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I am not sure why everyone thinks they are expensive. Just the bike is about 2000 euro. There are eBikes costing 4000 euro. My van moof was about 2800 because

• mjhagen 3y ago
  > This is not expensive at all. > If they can’t find it you get a new one. Can't figure out why they weren't profitable.
  • Arnt 3y ago
    Seriously: They bought a lot of expensive machinery to build things, rented and furnished a lot of shops, and hired a lot of people to staff those, and sales didn't grow to to use their production capacity, sales area and staff time. Their prices for that trace-or-replace service were quite a bit higher than what my insurance agency charges me for my theft insurance. That operation may have lost money, but that's not obvious.
    • m000 3y ago
      I think that insisting on operating boutique shops around the world was a very costly option. They could have made it much cheaper for them (and convenient for customers) by affiliating with existing bicycle shops when they went worldwide. I share your worries about the trace-or-replace service. Specifically about the "trace" part of trace-or-replace. Ok, the program is excellent promotion, and did put them on the map. But, tracing stops making economic sense very quickly: Bills rack-up very rapidly when you send a couple of your people in a multi-day hunt in an unknown location.
      • vr46 3y ago
        No kidding on the boutique shops, an expensive street in Covent Garden is super cool to pickup a bike from but running a specialised servicing department from there was clearly commercial suicide. For profligacy this was topped only by a datacentre I was asked to help decommission that was in an Art Deco building on Strand. Next to The Savoy. Overlooking Cleopatra’s Needle and the Thames. That said, it is a shame that you can’t have specialised bicycle service shops in the centre of London. VanMoof offered a pretty good bespoke experience and my X2 has had a few issues but it’s going quite well four years in. What goes up quickly comes down quickly, I suppose.
    • usrusr 3y ago
      In their defense: if the trace efforts succeed in disencouraging thieves (big if), I'd consider it far more valuable than insurance. I'd rather have the bike not stolen than stolen and replaced.
• Arnt 3y ago
  To clarify: I personally don't see them as expensive. My neighbour who bought an e-bike this year called them expensive, because they were well above the cheapest things on offer. They have some fine features that IMO justify their prices, but I'm guessing that I'm an outlier wrt judging bike values and my neighbour more mainstream, so I called them expensive.
• estomagordo 3y ago
  > This is not expensive at all. I mean, you can get a regular bike for €300, €700 if you want to splurge. But of course, the downside of that would be that you'd get more exercise.
  • moooo99 3y ago
    I mean, you can also easily spend >2k on a bike. In terms of e-bikes the prices for Vanmoof and their competitor Cowboy aren’t particularly cheap, but they aren’t incredibly out of line either.
    • haspok 3y ago
      Yeah, but for the price bump you get features which affect the ride of the bike directly (lower weight, better braking, easier shifting etc.). Of course there are diminishing returns, but a 2k bike is significantly better than a 1k bike in almost all aspects, and a 4k bike is also noticeably better than the 2k one. (Whether the price is worth it for you is another question). For me, theft-protecting a 4k bike which otherwise would be a 2.5k bike is nonsensical, because I don't need theft protection - basically you would be trying to sell me a 2.5k bike for 4k. No, thank you.
      • scotty79 3y ago
        I'm using a bike that I bought new for less than 100 euro from a big box shop. I've been using it for more than a decade with zero maintenance (apart from fixing occasional flat). It still works. It's just little stiff which is a feature because I can prop the handlebars against the wall and it stays like that because the weight of the bicycle is not enough to turn the handlebars. It's also heavy because it has suspension. I could buy lighter bicycle that runs smoother but riding a bicycle is an exercise for me. Why would I pay to make it easier?
        • haspok 3y ago
          I mean, why buy a bike at all? You could just run instead of riding, it is even more exercise for you, and doesn't cost a penny.
• holoduke 3y ago
  They are expensive. All parts are cheap chinese crap components. I had to dismantle the main motor because some slip ring got worn out. Turned out to be a cheap motor you can find in parts on Alibaba/expess. The brakes are bad. The electronics are bad. They almost always fail after a while. The only thing what is good about VanMoof are the looks. Everything else is just shit.
  • abyssin 3y ago
    And where they could use standard pieces, they don’t. It took me ages to replace a bottom bracket because the cheap one they had installed was bent and replacement was nowhere to be found easily, except at their shop for an outrageous price.
    • newaccount74 3y ago
      That's pretty much par for the course for all bike manufacturers. There's a million different bottom brackets, headsets, axles standards, etc. Eg. if your through axle breaks, good luck finding a store that stocks one in the correct length with the correct thread and the correct thread length, and even if you do, you'll probably end up paying 40€ for a small piece of metal.
      • sudosysgen 3y ago
        That's really not true. Most European bikes use standard bottom bracket sizes and you can easily find dozens of compatible bottom brackets. Same goes for headsets, axles, brakes, etc... The big exception right now are thru-axles, yes, but the vast majority of bikes don't use thru-axles (and there's no reason a vanmoof commuter bike would need to use those), they use quick release axles, and those are completely standard.
        • beardedwizard 3y ago
          this may be true for commuting bikes that are typically lower end, but absolutely not true for higher end bikes across the model line of all mfgs. In many cases they switch year over year.
• haspok 3y ago
  They are expensive for what is essentially a commuter bike. I think they simply chose a wrong strategy, because if you have a cheap(ish) bike and a good U-lock, you can leave it anywhere without much stress. It will most probably not be stolen (because the value of the bike is low), and if it does get stolen, then it is cheap to replace - you can buy at least 5 commuter bikes for the price of a fancy one. In fact, in the past 20 years I had exactly one bike stolen from me from an open basement where the bike was not locked, and there were construction works in the building (=my fault). I do have bikes worth >2k but I don't use them for commuting and I don't leave them around for more than 10 minutes even locked. ps. I also happen to own a Brompton, which is another strategy - fold your bike so you can take it with you anywhere. Even it was heavily overpriced (~900 GBP IIRC), and it has propietary parts so servicing is not easy. My excuse for buying it is that it paid back it's price in about a year of commuting (by not having to pay for public transport).
  • scotty79 3y ago
    How do you secure the battery with ulock? Or are there bikes with non-replaceble batteries? How do you charge them?
    • haspok 3y ago
      If I had an e-bike I would just take the battery with me. Minor inconvenience for security.
    • ricardobeat 3y ago
      The VanMoof has built-in batteries that are extremely hard to access. You must take the bike near an outlet to charge.
    • paholg 3y ago
      Unrelated to VanMoof, my bike has a battery that goes on top of the rack. The battery includes a key, and locks to the bike. To charge it, I usually just leave it on the bike, but you can fairly easily unlock it from the bike and change it separately if desired.
  • 3y ago
• nixass 3y ago
  > I am not sure why everyone thinks they are expensive. > There are eBikes costing 4000 euro. Is this coping mechanism where you justify yourself you got a good deal from them?