Stark Drive Mini Launching August 30th

You can see the teaser launch video for Stark Drive Mini above.

In order to build and ship the most affordable electric bike in the world (again) we relied on tried and true principals of using open mould standardized frame design and building the best bike we could possibly build around it. Developing Mini was a challenge for our enthusiastically ambitious team as we knew what we wanted, an electric bike that would ultimately ship for less than $300 US, one that was light, powerful and could get respectable range in order to become a partner in your daily commute.

To our knowledge this is the first 250W 36V folding electric bike ever for under $300.

With Mini we addressed several shortcomings with our original Stark Drive design which just due to cost, mechanical and weight limitations we could not improve such as:

• easier to carry
• compact and portable on public transit
• ability to take a flight with your bike
• industry leading weight/power ratio
• breaking through the $300 barrier to entry
• better control of system power

Recently while browing the web for the latest in affordable bicycle tranportation i came upon a wired review on:

TERN A7 (Click to see the Review)

At first glance i thought that Stark Drive was finally making some headway with its goals of inspiring our competition to lower the prices of electric bikes but although it looks similar to other electric bike frames on the market, this one was your standard bicycle, no electric to speak of, at a price that matches our base model Stark Drive City (a fully electric pedal assist bicycle). Its clear that there is still a long way to go in order to get the industry to more aggressively pursue a more competitive pricing structure for their products to open the door for those that would otherwise not be in a position to afford an electric bike.