
And if you connect a metric shitload of 18650 batteries together with a BMS and a car around it, you get a Tesla.
Amazing isn't it?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Being the American infrastructure is based on automobiles. Locomotion at speeds averaging 15 miles per hour (roughly 25 kilometers per hour) is rather dangerous with other vehicles going 2 to 4 times faster with a lot more mass behind them. Bike trails in the US. are often just signs telling drivers to be more careful.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Itsy Bitsy wheels, and minimal capacity — it's doubtful it even delivers as advertised at this size. Not useless, but not amazingly useful. The price is good, if it lasts any period of time.
I would like a folding bike which is sized for larger-than-man-sized creatures like myself. I have a Haro X7 in the XL size and it's about spot on.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Being the American infrastructure is based on automobiles. Locomotion at speeds averaging 15 miles per hour (roughly 25 kilometers per hour) is rather dangerous with other vehicles going 2 to 4 times faster with a lot more mass behind them. Bike trails in the US. are often just signs telling drivers to be more careful.
With so many drivers being distracted by their cell phones, just being out in public is dangerous. But that shouldn't stop you from living.
Average cycling speed varies greatly by where you ride. Speeds on sidewalks or through parks congested with pedestrians will be much slower than on paved roads. I commute 10 miles to work over paved roads on a mountain bike, complete with 30-pound panniers on the back. I ride in the road, not on the shoulder (there are no sidewalks or bike trails). With the panniers, my average speed is 18-20 mph. Without, it's 20-22 mph. Downhill, I can easily go 27 mph. Friends who ride much lighter road bikes ride faster than that.
When I ride, my bike is lit up like a friggin' Christmas tree. I have red lights on my seat post, on my pannier, and on the back of my helmet. I have white lights on my handle bar and my helmet. Even my pedals light up - they have a built-in generator, and have a red light on the back, a white light on the front, and an amber light on the side.
There aren't many statistics about cycling accidents. Meaning, more than just "were they wearing a helmet?" For example, were they experienced riders? Were they under the influence of alcohol or drugs? Were they riding in conditions (or speeds) beyond their skill level? Were they wearing light-colored, reflective clothing and/or have lights on the bike?
Most bike accidents happen to inexperienced riders and/or idiots. The rest were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Neither of those points will ever stop me from riding.
Most neighborhood roads have a speed limit of 25-35mph which is generally very safe for bicyclists. As long as you're not the guy in Dallas the other day that was bicycling in the middle lane of I-635 you should be fine.
moox. for a new generation.
A top 10 global mobile-phone manufacturer (this year) that has diversified into numerous other markets. Although not even a year ago, Xiaomi was the number 1 Chinese manufacturer, but they have been eclipsed by Huawei. Xiaomi and Lenovo (+Motorola) recently dropped another notch, as Oppo and Vivo took over the 4th and 5th spots in the global mobile phone market.
TLDR; My phone: Xiaomi RedMi3 Pro Prime @ $146.99 - $10 cheaper than it was two weeks ago.
Or you could just learn how to pronounce it?
I actually rode as a passenger on one of these electric bikes in Zhongshan, China. It was operating as a sort of taxi. My (at the time) Chinese girlfriend wasn't sure that they were strictly legal but you could use them go around downtown for short distances and they were cheap. I'd estimate that it got up to somewhere around 25-30 MPH which equates to 40-48 KMH. I didn't feel all that safe as a passenger in it and it's not something I'd do again, but she wanted to use it so we did.
Wow, I'm so excited for Trumpated States now that I really want a trump card!
Ezekiel 23:20
I've been cycling in traffic for 30 years and never been hit by a car once. I've cycled in Ireland and England where you have to share narrow roads with cars, buses, and 40-foot trucks. I now live in the San Francisco Bay Area and I bike to work just about every day, and the infrastructure here is far more bike-friendly than in the UK.
In the morning I ride on the expressways. Yes. Expressways. Non-cyclists think it's dangerous, but it's actually safer than regular surface streets since there's a big wide shoulder to use as a bike lane, and there's less cross traffic with no private driveways. It's also easier to get up to my cruising speed that averages 17 to 18mph, which is a lot faster than the cars stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic and going nowhere. I always make a mental note of which cars I see when I get onto the expressway because I generally get to my destination either before them or at the same time as them.
In the evening I take a longer route home which is mostly on trails and only a few miles on surface streets. The trails are like superhighways for bikes since they pass under so many of the surface streets and skip dozens of stoplights.
Cycling is perfectly safe as long as you know what you're doing. It's no more dangerous to ride a bike on a road full of cars than it is for a car to drive on a freeway full of trucks.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Even more ridiculous than the guy I saw the other day on an all-carbon monocoque time trial bike, and riding it in regular street clothes. This must be the modern equivalent of the teenagers driving around London in the 1980s in Porsches.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
FTFA: "The cycle has been developed by iRiding, a start-up that Xiaomi has invested in and the bikes are unsold under the QiCycle branding. " They are buying the bikes back???
