EUC prices justifiable ?

[Mr A.A]

I recently found the awesome world of EUC's, I love them. I don't own one YET, but looking forward for that. 

Coming to the question, Checking the specs of some mass produced electric scooters, motorcycles and comparing them with EUC's using similar components, it baffles me why it costs so much more. Maybe the ignorant me missed something, can you guys share your thoughts on the subject. ?

A top EUC Gotway monster costs up to $2850,  2000W motor,  2400Wh batteries

An electric scooter $1580,  4.4 kW BLDC motor (by BOSH), 2.25kWh lithium-ion batteries https://www.tvsmotor.com/iqube

An electric Motorcycle $1500, 1.5KW hub motor, 60V, 2.7kWh lithium-ion batteries  https://www.revoltmotors.com/rv300 (Based on Super Soco)

What am I missing here ? The scooter and motorcycle have way more components including frame, 2 suspension systems, 2 tires, color display, powerful headlights, indicators, horn 

While a typical EUC has, Motor, Batteries, main board, cheap plastic shell, Bluetooth speakers, trolley handle and led lights.

Does the differences in battery chemistry Li-ion vs Li-po justify the cost disparity ? or is the main board that much more powerful and costly ? are the motors different ? R & D costs ? low volume production costs ?

The 2 wheelers mentioned above are from where I am located (India) price and specs from Google.

 

[mrelwood]

Batteries are the clear individual winner in EUC manufacturing costs, so choosing a wheel for the comparison that is both small in sales numbers as well as the largest in battery capacity does tilt the comparison quite a bit.

 But you are right, EUCs are relatively expensive, and as always, manufacturing costs are only a small part of what determines the sales price. I think the main reasons are:

1) Much much lower sales numbers than a scooter or an e-bike.

2) New products. The industry advances so fast, that we have very few products that sell well year after year. In most cases product sales drop for two years, and since by then the competitors have come up with so much nicer products, it’s time to develop a completely new one.

 Admittedly I haven’t followed the e-bike markets, but I would imagine that a 2 year old model would still be considered relatively new. A 2 year old EUC model is ancient.

3) Less competition. There are many EUC models that don’t even have a direct competitor. Like the mentioned GW Monster, the biggest seller Inmotion V8(F), GW mTen, MCM5...

 Looking at e-bikes though, the prices do reach way higher than any EUC. The e-bike markets are so large that there is plenty room for cheap models as well. I just don’t think we are there with EUCs, so we only have the top of the line products in each size category.

[Rywokast]

think electric unicycle are expensive what about onewheel :p I think it mostly comes down to low demand/production quantity and most components being hand made or done custom in small production runs.. also the controllers are more expensive, kingsong makes them themselves, I think gotway has a third party do it in small runs at least partially, not sure about inmotion they probably do it themselves.. and if you compare with say scooters I would imagine the much bigger motor is a lot more expensive as well (and you can open them up to see they are wound by hand), the batteries (I'm not sure about other pevs) are also assembled custom.. plus with the self balancing aspect there is a lot that needs to go into firmware development and testing.. I'm sure the price could come down if they became much more popular and manufacturing was more automated with larger production runs and bigger factories but right now it's a very very small fraction of the market and literally nothing on them but the tire is off the shelf stuff..

Edited May 24, 2020 by Rywokast

[meepmeepmayer]

Yes, EUCs are more expensive than they would ideally be.

In addition to the arguments above, competitive EUCs cannot be made from generic components. The manufacturers have been producing their own boards, firmware, etc for a long time now. There are no generic alternatives that are remotely good enough. EUCs are actually quite impressive tech-wise in how much custom effort would be needed by a new market entry to catch up to the state of the market and be competitive, and how much better some things are (they have to be, any failure is a crash!) than what you'd find in some random scooter.

So, very small companies being more bleeding edge than one might think = $$$.

Also they price-gouge the Western market a little, but as long as this keeps them alive and healthy, I can live with higher prices.

[Waulnut]

The EUC price is decent compared to a Onewheel. They're both niche PEVs that require a certain skill and interest. 

To me, the convenience of the EUC is far superior to any other PEV out there. 

[LanghamP]

I'm not sure if Kingsong and Gotway still geo-lock their wheels (I haven't bought a new wheel in a very long time, but I'm glad I haven't because suspension, safety, power, and price are all getting rapidly better), but before they did you could buy the same spec wheel off AliExpress for maybe 60-70% of the cost, without warranty of course.

