We've banned Chinese telco kit and drones. Next: Mountain bikes? Nations worried about China's ability to use its tech companies for more than trade now have a new class of kit to fret over: mountain bikes, thanks to Middle Kingdom drone-maker DJI's arrival in the field with an electric drive system. The US government has already grounded its fleet of DJI drones over security concerns, and …
Depriving these companies of the US market will lose them a significant slice of business but nowhere near enough to cause them anything other than inconvenience. (There's this "rest of the world"....) Meanwhile all that happens here in the US is that we have to pay silly money for ordinary product (which still is likely to have Chinese content, anyway).
Believe me, as an engineer there's nothing I love more than healthy manufacturing here in the USofA. Allowing local assemblers to pump up margins on products we'd like to buy isn't going to encourage them to do anything other than what they're doing at the moment -- boutique products at silly prices.
"Believe me, as an engineer there's nothing I love more than healthy manufacturing here in the USofA. Allowing local assemblers to pump up margins on products we'd like to buy isn't going to encourage them to do anything other than what they're doing at the moment -- boutique products at silly prices."
Given that Chinese manufacturing wages are about a quarter of those in the US, the majority of infrastructure gets provided by the state free or very cheaply, and there's none of the on-costs of welfare, environment, democracy, safety standards, or unions. China will always be able to make stuff much much cheaper than the "silly money" costs of US manufacturers. It's already happening, with fewer and fewer jobs in manufacturing, and loss of your industrial base. What will those people do? Manufacturing Joes aren't going to retrain as data analysts, AI experts, web developers, registered engineers, pharmceutical researchers, or product designers. Maybe former car assembly and steel workers can retrain to wipe backsides in care homes for the better off?
So I'm left wondering what sort of US economy you have in mind? Cheap Chinese goods for the middle class and wealthy, and an underclass scratting around in low wage and insecure jobs because the better off don't care if Chinese workers are paid a pittance, and value cheap shiney above a fair wage for a fair job for US workers?
I'm not arguing for absolute protectionism, but China isn't a friend of the West, and yet the US apparently is choosing a situation where the US buys $427bn of stuff from China, but China only buys $148bn of US output.
Be very wary of exaggerating the impact of the cost of labour in manufacturing. Automation has led to ever fewer tasks that require a persons input on the production line. Ford's plant in Dagenham for example directly employs fewer that 3,000 people yet generates over £2.5 Billion in exports (Ford's own figures). With the exception of the rag trade* numbers employed will only go down.
* 15 years ago there was a very promising German idea of using glue that replicated stitching, but it didn't come to fruition.
Would you mind if the developed Western World used that argument against America?
Because "welfare (holidays/sick cover/hospital cover), environment, staff wages, unions, and safety-standards if republicans get their way (oh, also child labour)" in the USA are considered very poor by most of Europe.
>if republicans get their way
You don't need to wait for Republicans for all the cheap labor stuff. There's poverty like you wouldn't believe in quite a lot of the US. Most people think we all live like the middle class families on TV shows; some do, of course, but just keep in mind that when the Simpsons first came out Homer and family were a portrayal of a typical middle class family. These days the idea of one steady semi-skilled job being enough to maintain a family of five in their own home is laughable -- Homes gone from caricature to aspirational!
Lots of other workplace changes as well. One of the more amusing is the change from vacation pay to "Personal Time Off". Sounds like just a bit of HRese but the trick (as practiced by the last place I worked) is that PTO encompasses anything else that needs time off. So if you're sick after three days you start eating into your PTO -- your vacation. Once you've used up your generous 10 days annual (typical -- it does go up a bit after five years though) you have to get income from somewhere else.
The real problem for us engineers is that China's turning out about 35,000 a year.......and we can't even import them any more because (as our government keeps telling us) they're all spies.
>So I'm left wondering what sort of US economy you have in mind? Cheap Chinese goods for the middle class and wealthy, and an underclass scratting around in low wage and insecure jobs
I don't think the plan is to pay US workers at all, or at least a significant minority. On the bright side the southern states will be offering "jobs for life", and for your children too !
I would agree that China produces a lot of garbage of poor quality, but DJI is not one of those companies. Everything they make really is BEST or NEARLY BEST in the market. THeir drones are easiy the best in market. Their digital radio link for video and audio is so much better than everyone elses its not funny. Their action cameras are also really nice.
I havent yet ridden or seen one of their new MB motors but im pretty sure its easily the best on ther market and when the next gen comes around it will also be better than anything from Bosch.
