Delfast’s new ‘100-mile range’ electric moped officially launches with 50% off promotion
Last month we covered the unveiling of a new Ukrainian light electric motorbike known as the Delfast California. Now the bike has officially launched for pre-order.
Calling an e-bike “California” might seem like a strange move for a Ukrainian-based company like Delfast, but it comes with an interesting origin story.
One of Delfast’s designers was touring the company’s new California headquarters earlier this year when Russia began its brutal invasion of Ukraine’s territory.
Unable to immediately return home, the designer was stuck on the US West Coast with nothing to do but observe the local micromobility culture.
He immediately began drawing up a new electric moped that relied on influence from the local two-wheeler scene. He then worked with dozens of his colleagues back in Ukraine to quickly develop the company’s newest model, the Delfast California.
The full-suspension electric bike comes in two versions. There’s a higher-power model for US customers that features Bafang’s heavy-duty M620 Ultra mid-drive motor. That drivetrain puts out a claimed 750W, though the motor is widely known to peak at much higher power levels than the 750W figure seen on the spec sheet.
For European customers, there’s a detuned model with a Bafang M410 motor that comes with a paltry 250W rating, though similarly to the powerful M620 motor, the true output is likely a bit higher.
The US version can reach speeds as high as 28 mph (45 km/h), while the European version is limited to EU-regulated speeds of 25 km/h (15.5 mph). The two motors are quite torquey, with the US version outputting 160Nm of torque and the EU version still posting a respectable 80Nm of torque.
Both bikes come with tri-spoke mag wheels and a 48V 20Ah removable li-ion battery that offers 960Wh of capacity.
Checking the spec sheet shows a claimed 100-mile (160 km) range on the US version and a 200 km (121 mile) range on the EU version, though those figures are perhaps a bit optimistic. Delfast says that the 100-mile range comes at a pedal assist speed of 20 mph (32 km/h), but that still sounds like the rider is putting in some serious effort on their own to reach such dramatic ranges. Most e-bikes with batteries of this size claim ranges of just over half this much on pedal assist.
When it comes to pedaling, the 66 pound (30 kg) e-bike isn’t exactly the lightest two-wheeler on the road, though it’s a good bit slimmer than Delfast’s larger and more powerful e-bikes.
Delfast has launched the new e-bike on Indiegogo, offering an early-bird promotional price of just $1,999 despite a higher MSRP of $3,999. Deliveries are estimated to begin in July of next year.
We always advise caution on crowdfunding campaigns since buyers are actually “backers,” and aren’t exactly buying a product as much as they are contributing funding for a product to be produced. The end result is usually that the backers receive the product they “backed,” but some crowdfunding campaigns have left backers high and dry in the past.
In this case, Delfast has been in operation for years and has delivered thousands of e-bikes to everyone from private customers to police departments and even the Ukrainian military.
What do you think of the Delfast California electric moped? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments section below!
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Subscribe to Electrek on YouTube for exclusive videos and subscribe to the podcast.
Paris’ bike-share system, Vélib has long been considered one of the shining success stories of urban micromobility. With a massive fleet of over 20,000 pedal and electric-assist bicycles around Paris, the service has helped millions of residents and tourists get around the City of Light without needing a car or scooter. But lately, a growing problem is threatening to knock the wheels off this urban mobility marvel: theft and joyriding.
According to city officials and the service operator, more than 600 Vélib bikes are now going missing every single week. That’s over 30 bikes a day simply vanishing from the system – some stolen outright, others taken on “joy rides” and never returned.
“At the moment we’re missing 3,000 bikes,” explained Sylvain Raifaud, head of the Agemob company that currently operates the Velib system. That’s nearly 15% of over 20,000 Vélib bikes across Paris.
The sticky-fingered culprits aren’t necessarily professional thieves or organized crime rings. Instead, they’re often regular users who treat the shared bikes like disposable toys.
The city estimates that many people have figured out how to pry the bikes out of the system’s parking docks, unlocking one for a casual cruise and then ditching it somewhere far from a docking station.
Once pried free, the bikes are technically usable for the next 24 hours until their automatic locking feature kicks in. At that point, the bikes are often simply abandoned. Some end up in alleyways. Others get tossed in rivers. A few just disappear completely.
And since the bikes are intended to be parked at their many docking stations around the city, they don’t have GPS chips, further complicating recovery of “liberated” bikes.
The issue started small but has grown into more than an inconvenience – it’s beginning to undermine the entire purpose of the service. With bikes going missing at such a high rate, many Vélib docking stations are left empty, especially during rush hours.
Riders looking for a quick commute or a convenient hop across town are increasingly finding themselves without available bikes, or having to walk long distances to find a functioning one.
That kind of unreliability chips away at user confidence and threatens to drive potential riders back into cars, cabs, or other less sustainable forms of transport at a time when Paris has already made great strides to dramatically reduce car usage in the city.
The losses are financially painful, too. Replacing stolen or vandalized bikes isn’t cheap, and the resources spent on tracking down missing equipment or reinforcing anti-theft measures are stretching thin. Vélib has faced theft and vandalism issues before, especially during its early years, but this latest surge has officials sounding the alarm with renewed urgency.
Officials acknowledge that there’s no easy fix. Paris, like many cities with bike-share systems, walks a fine line between accessibility and accountability. Part of what makes Vélib so successful is its ease of use and widespread availability. But those same features make it vulnerable to misuse – especially when enforcement is limited and the consequences for abuse are minimal.
The timing of the problem is especially unfortunate. In recent years, Paris has seen impressive results in reducing car traffic, expanding bike lanes, and promoting cycling as a key part of its sustainable transport strategy. Vélib is a cornerstone of that plan. But if the system becomes too unreliable, it risks losing the very people it was designed to serve.
Meanwhile, as Parisians increasingly find themselves staring at empty docks, the challenge for the city and Vélib will be to restore confidence in the system without making it harder to use. That means striking the right balance between freedom and responsibility, between open access and protection against abuse.
In a city where cycling is supposed to be the future of mobility, losing thousands of bikes to joyriders and sticky fingers isn’t just frustrating; it’s unsustainable.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike