Say Hello to Storm

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biknut

Well-Known Member
Sep 28, 2010
6,653
475
83
Dallas
Are they shipping them from China? :)
I don't know where they're made, but the stated location is Malibu Ca. When I bought my moped from Pirate cycle the shipping was $100 to ship from Mass. to Dallas. They claim the shipping will be less than $194 depending on number of units sold so there's definitely room to lower the shipping costs.

Manufacturing supposedly starts March 1st, shipping starts May 1st, is the claim.
 

Semaj

Electric Enthusiast
Dec 11, 2014
299
1
16
Austin Tx
sweet mercy! I dont think they will be able to afford the bike in that kind of time unfortunataly, and I certainly cant float it for em :s
Thats too bad, You guys let the rest of us know how it turns out. I suppose 2k for a bike isint too out there.
 

biknut

Well-Known Member
Sep 28, 2010
6,653
475
83
Dallas
Looks like they might hit 200% of their funding goal on the first day of the launch. They're at 181% now. If this is the start of a trend of lower cost eBikes, it's going to hasten the end of the gas bikes.
 

Trey

$50 Cruiser
Jan 17, 2013
1,432
5
0
Where cattle outnumber people 3 to 1.
Looks like they might hit 200% of their funding goal on the first day of the launch. They're at 181% now. If this is the start of a trend of lower cost eBikes, it's going to hasten the end of the gas bikes.
Nice! Mass funding should mean sure production. Lower costs are awesome and well overdue. Gas-Bikes are on the way ou... wait. WHAT?! :eek: :D
 

biknut

Well-Known Member
Sep 28, 2010
6,653
475
83
Dallas
They're over 231% of the funding goal. Normally you don't find this much interest in an eBike. This just goes to show there really is a pent up demand, but for lower prices.

When production starts the list price is still going to be a very low (for eBike) $1299. With a little luck they'll be very successful, and help drive down prices of other brands.
 

biknut

Well-Known Member
Sep 28, 2010
6,653
475
83
Dallas
The Storm launch has now sailed past 500% of the initial launch goal in the first 25 hours with several weeks to go till production starts. The success of this launch will probably push the timetable up.
 

POPS

Member
Sep 8, 2008
310
0
16
Vancouver Island BC .Canada
They claim 36v 380wh lithium ion battery. I think that's 10ah which is a pretty good size battery for a low power factory build. They're also claiming may delivery which could mean June assuming last day of May shipping. If this is for real it looks like a killer deal. They're giving us till Feb 6th to order one at the $500 price.

Later on in their add they say " If you put in equal pedal power as the as the motor output @ 200 watts you can travel 60Kms @ 20 Km/h on flat land".
They are all over the place on their claims ?
 

biknut

Well-Known Member
Sep 28, 2010
6,653
475
83
Dallas
822% of the launch goal of a measly smeasly $75,000 in 31 1/2 hours. $616,500 now. I'm going to take a wild guess and say they'll have 1 mil by Friday when the price goes up $100.
 

biknut

Well-Known Member
Sep 28, 2010
6,653
475
83
Dallas
822% of the launch goal of a measly smeasly $75,000 in 31 1/2 hours. $616,500 now. I'm going to take a wild guess and say they'll have 1 mil by Friday when the price goes up $100.
This thing is on fire. Just since I wrote this a few short minutes ago, they're over $651,080. This is historic.

As I said before, we're witnessing the ride of the electronauts.
 

Mannhouse51

New Member
Jun 2, 2011
277
0
0
West Michigan
An interesting bike Biknut. Looks totally cool . I can't wait to hear your review as to the quality, workmanship , and durability. If it sounds too good to be true.....Oh whatever , the bike is pretty darn neat !
 

biknut

Well-Known Member
Sep 28, 2010
6,653
475
83
Dallas
I hope and think this will start a fire that cannot die. No one thought this was possible. At this point, even if this is a scam, and we all lose out money the point has been made. There's big money to be made with eBikes in America.

There's no reason why this can't happen as planned with the right Chinese connections. I'm sure many potential investors are taking note.

In the time it took to write this, Storm has already taken in thousands more $$.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/storm-electric-bike
 

biknut

Well-Known Member
Sep 28, 2010
6,653
475
83
Dallas
When I got up this morning they had taken in $250,000 from one day. Now on the second day just before midnight they've taken in another half million, for a total of $771,223. There's still about 30 days to go.
 

BarelyAWake

New Member
Jul 21, 2009
7,194
21
0
Maine
As much as I like ebikes, I feel the only innovation this one provides would be in exploiting some aspects unique to the particular market - not to say that's a bad thing, far from it but rather that I think they've seen an opportunity to fill a demand, at least presenting a product in a reasonable price range for a reasonable amount...

...admittedly "reasonable" is a highly comparative term, subject to bias & whim - perhaps "competitive" would be less personal, but that infers uniformity in a product group that really has little to none, which is part of the problem.

Even aside from clearly inflated mark-up rates associated with fashionable branding, many of the commercially available ebikes carry a large overhead in R&D, each claiming innovations & design uniquely their own, each having just enough customizations to task that makes that true, for the most part.

Thing is, we're not being presented with innovative new technology for the most part - the basics of electric transportation, it's strengths & weakness have been long understood with the stumbling point being batteries, specifically range, weight & reserve. What's being offered by the ebike market by in large is endless recombinations of existing tech with whatever lithium battery variation they can fit in a spiffy, unobtrusive case.

If we remove the brand variations, this company's proprietary mid-drive upper mount from that one's mid-drive lower mount vs this other retailer's integral crankset drive - if we subtract the dizzying array of slightly different hub drive housings we're left with a plainly similar preformance envelope that's stunningly predictable. One of electric's charms would be the ease in which possible preformance can be determined, it's volts watts & amp hours regardless of what brand offers it.

So why then the pricing? If any one of us can slap together a 30/30 ebike for about a grand (30mph for 30mi/aprox 1000w/48v/15ah LiFePO4) including the bike - why do so many commercially offered ebikes cost so much more? We're not manufacturers, we don't get bulk discounts, volume pricing or benefit from an assembly line & while yes all of that costs to start up the larger brands absorb those start up costs until the product is profitable, the smaller ones through kickstarter campaigns like the above.

What we're left with seems to me a market dominated by fashion, it's not what the ebike can actually do or what it may be worth practically - but that you can say you have the latest technology in ebike, that yours has the latest almost-inconsequential doodad that makes it special, that having an electric bike is worth any price but actually needing one isn't a consideration.

Essentially it's being treated as a fad market by the majority of retailers with it's correspondingly disproportionate price mark up, with similar results as any other... a bunch of slightly different shiny toys that cost far more then they return, likely to become obsolete & disappear as quickly as they appeared. Electric vehicles with their Achilles heel of range/reserve have been subject to this marketing technique for almost the past hundred years with surprisingly little variation considering.

So what so different about the 'Storm'? The first, not so different but worth mention - the highly effective advertising technique of offering product at a seeming loss (likely at cost) to get started, then (& this the unique bit) offering a "reasonable" mark up on a not particularly special product.

At a stated MSRP of $1299 for "36v/10ah" lithium hub drive on a basic fat bike it is pretty much the essential "generic" ebike any one of us could build & profitably mark up for retail at that price - which makes it not innovative or a great deal, but it's not a rip off either.

It's "just" a decent entry level ebike at a practical cost, which with some exception unheard of in the market. This I think is the root cause of it's popularity and a noteworthy change, that even if many folks are signing up just so they can say they've got an ebike - they're finally doing so because they can afford it without getting their hands dirty.
 
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