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Porsche's new companies are all about electric bikes:
In the future, you may come across a lot more two-wheeled Porsches on the streets. The luxury automaker has launched two new joint ventures with Dutch company Ponooc Investment B.V., and they're both all about electric bikes. Porsche eBike Performance GmbH is based in Ottobrunn near Munich and will develop components, including motors and batteries. Anything it creates will then be used by P2 eBike GmbH, the second joint venture based in Stuttgart, to manufacture Porsche-branded e-bikes for consumers that the company plyans to launch starting in the middle of the decade.
Porsche is far from a newcomer in the e-bike space. In 2021, it debuted two electric bikes inspired by the Taycan and were made to complement the Cross Turismo, which has a rear carrier. Those bikes, however, along with their motors and gear shifting systems, were manufactured by Japanese bicycle industry giant Shimano. With one company developing parts and another working on the consumer bikes themselves, the upcoming products the joint ventures will release will be all (or at least mostly) Porsche.
The components business will use the e-bike drive systems develop by Fazua, a company Porsche recently acquired, as noted by Electrek. However, it will also develop e-bike systems under the Porsche brand name — it will even sell the technology it designs to other brands. As with anything Porsche, the bikes under the new ventures will most likely not come cheap: Its Taycan-inspired bikes, for instance, set buyers back at least $8,500 at launch, with the sports model selling for prices that start at $10,700.
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday August 09 2022, @12:59AM (1 child)
Well, my point was a bit simpler, I guess. I do bike a lot and I do ride a motorcycle. I believe that motorcycles belong to the road while bikes could go anywhere with reasonable precautions.
Now we have this electric power that could change both of them substantially. I am not a purist and I am over 60 so I do want a bicycle that helps me a bit over hills I used to go over by myself. However I definitely do not want my motorcycle types on the same path.
How to regulate this exactly is the question, but the idea, I believe, is clear enough.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday August 09 2022, @04:04AM
Yeah, I suppose there's still a legal grey area in terms of what is acceptable on trails isn't there?
I do lean towards treating class 3 and 4 as mopeds/motorcycles by default - e.g. presumed prohibited from bike-friendly trails unless otherwise noted, where class 1 and 2 are presumed to be permitted.
The fact that there's not always much visual difference presents a problem to easily identifying violators who aren't caught in the act (or by enough probable cause for a bike inspection), but I'm not sure how big a problem that really is compared to jurisdictions just not having established rules.