22nd Century Transport

I popped into the Brompton store in Covent Garden, London, to pick up bike after some repairs and before heading downstairs to pick it up, I asked the woman working there if I could test-ride a Brompton Electric.  No problem, she said. I put my bag behind the till and she explained to me how the bike works which can be summed up as: just ride the thing.  I was test-riding the six-speed, which was interesting in itself as I'd only ever ridden the three speed.  She said I had fifteen to twenty minutes to test the bike out so I headed onto the busy streets that surround the shop. My first thoughts were the usual ones the first time you feel the pull of an electric bike: this is fun.  The bike was not noticable heavier than a non-electric one.  Not noticably different in any way, in fact.  The pull was slightly less than I was expecting but then the one electric bike I'd ridden in the past was a lot more sustantial and I believe it had a more powerful motor...

Brompton released their electric bicycle last week. There have been electric Brompton kits on the market for some time, so it's not unfair to say that this is a solved problem.  By most accounts, these kits work well.  They void your warranty, of course, and once your expensive modified bike, if anything goes wrong, getting support would likely be much trickier than taking the bike to your nearest Brompton shop.   Most solutions have involved a motor on the front wheel and a battery in the front bag. A first-party solution from Brompton has been on the cards for several years.  So what were you hoping for from the Brompton Electric?  A neater solution to the question of where the battery goes, perhaps.  Easy support from a trustworthy and (relatively) large manufacturer. Brompton said that did not release a bike as there were massive challenges to solve and to do this they brought in the William...