I'm sick of this crap.
The collective "we" worked on globalisation for decades. Now we have it and its results and are trying to destroy it again.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
All this does is put stress on and harm the consumers ultimately while making an extreme mess of the entire chain of production for everyone involved.
Then world needs a BIG reset.
First we gave to define fleet. Are we a talking a fleet of 3 or a fleet of 10000 ?
And what exactly are the government using a fleet of drones for ?
Internal or external surveillance ? As far as I remember the USA is currently not at war with anyone. At least not directly.
> And what exactly are the government using a fleet of drones for ?
One example: Forest Rangers use drones[1] for both setting and watching deliberate fires, as well as watching for unwanted fires. Also to carry IR cameras for search & rescue or animal tracking.
[1] although this article refers to them as "modern technology, Unarmed Aerial Systems (UAS)" which is a telling comment on their expectations
Policy makers in the US are idiots. DJI drones dont have a magical satellite link to beem anything, and theres no such things as a system for China to control them in anyway either.
If the US policy makers want to really do some good they should be jailing 499 out of the fortune 500 corporate leaders both past and present for sending all those jobs and tech to china in the first place.
Most drones these days use your cell phone or tablet to control certain functions while the drone in in the air. I think the fear is that with the cell phone connected to the internet all the time, the drone software can be uploading information to the PRC through the phone's link.
The drone has GPS location information. All it needs to do is send imagery from the drone along with GPS location info, and you have fairly decent intelligence.
They bought DJI drones because they are easily the best. Its like comparing a F1 car against a Ford or Dodge. You obviously have no idea how good their stuff is. You also seem to not appreciate taht a lot of what politicians of all sides say is bullshit and not at all realistic in anyway.
Oh, you're very welcome! </me stands politely to one side as you pass>
Your priorities for disposing of disposable income are obviously different from mine, and nothing wrong with that... my brother in law pays three times for a (non-e) road bike that I pay for a paraglider, and does it two or three times as often.
But my point was that the price vs cost ratio seems rather high for what is presumably intended as a mass market device (though of course, I suddenly remember, electric cars were/are like that too.)
Much more sensibly priced ebikes do exist, and are often a better match for someone's use-case.
My ebike cost 1000 quid when new some years ago, it doesn't look like an ebike, it's not as heavy as the pricey Bosch-powered suspension bikes my friends have, I don't worry about it being nicked too much, it's light enough that I can carry it up stairs at a train station, it's no faster than a conventional bike on the flat on a good day but it reliably gets me home if there's a strong headwind.
Infact it's just like a normal bicycle, but with the fear of gentle hills and headwinds removed.
> Much more sensibly priced ebikes do exist
> My ebike cost 1000 quid
> Infact it's just like a normal bicycle
I had some pretty trick racing bikes as a teen but none of them cost anywhere near £1k. £1k for a bike is neither sensible, nor normal.
Hell, I've paid a fraction of that for motorbikes in the past.
"I had some pretty trick racing bikes as a teen but none of them cost anywhere near £1k. £1k for a bike is neither sensible, nor normal."
Many years ago I bought a Peugeot carbon fiber bike when they were very new that cost me a big chunk of money. I also bought a 103 for daily riding. I sold the CF bike after a friend of mine got knocked off his and had it stolen out from under him, literally, when some thieves spotted what it was. By that time, I was not competing as often and scaled back to the odd short course triathlons just for fun. I still have the 103 that I should sell since I can't ride it anymore without spending the next day with too much back pain. The stickers out where I am just love to eat road bike tires. An eBike that would let me sit up straight might be fun, but they are so expensive that getting one isn't high on the list.
I got an e-bike for less than half that (~$500). Decent specifications, some assembly required, and nowhere near as fancy as the ones priced like a car, but serves me. Am I allowed to say Ancheer?
I'm convinced the markup is insane because they are fad items at the moment. The well-off buy them for their kids as a status symbol.
Do yourself a favour and watch the DJI vids.
The motor is a work of art. THe battery is also pretty big, batteries of that size are not cheap, you simply cant buy one for less than $1K. It also has a few sensors, gps, screens and more. THe bike is also made of high tech materials and weighs a lot less than a regular bike. Sure if you dont care it doesnt matter, but i you appreciate quality then it does matter.
Its like comparing a pizza from a real italian rest in Italy against Dominos or whatever crap you have in USA. Italians cry when they see and eat American pizza because its garbage. its the same as comapring a shitty $1K bike against this DJI bike.
