A Merc eBike?!

morphix

Esteemed Pedelecer
Oct 24, 2010
2,163
119
Worcestershire
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rog_london

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jan 3, 2009
764
2
Harrow, Middlesex
Hi Morphix

It was mentioned on here a few months ago and I think maybe you could do a search using 'Mercedes' to find it.

A bit of info - it was marketed by Mercedes themselves through their showrooms alongside their slightly more expensive cars. If memory serves me that would have been in the mid 1990s. I can't remember the price but I do remember it was eyewatering! I don't think many of them were sold. I've a feeling it was made for them by Puch.

It's a rear hub motor job with belt drive if I remember rightly. NiCd battery.

Rog.
 

morphix

Esteemed Pedelecer
Oct 24, 2010
2,163
119
Worcestershire
www.cyclecharge.org.uk
Hi Morphix

It was mentioned on here a few months ago and I think maybe you could do a search using 'Mercedes' to find it.

A bit of info - it was marketed by Mercedes themselves through their showrooms alongside their slightly more expensive cars. If memory serves me that would have been in the mid 1990s. I can't remember the price but I do remember it was eyewatering! I don't think many of them were sold. I've a feeling it was made for them by Puch.

It's a rear hub motor job with belt drive if I remember rightly. NiCd battery.

Rog.
Thanks for the info Rog interesting to know. Mid 90s that's going back a bit they must of jumped in there early. Probably thought if they put the Merc brand to it, they would sell by the lorry load!
 

rog_london

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jan 3, 2009
764
2
Harrow, Middlesex
I think it was sold as more of an executive toy than anything else. If you're in the market for a new Merc it seems unlikely you'd be all that interested in cycling to work!

They do come up on ebay from time to time though, so not THAT rare.

Rog.
 
It's a rear hub motor job with belt drive if I remember rightly. NiCd battery.

thats right and it is old, maybe 8years ago and wasnt such a success for mercedes told me once a employer from mercedes, i had some intrest on this bike but he told me as a friend "let it" :rolleyes:
The motor come´s from sanyo, if i remember right.

the design i like but taste on human is different ;-)
The battery was an very expencive thing (NiCd) and the reason for many owner to sort the bikes out of garage after the battery is down.
The motor works well but if the bike go older it has a slipping belt, there was a very special grease for this belt.

regards
frank
 

rog_london

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jan 3, 2009
764
2
Harrow, Middlesex
That got me curious as to the date I'd seen it on sale. I've just looked it up, as I remember seeing it (and being attracted by it) in the newly opened Mercedes showroom in Park Lane, and there's a story about that....

We were involved in the building of Brook House - a very up-market apartment block - and when completed it had a Jaguar showroom at one end and a Merc showroom at the other. We completed that job in mid 1998.

So, yes indeed, as ebikes go, that was definitely one of the early ones for the UK!

Rog.
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
52,761
30,348
Strange how car companies get attracted to the idea of bikes, both "e" and unpowered. As well as Mercedes, there's Porsche and Peugeot bikes, and now Volkswagen have a prototype e-bike. It was General Motors research that gave birth to the Currie Electrodrive motor and Chrysler research that gave birth to the BionX.

We didn't get any bikes here in Britain from such as Austin or Morris, perhaps highlighting the generally anti-bike stance that exists in British motoring circles.

And I notice the compliment is never returned, even the biggest bike companies don't show any desire to get into making a car.
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Biged

Esteemed Pedelecer
Dec 7, 2010
269
0
Watnall, Nottingham
even the biggest bike companies don't show any desire to get into making a car.
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Many bike manufacturers progressed to motorbikes and then to cars, not always successfully, BSA being one example. Swallow sidecars also went on to become Jaguar. It was just an engineering thing really, guns, engines, bikes, cars, lorries, whatever would earn them a few quid.
How times have changed, we make very little now, even our bikes are imports :(
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
52,761
30,348
I'm speaking of more recently Ed, post WW2, being well aware of Bill Lyons' Swallow company etc. Far enough back as you say, it was very different and it was bike shop owners Wilbur and Orville who gave birth to flying of course.

We do tend to bemoan our loss of manufacturing status in Britain these days, some citing Germany as a successful manufacturer in Europe still, but perhaps we are overstating things.

In Britain, manufacturing today accounts for 8% of GDP.

In Germany, manufacturing today accounts for 12% of GDP.

Not such a terrible difference, and I bet very few British people are aware of this.
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Scottyf

Esteemed Pedelecer
Feb 2, 2011
1,403
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Shame really - If only they could boost manufacturing instead of service industries. Always wondered if dropping tax on such items would boost economy in those sectors.
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
52,761
30,348
Shame really - If only they could boost manufacturing instead of service industries.
This is the policy of the current coalition government.

The whole point of the forthcoming cuts is to force a shift in the bias of the economy from State and service industry to productivity instead. David Cameron has said exactly this, but unfortunately the media are so obsessed with trying to make the coalition fail that what is actually happening isn't reported properly.
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Scottyf

Esteemed Pedelecer
Feb 2, 2011
1,403
-1
I always thought it was daft that you paid the same amount for for a UK product as you did for a product that was imported.

Espcially when other countries lower tax on their own goods to ensure that the cheaper price keeps you buying from in the same country.