Edited May 24, 2020 by LanghamP

[Rywokast]

44 minutes ago, LanghamP said:

I'm not sure if Kingsong and Gotway still geo-lock their wheels (I haven't bought a new wheel in a very long time, but I'm glad I haven't because suspension, safety, power, and price are all getting rapidly better), but before they did you could buy the same spec wheel off AliExpress for maybe 60-70% of the cost, without warranty of course.

kingsong yes, to an extent.. some people including me havent had a problem buying in china while others have.. gotway, theyve never geo locked anything... theyre boards are not even capable of locking the wheel lmao, they are still much cheaper off aliexpress and a good deal of people get them from there or directly from gotway

[LanghamP]

4 hours ago, Rywokast said:

kingsong yes, to an extent.. some people including me havent had a problem buying in china while others have.. gotway, theyve never geo locked anything... theyre boards are not even capable of locking the wheel lmao, they are still much cheaper off aliexpress and a good deal of people get them from there or directly from gotway

You do not get a warranty through AliExpressbut a warrant isn't useful because it presupposes repairing the unit. After going through repair services on various warrantied items, I'm convinced warranty claims are far more trouble than they are worth.

Consider:

1. Your item breaks.

2. You communicate with the company, and they always try to troubleshoot over the phone, but assuming you've read the instructions that almost never works.

3. You then ship the item, but often you haggle for a shipping label.

4. Wait at least a month while they either fiddle with it or decide to replace it.

5. Get item back after even longer shipping time (which you often pay for the shipping!).

6. Then half the time the item isn't repaired, or breaks in the exact same way since it was a design flaw (but this time you're out of warranty), meanwhile having lost usage of that item during repair.

Or you can just document the item breakage and submit that to your credit card company, and your money is refunded so you can just buy the same/similar item, and usually get that within two days.

For the vast majority of products, screw warranties. Unless you can physically give said item to a repair person (like a car or dishwasher), warranties aren't worth the time and aggravation. Replace replace replace is always the far better option.

[WI_Hedgehog]

I thought an $800 top-of-the-line hoverboard was expensive.

I thought a $2,000 top-of-the-line EUC was expensive.

I think a $4,500 top-of-the-line scooter is expensive.

Some people pay it thought, and if they thought it wasn't worth it, they wouldn't. 

Edited May 25, 2020 by WI_Hedgehog
actually, those things are expensive, but that's low-volume cutting-edge technology for you

[Waverider216]

For me it goes way beyond the specs.  I live in Nj and work in Manhattan NYC.  1 year’s worth of parking alone would be over $5000.  Instead I drive to an area with easy street parking (free), then use my EUC to traverse the last 2 miles.  Furthermore, those last 2 miles usually take me another 20-30 minutes in a car, but only 5 minutes with an EUC.  So yeah my $900 INMOTION V10F, or $1200 KS 18L would be definitely worth it both from a financial aspect and also time saving aspect.  

Edited May 25, 2020 by Waverider216

[WI_Hedgehog]

that's really the failing of the Segway Transporter: it's a last-mile vehicle that can't easily be transported, and needs parking where no parking is designed for such a vehicle. Hoverboards & EUCs can be parked under your desk and put in a taxi if it rains/snows.

And that's where Segway/Ninebot have failed in the hoverboard and EUC market: they keep making their products slower instead of faster. If they go as fast as I can walk, I can just walk... 

[Ben Kim]

One thing about EUC, they don’t cheap out on batteries. High quality Sanyo or LG batteries only from the major manufacturers. 

[AtlasP]

On 5/24/2020 at 10:47 PM, WI_Hedgehog said:

that's really the failing of the Segway Transporter: it's a last-mile vehicle that can't easily be transported, and needs parking where no parking is designed for such a vehicle. Hoverboards & EUCs can be parked under your desk and put in a taxi if it rains/snows.

And that's where Segway/Ninebot have failed in the hoverboard and EUC market: they keep making their products slower instead of faster. If they go as fast as I can walk, I can just walk... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More revisionism which sounds plausible but which has no bearing on actual reality.

