Proven: The Fastest Way To Get Around In A City is A Bicycle
If you build it they will come....
Ive long been a fan of public transportation but with the advent of electric bikes the range of travel has increased dramatically considering that most people use the bike as tool for commuting to another destination and not wanting to arrive tired and sweaty. There is of course public transport but you are frequently left with a lot of idle time while you wait for the bus or subway. One of primary reasons people choose to take a vehicle is that they dont have the luxury of time when they need to get something done.
Cycling has been an excellent alternative however until recently you were still left with several hinderances to using a bike such as weather conditions, and the simple distance that needs to be covered in a specific amount of time not to mention if you wanted to be carrying a load with you say if you were to go to the supermarket or out shopping. Then there was of course the problem of securing your bike once you get to your destination to ensure that your chosen environmentally friendly mode of transportation will still be there when you return.
From the start of Stark Drive i have tried to find the best compromise with affordability and ease of use while focusing on the bike as the sole means of transportation. From my perspective it was clear that biking somewhere is the best way to travel and that a folding bike was your best option once you got there as you could either take it with you up to the office or secure the entire bike (not just a single wheel or the frame) to a piece of street furniture with a heavy duty lock to ensure that nothing happened to it while you were out doing your business.
Although for me Stark Drive was the perfect bike enabling me to take it with me wherever i go and ultimately to even bring it up with me to my apartment or up to the office I felt it could still be improved. Not only from from a cost perspective but also to make it even more portable as improvements in both battery technology and motor technology over the last few years has helped to shrink components while maintaining the same or better power levels and energy density.
Stark Drive Mini
Thus came our next iteration of Stark Drive: Stark Drive Mini which for now is my primary daily driver. It is exceptionally light coming in at about 13kg and also packs a lot of power with a motor of up to 350w which combined with a high capacity battery can get you where you need to go without even needing to pedal.
This was further discussed in a recent Forbes article linked to below:
With Stark Drive Mini you dont even need to worry about locking your bike, combine mini with one of our carrying pouches and you can bring it right in with you after you are finished your journey and the bag even doubles for carrying your shopping once you are ready to ride home. The Bag we have designed includes wheels so that if you do not feel like carrying Mini on your back you can roll it along with you not needing to break a sweat and feeling confident that your mate is safely with you at all times.
Stark Drive Torque
While we feel that both Stark Drive and Stark Drive Mini address a wide gambit of usage case scenarios, there is still one aspect that we feel was lacking and that was of the performance all terrain bike that will help you up those steepest hills and roughest terrain and we have been working hard to keep our schedule for releasing the next iteration of Stark Drive in both Regular and Fat tire called Stark Drive Torque.
Recently after receiving our prototype Stark Drive Torque models we have been testing them extensively. It's no suprrise when talking about a torque based electric bike that the torque system itself comprises a huge percentage of the total cost of the bike itself, much more so then a hub motor based electric bike. We have been working with our manufacturing partners and in tern with suppliers to our partners to bring the price down so that in short course we will be launching a torque based electric bike. The cost of this bike for comparison purposes if we take into account the historcal cost of electric bikes will be on par with what a hub motor based electric bike cost just a few years ago. And herein lies our companies mission: to lower the barrier of entry to electric based transportation.
In order for any technology to become mass market and affordable you have to have a critical mass of people that are buying the product to help to reduce the cost along the entire product development chain. This is similar to what crowdfunding websites are doing when someone with a campaign has created a new gadget or gizmo that previously cost a lot more but they have developed a way to manufacture it in a better and faster way helping to pass those savings onto you: consumer.
Of course, when speaking of crowdfunding not all campaigns are successful and some ideas or products are before their time. Such may have been the through process when just a year ago we launched Stark Drive for an entry price of $399 USD. Many people doubted that we could create an electric bike for such a low cost but we proved them wrong.
Kickstarter Stark Drive Mini
About 2 months ago we launched Stark Drive Mini on Kickstarter. Stark Drive Mini Started at an unbelievable $299 US. This for some people was once again something they considered impossible espeically when similar products were selling on ebay, alibaba, or amazon for 4x the price. We were once again criticized for having unrealistic expectation and that we could never deliver a high quality product at such a rock bottom price.
Let me be the first to say that Stark Drive will once again prove them wrong.
All of us that work with Stark Drive do so not for fame or wealth, as we do not have any salaried employees but rather we work for the betterment of environmentally friendly transport and to make the benefits of switching to electric transportation so desirable that many will feel there is no choice but to do so as financially it no longer makes sense to choose anything else.
For example the cost of a monthly pass for public transit is approximately $100 US. Now you could continue to use public transit but as the prices for this keep going up and our electric bikes keep getting more and more affordable, there will come a point when for the cost of a monthly pass you can just buy an electric bike that works all the time, without needing to buy a subscription to use it.
The same is true with the mass distribution of scooters which have become all the rage lately in the USA and even in the EU. People are able to pick up a scooter with the help of an app and pay based on the total time they use the scooter. I think the scooter market is an excellent one that is yet to be tapped and given the Stark Drive Treatment. Arguably its even more portable than Stark Drive Mini and still gives you the range you need to get you from point a to b and is easy to fold and carry with you.
Thanks for reading. If you have any comments or questions, we would love to hear from you: hello@starkdrive.com
Sincerely
Stark Drive Team
Stark Drive LLC
