I’ve been asked more and more to review eBikes coming online, so in the interest of time here’s a quick comparison of two that caught my eye:

QuietKat Lynx (cafe moto) — $3,999

• Motor: 1000W 2 Speed Hub Drive (Variable Power Output)
• Range: 63mi
• Battery: 20Ah/48V/960Wh
• Power: 83Nm Torque/1440 Peak
• Max load: 300lbs
• Top Speed: 28mph
• Weight: 100lbs
• Regenerative: No

Talaria xXx (stunt) — €2.400 ($2,500)

• Motor: Interior Permanent Magnet (IPM)
• Range: 60k (40mi)
• Battery: 40Ah/60V/2400Wh
• Power: 45Nm Torque
• Max load: 165lbs
• Top Speed: 46mph
• Weight: 125lbs
• Regenerative: Yes

There are a ton of eBike reviews floating around already. They never seem to appeal to me, so maybe that’s why I’m being asked to add mine to the growing pile. I’ve not yet seen these two compared. Here goes:

A simple bake-off had a surprising result for me because the winner turned out opposite to first impressions:

• Weight: Lynx 100lbs
• Speed: xXx 46mph
• Strength: Lynx 300lbs
• Range: Lynx 63mi
• Cost: xXx $2500

3 for the Lynx vs 2 for the xXx, and if I properly weight (pun not intended) the categories I care most about the Lynx is much further ahead.

I mean on first glance (maybe it was price tag) I felt the pull of a stupid-fast and light xXx. It’s powerful and nimble for fun rides, perhaps too much fun. I could see myself breaking it.

Where the Lynx shines is engineering for things more relevant to my interests: practicality, offering durability and distance. It hints at something more like “slow and steady” Dakar and much, much less at kids doing “endless burnouts in high school parking lots” or… *shudder*, white technocrats cruising Palo Alto.

Notably, the xXx has reliability issues with its motor cutting out without warning. That’s ok on fun rides, maybe. NOT acceptable for basically everything else. A dead 125lb bike at intersections or on trails… nope. Riding wheelies on the xXx and… ugh, why am I even looking at a bike marketed as xXx? Go away SEO bots.

When you’re ready for real life with responsibilities, the Lynx seems to be thinking about much more rational features for respectable long hauls (not the LOOOONG 200 mile haul of the new Buell but 63mi is plenty).

One nagging detail that kept me on the fence is regeneration of energy. Given the utility of eBikes for remote mountainous terrain (somehow I always end up on) a regen all the way down sounds great. Really great. Speaking of which, allegedly one of the reasons a xXx motor quits and requires reset is trying to regen over 90% causes thermal trouble. I’ll take a working engine over any regen one that abruptly quits, natch.

Even so, lack of any regen feels like oversight from QuietKat, especially given how they reference a Colorado mountain test environment and promote mountain this and that in their specs. Getting up to high elevation campsite is no bother if you know you have the option of charging back down.

As a final note, linking to a trailer seems like something Talaria doesn’t even think about, yet Lynx has a beefy cargo rack already setup behind the saddle and then offers options like their “Cargo Trailer”.

If they spell cat with a K and they call a bike the Lynx, shouldn’t this be called something more creative like the “KatBox”? I’ll be here all week.

The cargo trailer doesn’t say it works well with NLAW mounts but you get the idea. QuietKat otherwise doesn’t hide the fact that they market towards “scout ahead” and the toughest “protect and serve” riders who “mount guns, bows, and more”. Remember their “Jeep” model? Maybe they should offer a decal set for riders to show how many helicopters downed or turrets popped? On a similar note their “Game Trailer” with the picture of a deer carcass doesn’t say it can be an ambulance gurney or extract wounded… but again, you get the idea.

All of this brings to mind military-grade engineering, regulated (in a good way) with long-term dependability for quiet professionals. The xXx however says race-to-the-bottom throwaway nuisance toy.

Between these two eBikes I might use an xXx for a few light-duty recreational trips, as a quick replacement for gas, but the Lynx seems far more likely to be the kind of infinitely useful bike I’d want to ride and ride and ride.