1. The Segway was 100% killed by legislation and otherwise could have very well been a success. The US has an irrational fanaticism with protecting "pedestrians" beyond all sense, to the point of insisting that 12-year-old Timmy on his bicycle should only ride in the street with the 2-ton death machines because they're afraid he might hit grandma if he were allowed on the sidewalk. (I'll take an entire ward full of grandmas with broken hips over one senselessly dead child due to such insanity.) When the Segway was announced, alarmist FUD ("oh no, some dangerous new contraption on the sidewalk that can do 12 mph and might hit old people!") prompted major cities to ban them in the urban centers where they were best suited, killing them virtually overnight. Absolutely nothing else about the situation matters compared to this--people couldn't buy and use them for what they were designed for even if they wanted to.
2. Segway/Ninebot never failed in the hoverboard/EUC markets, they simply abandoned them for/instead chose to pivot & refocus on more lucrative PEV forms. (Hell even despite their abandonment of it they still probably sell more miniSegs and One S1s/S2s than most any other self-balancing PEVs, almost by accident/just from the inertia of their brand.)

Edited May 27, 2020 by AtlasP

[Phong Vu]

On 5/24/2020 at 1:29 AM, Mr A.A said:

A top EUC Gotway monster costs up to $2850,  2000W motor,  2400Wh batteries

An electric scooter $1580,  4.4 kW BLDC motor (by BOSH), 2.25kWh lithium-ion batteries https://www.tvsmotor.com/iqube

An electric Motorcycle $1500, 1.5KW hub motor, 60V, 2.7kWh lithium-ion batteries  https://www.revoltmotors.com/rv300 (Based on Super Soco)

 

Are you sure this is a good electric scooter and e-motorcycle?
I'm pretty sure it much more expensive for e-bike and e-motorcycle. The good one I meant.

[musk]

3 hours ago, AtlasP said:

 

1. The Segway was 100% killed by legislation and otherwise could have very well been a success. )

We have Segway to thank for doing the lobbying necessary in the USA, state-by-state to get all the laws changed to allow EUC's.  Without them, the USA would be in the same situation as some Canadian provinces, where Segway never did the legal work and our beloved devices are mostly not allowed.  Maybe the costs of lobbying contributed to killing segway, but it wasn't the laws per-se.  They kinda wrote the laws themselves.

[.....]

3 hours ago, AtlasP said:

More revisionism which sounds plausible but which has no bearing on actual reality.

1. The Segway was 100% killed by legislation and otherwise could have very well been a success. The US has an irrational fanaticism with protecting "pedestrians" beyond all sense, to the point of insisting that 12-year-old Timmy on his bike should only ride in the street with the 2-ton death machines because they're afraid he might hit grandma on the sidewalk. (I'll take an entire ward full of grandmas with broken hips over one senselessly dead child due to this monstrous idiocy.) When the Segway was announced, alarmist FUD ("oh no, some dangerous new contraption on the sidewalk that can do 12 mph and might hit old people!") prompted major cities to ban them in the urban centers where they were best suited, killing them virtually overnight. Absolutely nothing else about the situation matters compared to this--people couldn't buy and use them for what they were designed for even if they wanted to.

I dunno, I thought the USA had an irrational LOVE of motor cars and trucks. In the last city and few towns I've lived in, it seems that cars are given much more room and legal protection than even pedestrians. I think the helmet thing was in response to the fact that there are so few miles of bike lanes and so many miles of road with no sidewalks. As roads and traffic increased, accommodating the influx of bicycles and pedestrians did not. This increase pushed bicycles onto the street as the ONLY place they could operate. Maybe helmet laws and lights and reflectors became a thing, when bicycles became a street commodity, unwelcome on the already crowded and sometimes absent paths/walkways.

I really have no idea about the politics of euc's and segway etc... I do know that MOST of the places Ive lived in the southern USA, force me to walk on the street shoulders or across parking lots, as sidewalks are missing, even in dense urban environs.

[AtlasP]

On 5/26/2020 at 2:48 PM, musk said:

We have Segway to thank for doing the lobbying necessary in the USA, state-by-state to get all the laws changed to allow EUC's.  Without them, the USA would be in the same situation as some Canadian provinces, where Segway never did the legal work and our beloved devices are mostly not allowed.  Maybe the costs of lobbying contributed to killing segway, but it wasn't the laws per-se.  They kinda wrote the laws themselves.

