After shocking bankruptcy, anti-VanMoof e-bikes like these may be the answer
Less than a week ago, the once highest-funded electric bike brand in the world, VanMoof, declared bankruptcy. Now a post-mortem of the company shows what went wrong for the high-tech e-bike maker and why an e-bike that is the antithesis of a VanMoof might hold the answer for the future of the industry.
Voices from all over the industry have jumped at a chance to tell us why VanMoof failed, with the reasons mostly coming down to attempting to grow too quickly, over-reliance on high tech, expensive proprietary technology, and the inability to service its growing customer base’s complex e-bikes.
But more important than just what went wrong at VanMoof is a discussion of what needs to go right as the e-bike industry rolls forward.
In a recent missive written by Tuuli Jevstignejev, the biking industry expert details why VanMoof’s direction was the wrong path and which course is best for both riders and the e-bike companies that exist to serve them.
Tuuli’s biking bona fides are irreproachable. She’s worked for and advised some of the biggest names in the industry, has a phone full of the numbers of the most famous biking athletes and extreme sports aficionados in the world, boasts a tattoo of every European city she’s lived in – each more bikeable than the next – and currently serves as the CMO at Ampler Bikes.
And her message likely won’t come as a shock, especially since much of it was heard just a month ago when she sat shoulder to shoulder with Taco Carlies, CEO of VanMoof, on a panel at the Micromobility Europe conference in Amsterdam. I was there that day enjoying an even better than front row seat to the meeting of industry titans – I was on stage hosting the panel.
When I asked Tuuli about the biggest industry challenges to growing e-bike ridership, she didn’t give the same usual response of “getting butts in seats for test rides” or “creating new features and tech.” Instead, her message was simple. In fact, it was about simplicity itself:
One of the biggest challenges in our industry is to make sure we have quality over quantity and that we are able to service the bikes. If you grow too big too fast, then very often, that’s not the case anymore.
Our biggest challenge is to maintain customer happiness and product quality. We can do that by standardizing e-bikes so that people can either service the bikes themselves or take them to a regular bike shop, so it’s not difficult to manage the product after the purchase.
Just moments later I asked VanMoof’s cofounder and CEO Taco Carlies about his thoughts on constantly iterating new e-bike models with yearly releases like the cellphone industry versus doubling down on tried-and-true designs with longer product cycles.
As you can imagine, VanMoof’s CEO favored the model of constantly updating products to create a steady release of e-bikes with new features:
I think if you look at the entire industry, I think that the industry is still innovating at a very rapid pace, and if you compare it with the iPhone, we’re probably somewhere now at the time of the iPhone 3, 4 or 5. So lots of brands are introducing new models and they always have some cool new features. Motor technology is improving fast, battery technology is improving, so I still think it makes sense that brands introduce new models every year or two.
Holding an obviously different view, Tuuli was quick to jump in with a response right after VanMoof’s CEO finished. And now with VanMoof’s bankruptcy less than a week behind us, her words ring eerily true:
As Tuuli stated on the panel:
I have a very polarizing opinion on that. I feel like we have a lot of technology around us and it’s very distracting. The trend I would like to see is to go back to basics so that e-bikes get more standardized and simpler. I feel like we don’t need a new iPhone every year, I think it’s very wasteful. You don’t always have to keep yourself in the game just by launching something new and shinier when you can also just make some tiny corrections and improvements on existing products. I feel like like we’re all doing a great job getting more people outside of cars and on bikes, which is the main purpose of what we’re all doing, but I also feel like we all need to look into how we do it right.
With more time to reflect on those ideals, in her recent post Tuuli discussed even further how we can achieve that goal.
Tuuli explained:
So what’s the solution? We still want to get people out of cars and onto bikes, so having a simple product that brings you from point A to point B – which should look good and feel great riding – should be the norm. You should be able to switch your handlebars or pedals if you don’t like the ones you get, you should be able to continue cycling if your battery dies, and you should be able to get a quick fix for your bike from that bike shop down the street that’s been there for 40+ years.
