For longevity and spares availability, one make alone stands out, Powabyke, and they have just celebrated their first ten years. They've been heavy near 40 kilo bikes using SLA batteries until the new X bikes, and have had the odd troubles and are a bit noisy, but Powabyke have built up an enviable dealer network over the years and they and their dealers generally give good support, as witness the support their Frank Curran gives through this site.
Yamaha bevel-drive crank-motor e-bikes like the old PAS and the XP26 models sold in the UK earlier in this decade but did not sell well against the Giant Lafree Twist series with it's Panasonic unit, so they were discontinued here after only a couple of years. However they continued to sell in mainland Europe and some dealers in the UK managed to give reasonable support with some spares and the odd ones still try to do so, here's
one of them where you can see the bikes illustrated.
The Giant Lafree models with their Panasonic units sold from early 2002 though to mid 2006 until Giant discontinued them, claiming it was impossible to make a profit selling the range. The unit was not designed to be repaired so only new units and sprockets were available as spares. Their dealer service for e-bikes was patchy at best, though Giant UK and at their main Netherlands HQ could give excellent though sometimes slow support at times where it was possible. The earlier units did have their troubles and in the absence of any support for repairing faults in the unit, I've long been running a
support site for them.
Otherwise there's only kits worth mentioning, and the expensive German Heinzmann kits have been well represented in the UK for years
and still are, with spares and service advice always available.
The Currie Electrodrive side-of-rear-wheel motor kit has been around for years and is probably the world's oldest kit motor with it's design origins as far back as the 1970s, though it didn't appear on the market until very long after that. The agents have been patchy over the years but spares have been available, and from the USA, many tuning parts for high performance. They are very difficult to obtain now and the agent Electrodrive UK is very difficukt to deal with. One company in the USA,
EVdeals, specialises in Currie spares, even to the extent of cannibalising old units.
That's about it for real longevity. eZee bikes have been here for over five years now with two different agents, both giving spares support from UK stocks. Wisper go back about four years, but it's improved range developed under David Miall's ownership have only been around for two years. Spares availability and support are good, with all bike sales via dealers now who are developing into a good support network.
I've seen reports of 50,000 kilometres from an early eZee Rider model, but I've no doubt there are many other bikes with high mileages but not known about.
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