 

 

 

 

While Segway may have had some success on the state level, I don't believe they had much success on the city level which is where most of these things were and remain banned--certainly in a lot of high profile cities which the others look to as models. (Ultimately you still can't buy and use a Segway on pedestrian thoroughfares in NYC and similar cities which is what they were made for. So maybe due to changes in state laws you can ride one around your cul-de-sac in the suburbs, whoop-de-friggin-do. ;-p ) Moreover the legal processes are slow and by that point the damage had already been done to Segway's ability to gain any traction coupled with the negative press from all the alarmism and blanket bans. Segway was killed by knee-jerk laws fueled by fear, there's no two ways about it.

Interestingly the same would have been true for the rental scooters if they hadn't used the tactic they did of flooding entire cities literally overnight. It's really quite brilliant how that one tactic is what enabled them to get a foothold, and then when the law came around to responding, it was now a debate with two sides because at least some segment of the population had experienced the value in them and wanted them to stay. If that process had happened any slower/more traditionally, they would have all been banned before they got off the ground. I have to say I've been rooting for them from the beginning for this reason alone. (As for forgiveness, not permission.)

Edited May 24, 2021 by AtlasP

[AtlasP]

20 hours ago, ShanesPlanet said:

I dunno, I thought the USA had an irrational LOVE of motor cars and trucks. In the last city and few towns I've lived in, it seems that cars are given much more room and legal protection than even pedestrians. I think the helmet thing was in response to the fact that there are so few miles of bike lanes and so many miles of road with no sidewalks. As roads and traffic increased, accommodating the influx of bicycles and pedestrians did not. This increase pushed bicycles onto the street as the ONLY place they could operate. Maybe helmet laws and lights and reflectors became a thing, when bicycles became a street commodity, unwelcome on the already crowded and sometimes absent paths/walkways.

I really have no idea about the politics of euc's and segway etc... I do know that MOST of the places Ive lived in the southern USA, force me to walk on the street shoulders or across parking lots, as sidewalks are missing, even in dense urban environs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One, the US love of automobiles is not some arbitrary cultural quirk, but rather it was a product of the sheer geographical size of the US. Infrastructure that works on the level of a city or European state can be simply untenable at the scale and population distribution of the US. (The same applies to any large network-based infrastructure, from internet transmission to high speed trains, and then people wonder why internet speeds or train speeds in the US lag behind other countries that are an order of magnitude smaller.)

Second, the US love of automobiles and the irrational overprotection of "pedestrians" are not mutually exclusive, and there is a distinction to be made between the priorities within the letter of the law versus government priorities when investing in infrastructure. While infrastructure in many regions certainly favors automobiles, the pedestrian is still held on a pedestal in the face of the law. In many places in the US it is blanket illegal to ride a bike or skateboard on a sidewalk even when there are no pedestrians anywhere in sight and road traffic is whizzing by at ridiculous speeds. And not just a paper law, but the officer will berate you as if you are the unsafe degenerate endangering the general public. This is asinine and undefendable if one has any common sense and actually values human life.

Edited May 27, 2020 by AtlasP

[RetroThruster]

Swallow this $15,000 pill!!  It would suck your eyeballs in the back of your head under acceleration, worth every penny:)

[Mr A.A]

11 hours ago, Phong Vu said:

Are you sure this is a good electric scooter and e-motorcycle?
I'm pretty sure it much more expensive for e-bike and e-motorcycle. The good one I meant.

Pretty sure about the electric scooter, TVS is the third largest 2 wheeler manufacturer in India,  Hub motor is provided by BOSH

The e-motorcycle is from Shanghai, have lots of reviews online.

[Mr A.A]

6 hours ago, RetroThruster said:

Swallow this $15,000 pill!!  It would suck your eyeballs in the back of your head under acceleration, worth every penny:)

I thought Alta went out of business !

Cake has some similar models https://ridecake.com/bikes/

[.....]

6 hours ago, RetroThruster said:

Swallow this $15,000 pill!!  It would suck your eyeballs in the back of your head under acceleration, worth every penny:)

This looks amazing! Worth $15k, not a chance.  At just under a year's salary and about 3-8x's more than Ive spent on ANY car(I used a $100 chevette as my only car for 2 yrs early 2010's), it should come with a stocked mini bar and personal driver. I can buy a sport bike that nears 200mph AND a supermoto that rides all week on a gas can for less than HALF what this costs. I have NO doubt ebikes have perks and are an entirely new experience, but $15k? Maybe in my next lifetime, when I sell my soul for the dollar.

Edited May 27, 2020 by ShanesPlanet