Having personally toured Ampler Bikes’ factory in Tallinn, Estonia, I’ve seen firsthand how the company has focused on building simple, attractive, and serviceable e-bikes.
It’s a process that has resulted in slick-looking e-bikes that frankly don’t even look like e-bikes at all. And that’s kind of the point. The “e” part of the bikes doesn’t set them apart, it simply makes them easier to ride. But at the end of the day, they’re a basic, high-quality bicycle just like any other you’d find across Europe. And that’s why they can be easily serviced at home or in any bike shop.
As Tuuli continued:
Ampler is a simple, straightforward, and purposeful bike in essence. It’s been built and designed to look and feel like a regular bicycle. The whole purpose of the product is to accommodate different customer needs for frame sizes (and we have a lot) or the possibility of adjusting the bike to their personal needs. And yes, having so many product categories and frame sizes in stock is not always easy. Still, Ampler also never had the ambition to go for the fast hypergrowth path. A good example of having a sustainable growth mentality is that the bikes are all hand assembled in our own factory in Europe, Estonia.
Electrek’s Take
I enjoy new technology as much as the next guy, but there is a time and a place. And the machine that I use for a critical task like carrying me around town isn’t where I want the most cutting-edge, proprietary tech that will be quickly obsolete.
Hundreds of years ago we got around on horses, which when well taken care of, were a long-term transportation method. Even 150 years ago, trains were a long-term solution. Cars built 50-75 years ago still run today, as they were built to last. It makes no sense that an e-bike built this week is something so tech-infused that it is quickly obsolete or replaced by a new generation every 12 months. Like any form of transportation, it should be designed to be serviceable for an extended lifetime.
Ampler isn’t the only company doing this, but it is a good example of one that has made this model a priority. And I hope more brands see the value in that.
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On today’s fleet-focused episode of Quick Charge, we talk about a hot topic in today’s trucking industry called, “the messy middle,” explore some of the ways legacy truck brands are working to reduce fuel consumption and increase freight efficiency. PLUS: we’ve got ReVolt Motors’ CEO and founder Gus Gardner on-hand to tell us why he thinks his solution is better.
You know, for some people.
We’ve also got a look at the Kenworth Supertruck 2 concept truck, revisit the Revoy hybrid tandem trailer, and even plug a great article by CCJ’s Jeff Seger, who is asking some great questions over there. All this and more – enjoy!
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Thanks to Trump’s repeated executive order attacks on US clean energy policy, nearly $8 billion in investments and 16 new large-scale factories and other projects were cancelled, closed, or downsized in Q1 2025.
The $7.9 billion in investments withdrawn since January are more than three times the total investments cancelled over the previous 30 months, according to nonpartisan policy group E2’s latest Clean Economy Works monthly update.
However, companies continue to invest in the US renewable sector. Businesses in March announced 10 projects worth more than $1.6 billion for new solar, EV, and grid and transmission equipment factories across six states. That includes Tesla’s plan to invest $200 million in a battery factory near Houston that’s expected to create at least 1,500 new jobs. Combined, the projects are expected to create at least 5,000 new permanent jobs if completed.
Michael Timberlake of E2 said, “Clean energy companies still want to invest in America, but uncertainty over Trump administration policies and the future of critical clean energy tax credits are taking a clear toll. If this self-inflicted and unnecessary market uncertainty continues, we’ll almost certainly see more projects paused, more construction halted, and more job opportunities disappear.”
March’s 10 new projects bring the overall number of major clean energy projects tracked by E2 to 390 across 42 states and Puerto Rico. Companies have said they plan to invest more than $133 billion in these projects and hire 122,000 permanent workers.
Since Congress passed federal clean energy tax credits in August 2022, 34 clean energy projects have been cancelled, downsized, or shut down altogether, wiping out more than 15,000 jobs and scrapping $10 billion in planned investment, according to E2 and Atlas Public Policy.
