Comment by jillesvangurp

The reason why there are now quite a lot of these things in India (and all over Asia) is that the challenges you cite are in practice not that big of a deal:

- for most people these things are transportation tools, not toys. Performance doesn't really matter all that much. In a big Indian city, the maximum speed is determined by the highly congested traffic, not the performance of the ebike. Going fast is fun but not that essential.

- Many people primarily charge at home, inside their home if needed or remove the battery and charge that inside.

- Unless you drive more than 40/50km, the charge is generally good enough for a full day. And for more intensive use, there are bikes with bigger batteries. Or you can swap in a spare battery.

- If it's not enough for the day, you can charge anywhere there is a wall socket. Unlike cars, people don't tend to use specialized chargers for ebikes. That's pretty much anywhere. You might have to pay for the privilege in some places. But plug it in during your lunch break or whenever you have a gap and you are good to go probably.

- We're talking about less than half a kwh for most ebikes for a full charge. It's not going to break the bank. Charging is really, really cheap.

- Fuel is not cheap. A large part of Asia is still on incomes where that price difference matters; even though especially India has a rather large middle and upper class as well these days. The cost aspect really matters.

Those cheap bikes you are complaining about: they are really cheap. And they kind of work. That's why people are buying these things by the millions now.