Brompton CEO says "kiss traditional bicycle goodbye"

There is sure a lot of money to be made selling batteries that die within two years.

Why in all honesty wouldn't the casual rider not want a decent electric bike. Less effort(couch potato dream) and the ability to destroy a pro going up hills. I can see a huge market developing.

An ebike under present regulations is frustrating. I know, I use one for about a year before it packed in.

As a range extender I would certainly be interested in that 45km/h bike that's allowed in NL, but it would be classed as a moped here. I don't mind that exept you would never be able to exert youself with a regulation helmet without boiling your brain.

Like many clever people he's right and he's wrong.  For sure the bike will develop and change, he's smart enough to see that.  But he is too smart to know the main, fundamental reason for the bike's timeless appeal - it is simple.  Simplicity is key to its success, you jump on , pedal and you're off.  As soon as you add things to that recipe you have diluted its attraction and the child in us all loses interest.

And something tells me that at a point in the not-too-distant future, as private car ownership plummets, governments will cotton on to the revenue possibilities of the 'leccy bike.  Much easier to tax than the humble pedal cycle.

I hate Google and F1, so it doesn't start well.

I'm glad to push my pedals and move by myself. Makes me happy. The shower after the effort makes me even more happy.

and when the first person strapped a petrol engine to a bike they said the same thing. 

Just come back from a holiday in Holland, I was constantly being overtaken by nutter pensioners on e-bikes which have really taken off over there so he may be right.

hmm, Bromptons are more expensive than the average bike?  So it will be well north of EUR2.5k.  Perhaps they should have spent some of the 3 years designing some security worthy of the bike price tag.  And as portable, lightweight and convenient.  Probbly a bit trickier than some F1 motor technology!

All great for commuters who're sort of on the edge about the whole commute by bike thing.

No-one who actually loves cycling and is still fit to do so is ever going to buy an e-bike until they're like 70 or whatever. By which time they'll look like distilled science fiction and I'll have one too. Unrestricted.

I'll let you girls draft me. No worries.

Pah, I'm a real man and I'll use my real manly legs. Until I'm old and maybe some E assistance will be nice. 

If I was that bothered about not really pedalling I'd just get a moped, which will no doubt soon all the electric anyway. 

Only someone in the industry could say "the average sale price is €2500" and think that was a good thing. The fact that bicycle design hasn't changed in 100 years proves how inherently right the design is. I could see me getting an ebike eventually, but I still get a kick out of putting the effort in. And in the future, when cars and bikes and God knows what else is all rechargeable, where's the electricity coming from? We're already close to using all we can make, aren't we?

On a related note, I invented a machine that lifts weights for me, so now I don't have to go to the gym.