Only example I can think of from the top of my head is beer. Why do i end up paying the same £3.50 for a Coors Light thats brewed in Burton as say another continetal beer that imported. Just seems daft really.

Probably a bad example but you get my drift.
 

Biged

Esteemed Pedelecer
Dec 7, 2010
269
0
Watnall, Nottingham
The coalition will fail without the media help.
We were the largest manufacturer of ships in the world.
We manufactured our own cars
We produced and exported our own steel
We were self sufficient in coal
We had decent secure company pensions
We had a lace and hosiery industry second to none
I could keep listing things but what is the point? we had a country that was productivity based flecc, not the serviced based it is now. But government intervention or lack of it has seen it wither and die. There is no going back, certainly not in the short term. There are just not the skills nor anyone to teach them any more :(
 

Barry Heaven

Pedelecer
Sep 19, 2009
162
0
This is the policy of the current coalition government.

The whole point of the forthcoming cuts is to force a shift in the bias of the economy from State and service industry to productivity instead. David Cameron has said exactly this, but unfortunately the media are so obsessed with trying to make the coalition fail that what is actually happening isn't reported properly.
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Must be our dominant left-wing liberal media shouting down the minority Conservative media.
 

indalo

Banned
Sep 13, 2009
1,380
1
Herts & Spain
You're spot on Biged.

This current government represents the worst of all worlds. We have the tories whose sole purpose is to rape the country of all its assets, all its talent and the self-respect of its citizens. They are being aided in their ambitions, though the progress will be slightly slower, by a bunch of cretins masquerading as politicians under the Lib-Dem banner. How they can sleep at night, I really don't know!

Once again the lying, cheating, chinless wonders from the elite class of public school (un)educated inbreds want to open up the NHS for their cronies and they tell us how much better things will be with competition in the marketplace. It never made any difference to the consumer when they opened up the utility markets! They've let the bankers off because the bankers told them to F-off (cos they run the world!); they've finished with the investigation into politicians ripping off the taxpayer with only a handful doing a short stretch in prison instead of the 500-600 MPs who should have been prosecuted except for the fact the investigation was always designed to be a whitewash purely set up to pacify the public.

Apart from all the obvious points in the recent non-budget, headlined by our formidable investigative journalists, it should be noted in case you missed it, that the older people's winter fuel allowance has been reduced.

This coalition is committing atrocities against the people of this country which would see UK politicians on trial in the Hague were it not for the fact that they haven't targetted a specific ethic group as they don't care which ethnic groups they hurt.

It wasn't a socialist administration that destroyed our car industry, an industry with less days lost to strike action in the 1970s than both France and Italy. Their governments realised the importance of the car and associated engineering industries and backed their workforces with government cash. Renault and Fiat have each repaid the faith put in them many times over in the last 30 years.

Once upon a time there were some rich people who cared about the less well off and we called them philanthropists. Can you see any of those around today? I had high hopes a few years back for the slightly rebellious, young, thrusting Richard Branson but he's gone the way of all the other tory boys like Dyson, (moved all his manufacturing out of the country when his vast profits were no longer vast enough for his liking!)

The tory party should be, in this 21st century, a proscribed organisation like the IRA. They are very similar in the way they conduct their operations. They are non-democratic, ruthless and happily take money from abroad to fund their evil actions against innocent civilians.
The only thing worse than a tory is the boy from the council estate who made good and thinks he ought to vote conservative.

Bring on the revolution!

Indalo
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
52,761
30,348
Three posts proving why we won't improve as a country with present attitudes.
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indalo

Banned
Sep 13, 2009
1,380
1
Herts & Spain
Predictable as always flecc!

As in everything else that comes up in this forum, everybody's out of step except you!

You nailed your colours to the mast a long time ago and you and your like are exactly the reason why the country is in the state it's in. Take a deep breath, sit back, open your mind and consider what capitalism has done. Then consider what it's doing now. Move on a little and look into the future......gets difficult, doesn't it; for there is no future under capitalism.

If you'd spent more time studying matters of global importance than mending punctures, you'd perhaps realise that capitalism was a discredited political doctrine a hundred years ago. That it persists today is simply incredible and asks questions about our education provision.

Great Britain boasted the best engineers in the world; the best shipbuilders; the most efficient coalminers; the most productive fishermen......the list, when you add on affiliated industries, is endless. All these things that we Brits were good at were terminated by tory governments and replaced with.....yeah, with what?

We couldn't support our car workers but we can give massive handouts to the likes of Nissan and Honda to set up UK factories where they can manage to sell cars and not at a loss! How does that work?

Perhaps you'd like to take this opportunity flecc to explain in fine detail all the principles of tory economics so that everyone can be as appreciative as you?

Indalo
 

banbury frank

Banned
Jan 13, 2011
1,565
5
Hi
Good Morning


This is a Electric bike forum

Please Please


NO POLITICS ( Unless it is about electric bike legislation )

NO RELIGION


Frank
 

tillson

Esteemed Pedelecer
May 29, 2008
5,249
3,197
I agree with most of what has been said on both sides of the argument. The sad truth is, it's all too late, the damage has been done and it's irreversible. The useless self serving suits full of F*c< all that have populated parliament over the last 35 years have failed on every level.

We are just left with a generally overweight mixed bag and lazy population following the selfish examples set by our leaders. The only thing we seem to lead the world in these days is pumping out and nurturing bigger twats to overpopulate the country for future years.