There are a number of answers to this. The first is that the bicycle industry thinks too highly of itself and knows what it can get away with. The second is that cars are produced in numbers several orders of magnitude greater than high end bicycles, so bicycles don't enjoy the same economies of scale. The third is that bicycle parts are highly weight sensitive, so they use high strength ("aerospace") aluminium alloys and/or carbon fibre, with high levels of design optimisation and complicated manufacturing techniques, and a lot of manual labour and handling.
However that all said, prices have been spiralling out of control for years. Specialized for example launched a new mountain bike (i.e. without a motor) in the last week and the entry level model costs almost AU$9,000, while the highest spec is almost AU$20,000(!!!)
I ride a mountain bike with a number of higher end parts on it and it's an absolute riot. Depending on your perspective, it was either expensive or a bargain (or both) at the time I bought it three years ago, but to me it's worth it for the enjoyment I get from riding it. But the only way I'm buying something like that Specialized is if I accidentally smoke some of whatever Specialized has clearly been smoking.
WHy does a Mercedes cost more than a Kia. Because its a far better car in so many ways. If you dont appreciate the differences then theres no point discussing.
If you cant appreciate a bike that has a motor, battery, screens that monitor everything and even track your path and usage with telemtery is going to cost more than a shitty $300 bike what else can i say ?
There's lots of exotic manufacturing in making them light and strong. Imagine if your bike is good old steel tubes and the battery runs out. You'd be stuck on inclines you didn't even know existed.
I commuted to work at Google for a while on a nice 2010 Giant Anthem X2. After that, riding those cheap steel Gbikes was always felt like a drunken dare. Trying to pedal those up an overpass faster than walking speed was begging for a broken chain, bent frame, or leg cramps.
... e-mountainbikes are... well...
I'm all for people participating in life. However, the increased number of electrified mountainbikes has lead to a no longer healthy run on trails by those short of fitness, sense, technique but rich in cash.
I like e-bikes as some sort of car replacement, I'm all for that. Less noise, less space used, and people move around in fresh air and exercise a bit more, which makes them more healthy (unless the e-bike is a motorcycle, i.e. the motor is not just an assisting system). I have friends and colleagues living in hilly places (glacial landscapes, steep slopes) using electric (cargo) bikes to drop kids off at kindergarden or to do their shopping. I don't need the motor assistance because where I live it is quite flat. I also know people using the e-bike to be able to still ride as a group (so two have e-bikes and can keep up, the others still bike themselves and don't have to wait for the slow ones, and thus the ride is fun for all). All valid use cases. Using the motor to haul your ass up the hill to destroy the landscape on the way down, always on the brink of crashing because your bike handling skills don't match the trail, increasing erosion (seriously, hiking trails are being destroyed) is not really what I am for. And don't get me started on road bikes with motors, or putting your kids on e-bikes. At least every now and then those battery packs spontaneously combust.
At least it is Friday, and I can go on a small bike tour with my kids on the weekend. And I'm looking forward to summer when we will do a short bike packing tour, just two or three days.
> really cannot see the point of what I suspect is going to effectively be an electric scrambler.
Yep! Even amongst without motors there are mountain bikers who realise that big suspension bikes have made their rides boring and unchallenging, so 'grit bikes' have become a thing. To the lay person they look like steel road bikes but with tyres suitable for gravel cycle paths and forest tracks, and with better brakes. Wheels and frame more robust than a tarmac racing bike would be.
e-mountainbikes have replaced cross-motorcycles. Did you ever encounter cross-motorcycles in mountains ? You can hear them from everywhere, so these e-bikes are an improvement. You could argue that bikes shouldn't have ANY motor at all, electric or otherwise, but then how would YOU get to the mountain trail from your home : by bus ?
No, never encountered those, because they were not allowed to drive there.
And I'd get there by train and then bike uphill. Unless we are talking about the Alps, there we have a 1700m climb, and I am pretty sure the first 1000m are boring. And then the question is, are we doing downhill or doing some sweet flowing trails...
But I (grudgingly) get your point!
Hey Zolko, take a pause mate... Joe W was talking about heavy torquey eBikes being used on hiking trails (a bad thing), and not about their use on tracks where motorcycles can be legally ridden (where, as you point out, replacing a noisy two-stroke engine with an electric motor is a good thing.)
Here in the UK our geography, networks of bridle paths and greenways, and our bylaws are different to the US, where I'm guessing you hail from.