Talk about a company that hates their customers…

A database with a bad record was used by Tesla to disable a critical car feature and then deny/ignore all customer complaints.

Tesla had intentionally deactivated Erickson’s supercharger feature for safety reasons. Here’s why. When replacing Erickson’s battery, Tesla says they discovered that Carfax listed her car as having a salvaged title due to being totaled in a collision. As a result, Tesla removed the supercharger feature as a safety precaution. But Carfax’s information was wrong because an insurance company provided incorrect information. Erickson’s car was never totaled.

Tesla “discovered” is more like bad surveillance, probably by some under-paid sloppy investigation task workers setting a bad example in Chinese prisons.

On Tuesday, the Tesla boss praised Chinese factory workers for pulling extreme hours while taking a shot at American workers. […] Tesla restricted its Shanghai workers from leaving the factory…. While locked inside, the workers were reportedly made to work 12-hour shifts, six days in a row, and to sleep on factory floors. […] Labor rights and safety violations have been reported at Tesla’s Shanghai factory since it opened in 2018, with some workers making as little as $1,500 a month in what an investigation by local journalists called the “Giga-sweatshop.”

Tesla claimed to be giving high praise for its unfortunate sweatshop victims as they were squeezed before being dumped ungratefully.

Tesla Inc. is laying off workers at its Shanghai plant…

I wonder if Tesla removed the “Arbeit Macht Frei” posters before or after they decided to layoff their workers locked inside the factory.

Safety reasons?

Tesla is by definition the opposite of safety.

Apparently if anyone anywhere in the massive information supply chain poisons a single database record Tesla will blindly ingest and act on it immediately without any integrity check or verification… acting unsafely for safety reasons. Is Carfax often wrong? Does a chicken have wings? It’s a marketing site that buys reports from far too many sources with little to no integrity verification.

• Carfax pulls information from more than 112,000 sources and that sometimes can lead to errors.
• Auto Damage Experts Warns Against Using CARFAX for Diminished Value
• One man said Carfax and Autocheck.com both reported his car was damaged, costing him thousands of dollars in value.
• Mistakes happen. A Carfax report has been likened to a credit report for vehicles. The information comes from a variety of sources.
• “All they can tell me is that it’s not my insurance company.” It takes a lot of work to fix errors on car and credit history.
• Carfax error leads to a diminishing estimate of a car’s value, but one owner fought back.
• Carr went to CARFAX with his vehicle maintenance records and a letter from his insurance company. CARFAX removed the total loss report.

Tesla safety is an oxymoron, their highly unsafe data “ingestion” methods from the known untrustworthy Carfax being no exception.

Sounds like the same company that created a driverless “safety” product, one that keeps crashing into huge trees and flashingly obvious firetrucks, is bad at basic data safety. Presumably here again they operate with only selfish reasons.

“I wouldn’t characterize it as customer service,” she said. “I mean, there’s not a way to email them. There’s a way to communicate on the app but they don’t respond. I’ve looked back, I’ve sent over 30 emails, every single day I’ve been dealing with this and rarely getting a response.”

Nothing says caring about customers like treating them as poorly as their Chinese workers being locked inside a factory: totally ignoring basic needs, giving no response to dozens of complaints about obvious and easily fixed problems.

Seems obvious, when you think about it. If all the buses and trains were giant batteries, they could provide grid support.

During a record-setting, 10-day heat wave in September, most EV owners were asked to unplug to reduce demand. Instead, the Cajon Valley Union School District in San Diego County plugged its bidirectional electric school buses in, using their batteries to stabilize the grid. Those buses provided 650-kilowatt-hours of electricity back to the grid in response to “flex alerts” issued by local authorities, enough to power 277 homes. SB233 would enable all future California electric school buses to have this capability.

Reminds me of “load leveling” ideas for battery power on the grid in the 1970s before a corrupt governor of California (Ronald Reagan) became President and shut it all down to favor oil.

Also reminds me that flat-nosed buses are better for maneuverability, traction, visibility… all the safety stuff you think schools would care about. Long-nosed buses are an antiquated truck chassis concept for the old open-highway stuff of anti-pedestrian nightmare suburban planners. You’d think electric would only come with the civilized flat-nose.