Maybe. Easy to do if there's some sort of payment system (just make it more expensive than domestic rate per kWh), but that adds massive complexity.
In developed countries with a near universal transport RFID token (i.e. OV ChipKaart), it's less problematic. But, I would question if schuko has the durability for this sort of usage cycle...
I'm acutely aware of these issues. Barakta has a battery she can't safely carry on a tricycle that's a two-person job to get through our front door (it has to be lifted and rotated around its long axis). To be fair, I specified the battery so she'd be able to do >100km without charging, which means it's harder to lift, but almost never a problem. A secure garage with a door at street level would be a game-changer, though.
TBH, I reckon what's really needed is a move to providing more secure accessible bike parking, with e-bike charging as part of that spec.
(In the UK we also have this delightful situation where makers of secure bike lockers have never seen a city bike. Anything with wide, swept-back bars or a stem above touring bike height simply doesn't fit.)
I appreciate that in your case I'm very much preaching to the converted.
I wonder if there is an argument to be had for having bikes with multiple battery slots. Lets face it for most people, they are taking the bike on at most a 20km round trip, that's not going to need much power capacity, this is the whole range anxiety problems etc... from E-cars. But if rather than a single 500wh battery, you have a pair of 250wh batteries. On most days you can take the 250w, and leave one at home, reducing your weight, but when you want to do a long ride to the coast for pancakes, you can bring both. That would bring each battery into the sub 1.5kg category.
There also needs to be better thought taken to battery unit security. I know many pedal assist bikes have a lock to protect the battery, but that lock is theatrical at best. People lock their bike with a €100 lock, but the battery is held in with a key of laughably poor quality.
Round these parts I'd love to see a pedal assist cargo trike sharing scheme, like the greenwheels car hire scheme, so you can book a bike for €2.50 an hour, to do a run to the garden center, etc... But that requires cooperation from the Gemente, suitable charging infrastructure, and users with clue...
Given the frame of the bike is metal, surely there should be a mechanism to have a charging dock like you have with Boris bikes. Click the bike into the dock, swipe your OV chipkaart, walk away... Or am I overthinking things?
Ohgod, yes. I mean, they've designed the connectors to be sturdy, waterproof, lock in place and resist a reasonable amount of errant unplugging force, but so many of the vehicle manufacturers (particularly for plug-in hybrids and electric versions of existing models) seem to have borrowed the design of a petrol filler cap without further thought. Electrons are quite happy to flow uphill and round corners, so putting the connector on the front or back of the vehicle so the cable can always reach and be out of the way of people trying to get past the side is obvious. Not having an expensive flap sticking out for vandals to snap off would be a good idea, too. (Actually retaining the connector under a flap probably isn't a good idea, as there needs to be provision for J Random Rapid Charger User to rock up in the adjacent bay and pull the cable from your car when it unlocks at the end of charging.)
Front or rear, unless they can come up with a more low profile connector design causes issues with when you want to cut through between two parted charging cars in an on street charging situation...
Then of course there is no standard location for the charging port, so you end up with cables trailing everywhere, and with excess curled up to catch you unawares...
And then there's the stupid councils that put the charging post on the pavement, eating into pedestrian space... etc...
There's a lot to rant about the current state of e-cars...
That's perfectly reasonable, and I understand how conflict arises between fast ebikes and slow ebikes/regular bikes on dedicated cycle ways, in much the same way as conflict exists between any sort of bike and pedestrians on a shared use path (when one user is being an arse). Where dedicated sensible bike paths exist, the too fast and too slow issue of 15mph isn't a problem.
I'm simply talking about use on the road (and my experience is only in the UK) - stopping assistance at 15mph means that the ebike remains seen as an impediment to traffic (as it would if it were only human powered), rather than as being traffic. I believe that current UK law says that if your bike is capable of >250W, or >15mph then it's an electric moped and needs licence plate, tax, insurance, helmet, etc. and is not permitted on cycle paths.
There are two issues at play here:
a) Moronic road designers who think a shared use pedestrian/cycle lane is a good idea.
b) Moronic drivers who think that they are obligated to over take a vehicle that is slower than them. Whether it is safe to do so or not.
bi) there is a special case of (b), which is cyclists on the shared use lanes of (a), that feel they have an obligation to get past the pedestrians, regardless to the safety of doing so. But then often the bipedal obstacle is also walking in such a way as to provide maximum obstruction (keep left, or keep right, just make your bloody mind up and don't walk down the fscking middle!)...
J