I'm writing from the Alps, where a single idiot with a cross-bike – might be a legal enduro – can ruin an entire valley for as long as he rides there (I must admit I have done that when I was young). I have never encountered an e-bike on small trails, but have met plenty of down-hill mountainbikes on pedestrian trails : those are really dangerous. Admittedly, some e-bikes are probably used to climb easily uphill on a large track and then downhill, but unfortunately many people did this before anyway using cars to carry the downhill bike uphill (did you ever try to ride a downhill mountainbike on a flat road ?)
For me e-bikes are a big improvement, and most mountainbikes on rent are e-bikes.
This is the thinking of politicians. Unfortunately, where globalisation often wipes out jobs in entire regions and imports wage deflation, I'm not seeing a net benefit to the importing countries merely to specific consumers who because their job isn't affected see a benefit in a cheaper toaster.
All barriers to trade do hurt both sides. But sometimes free trade also has big downsides when only one of you is practicising it. I don't think the Chinese Communist party believe in win-win situations. Rather like Putin (trained by the Soviet Communist Party) - they believe in zero sum games. For me to win, you have to lose. And so rather than mutually beneficial free trade, China has pursued market manipulation on a huge scale in order to grow their industry at the expense of everyone else's. Not that this is unusual - it's a standard development model to protect the domestic economy from the challenge of imports while pursuing export-growth. But at some point you have to open your market to your trade partners - or they can't make enough money from exporting to you, in order to buy your exports.
Worse if they also want to use that new industrial power to exert political control.
Russia is an example of not doing your joined up thinking. I think Putin has believed himself to be in a Cold War with the West for at least 15 years - there are some suggestions that he sought cooperation in his early years of office, and maybe things could have been different. Not sure I believe it myself, I suspect he's always been the KGB-trained office, burning with resentment at losing the Cold War. But theh point here is that he thought that, but still allowed his economy to be dependent on Western imports. More importantly his military. Even after the 2014 arms embargo (after the inavsion of Crimea) - France were still selling Russia night vision optics for their T90 tanks. A United Services Institue report into a Russian cruise missile that crashed in Ukraine found it had 50 different electronic components imported from Western companies - mostly to do with guidance and control - GPS stuff, attitude sensors on a chip and the like. And so Russia has had to resort to reactivating old Cold War kit - and using cheap Iranian drones, because it's only able to produce a few tens of missiles a month.
Interestingly China banned the sale of things like DJI drones to both sides in the Ukraine war a few last Winter. Don't know if it had any effect. I'd read that Russian units in particular were having trouble getting old of the little FPV drones - but if it's still being enforced (which I doubt) they were getting them from other sources.
But it is a problem if you think you're going to come into any kind of conflict with a country - if you find you're dependend on them. Because leverage. There is the theory that economic inter-dependency stops wars. The saying used to be that if goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.
But if you went to communist school, perhaps what you learn is that stupid capitalists can be manipulated by their economic dependencies to do what you want them to. Certainly that's what Putin managed to do with gas supplies to Europe - and it was only when he went too and launched the full invasion of Ukraine with full warcrimes that his leverage broke.
This creates a problem. Take the benefits of free trade now and hope for the best? Or have a less efficient, but more robust economy and supply chain - rather than becoming inter-dependent with a regime you may end up in conflict with. Had the CCP not chose Xi Xinping, things might have gone differently. But he seems to have chose increased repression at home, and increased conflict abroad. And I don't see how we can avoid reacting to that. Would be nice if we could get that reaction right though...
and across the US all the drones power up and take flight, providing total surveillance coverage.
Forty minutes later, their batteries drained, the drones have dropped to the ground.
Chinese intelligence scour the data returned and the GPS positions of all the dark cupboards, grubby backpacks, bottom of car trunks, dust bunnies under the bed and piles of unwashed teenage clothes beneath which the vast majority of drones spend their lives.
DJI are some of the best drones I've played with, their Mini series are a so much fun, heck even my 84 year old father has two and loves flying them as he was never able to learn to fly model helicopters when we was younger. It's your loss USA, you want to be "masters of your own domain" that suits the rest of us, we don't need all you woke BS, gender politics, ginger-wiggy nutter crap bothering the rest of us.
Pro-tip: Avoid front wheel motors.
a) OTA update locks up back wheel: I have to walk down the road for a pack of fags
b) OTA update locks up front wheel: Lands on head at speed.
Two deaths I know of from this round here on Uber-associated scooters (just poor design and firmware, I doubt they had OTA motor controllers.
Remember "never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetentence")
Pretty exciting times for ebikes actually
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