It's no more dangerous to ride a bike on a road full of cars than it is for a car to drive on a freeway full of trucks.
A number of people have survived being positively creamed by big trucks, either because they had very safe cars or because they got very lucky. Being positively creamed by a car while on a bicycle... ugh.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
While a cyclist will almost certainly get hurt in a collision, when all the risks are taken into account, someone who cycles regularly is at less risk of premature death than someone who only drives. All things being equal, avoiding cycling to work and using a car instead while it reduces the chances of dying in a collision, it increases much more the chances of dying prematurely of diseases related to a sedentary lifestyle.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
But in Switzerland (geographically in the middle of Europe, but not quite exactly part of EU) :
- if it goes under 25 km/h, and has a maximal power of 500W, it's considered as a bicycle (with power-assistance. Meaning that you need to turn the pedal for the electric motor to help you).
There's no peculiar registration required, nor special insurance.
Any one above 16 can freely drive them (special moped driving license required for kids between 14 and 16).
Helmet are just strongly recommended for bicycles.
- if it goes up to 45 km/h, and has a maximal power 1000W, it's considered as a moped (which happens to be electrically powered instead of gaz powered)
It need to be registered as a moped, has moped-type number plate, needs to be insured like a moped.
(and I think it must also feature a couple of obligatory accessories to be considered a street-legal moped, like a side mirror. I might be wrong).
Only age above 16 can drive it, and need a special moped driving license to drive it.
Helmet is compulsory on mopeds.
- anything faster or more powerful is an electric motorcycle.
And follows the same registration and driving license as motorcycle
(with different categories depending on motor power output, just like a regular motorcycle)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Effective Cycling by John Forester has interesting statistics, including the effect of training (his course at MIT naturally) on accidents:
http://www.wright.edu/~jeffrey...
From memory, the biggest threat to the cyclist is first themselves, hitting things or loss of control of the bike, then being hit by other cyclists (aka, asshats riding against traffic), and then vehicles.
The "scariest" scenario most people think of is being hit from behind by a car. That is surprisingly less than 1% of all accidents, although it is the most deadly accident.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
"Most bike accidents happen to inexperienced riders and/or idiots."
There is absolutely no evidence to support this incredibly victim-blaming comment. There is plenty of evidence to refute it, if you simply google the phrase "cyclist driver fault study"
Examples: http://www.executivestyle.com....
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05...
http://www.theguardian.com/lif...
You're a classic victim-blamer. See, it's those other, stupid, slower, more inexperienced cyclists who get hit. Not you. You're experienced. Dressed like a dayglo traffic cone clown. Covered in lights.
Please help metamoderate.
Most bike accidents happen to inexperienced riders and/or idiots. The rest were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Neither of those points will ever stop me from riding.
Same goes for most things. Once you remove the idiots from the stats, the risk profiles becomes much, much lower.
I ride a motorbike, and the stats for motorbikes are terrible. But once you realise that motorbikes are magnets for idiots, the stats become a lot more acceptable.
Most bike accidents happen to inexperienced riders and/or idiots. The rest were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Neither of those points will ever stop me from riding.
Same goes for most things. Once you remove the idiots from the stats, the risk profiles becomes much, much lower. I ride a motorbike, and the stats for motorbikes are terrible. But once you realise that motorbikes are magnets for idiots, the stats become a lot more acceptable.
Yea, but a motorbike is going so much faster than a bicycle. On a bicycle, I can ride onto the grass or even into a driveway if I see something dangerous. That's just not an option on a motorbike.
Just last week a guy on a motorbike was killed while merging onto the highway. He collided with a car while merging, then he went down, and two cars behind them crashed to avoid running him over. Now that you mention it, I have to wonder how much control he had over his bike to have been hit while merging.
Yea, but a motorbike is going so much faster than a bicycle. On a bicycle, I can ride onto the grass or even into a driveway if I see something dangerous. That's just not an option on a motorbike.
Well that depends. I always plan an exit strategy when the risks increase. It's not 100% foolproof, but planning for that car to pull out in front of you is all part of the strategy.
Just last week a guy on a motorbike was killed while merging onto the highway. He collided with a car while merging, then he went down, and two cars behind them crashed to avoid running him over. Now that you mention it, I have to wonder how much control he had over his bike to have been hit while merging.
Yes this is good example. That scenario would be nearly impossible for me IMO, because the benefit of a bike is speed. When things get hairy you can always out accelerate the problem. In the case of a merge, if the car is in front of you, you slip in behind. If it's next to you or behind, speed up and go past. There's no chance of you both trying to occupy the same space at the same time.