However, in just the first three months of 2025, after Trump started rolling back clean energy policies, 13 projects were scrapped or scaled back, totaling more than $5 billion. That includes Bosch pulling the plug on its $200 million hydrogen fuel cell plant in South Carolina and Freyr Battery canceling its $2.5 billion battery factory in Georgia.
Republican-led districts have reaped the biggest rewards from Biden’s clean energy tax credits, but they’re also taking the biggest hits under Trump. So far, more than $6 billion in projects and over 10,000 jobs have been wiped out in GOP districts alone.
And the stakes are high. Through March, Republican districts have claimed 62% of all clean energy project announcements, 71% of the jobs, and a staggering 83% of the total investment.
A full map and list of announcements can be seen on E2’s website here. E2 says it will incorporate cancellation data in the coming weeks.
Read more: FREYR kills plans to build a $2.6 billion battery factory in Georgia
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Tesla has reportedly delayed the launch of its new “affordable EV,” which is believed to be a stripped-down Model Y, in the United States.
Last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a pivotal decision that altered the automaker’s direction for the next few years.
The CEO canceled Tesla’s plan to build a cheaper new “$25,000 vehicle” on its next-generation “unboxed” vehicle platform to focus solely on the Robotaxi, utilizing the latest technology, and instead, Tesla plans to build more affordable EVs, though more expensive than previously announced, on its existing Model Y platform.
Musk has believed that Tesla is on the verge of solving self-driving technology for the last few years, and because of that, he believes that a $25,000 EV wouldn’t make sense, as self-driving ride-hailing fleets would take over the lower end of the car market.
However, he has been consistently wrong about Tesla solving self-driving, which he first said would happen in 2019.
In the meantime, Tesla’s sales have been decreasing and the automaker had to throttle down production at all its manufacturing facilities.
That’s why, instead of building new, more affordable EVs on new production lines, Musk decided to greenlight new vehicles built on the same production lines as Model 3 and Model Y – increasing the utilization rate of its existing manufacturing lines.
Those vehicles have been described as “stripped-down Model Ys” with fewer features and cheaper materials, which Tesla said would launch in “the first half of 2025.”
Reuters is now reporting that Tesla is seeing a delay of “at least months” in launching the first new “lower-cost Model Y” in the US:
Tesla has promised affordable vehicles beginning in the first half of the year, offering a potential boost to flagging sales. Global production of the lower-cost Model Y, internally codenamed E41, is expected to begin in the United States, the sources said, but it would be at least months later than Tesla’s public plan, they added, offering a range of revised targets from the third quarter to early next year.
Along with the delay, the report also claims that Tesla aims to produce 250,000 units of the new model in the US by 2026. This would match Tesla’s currently reduced production capacity at Gigafactory Texas and Fremont factory.
The report follows other recent reports coming from China that also claimed Tesla’s new “affordable EVs” are “stripped-down Model Ys.”
The Chinese report references the new version of the Model 3 that Tesla launched in Mexico last year. It’s a regular Model 3, but Tesla removed some features, like the second-row screen, ambient lighting strip, and it uses fabric interior material rather than Tesla’s usual vegan leather.
The new Reuters report also said that Tesla planned to follow the stripped-down Model Y with a similar Model 3.
In China, the new vehicle was expected to come in the second half of 2025, and Tesla was waiting to see the impact of the updated Model Y, which launched earlier this year.
Electrek’s Take
These reports lend weight to what we have been saying for a year now: Tesla’s “more affordable EVs” will essentially be stripped-down versions of the Model Y and Model 3.
While they will enable Tesla to utilize its currently underutilized factories more efficiently, they will also cannibalize its existing Model 3 and Y lineup and significantly reduce its already dwindling gross margins.
I think Musk will sell the move as being good in the long term because it will allow Tesla to deploy more vehicles, which will later generate more revenue through the purchase of the “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) package.
However, that has been his argument for years, and it has yet to pan out as FSD still requires driver supervision and likely will for years to come, resulting in an extremely low take-rate for the $8,000 package.
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