[intro music]
>> Court: I'm here in San Francisco. I'm with
Adam Vollmer. We're here at Faraday Bikes.
I mean, this is awesome because the last time
I visited, you guys were in Palo Alto.
>> Adam: Yup.
>> Court: Now, you're expanding the shop.
It's crazy. In fact, we were just looking
at all these different revisions you've been
working on. So, of course, we're talking about
the Faraday Porteur and that is the prototype
I looked at the last time we were together
and we have come so far and clearly, you've
gone through a number of revisions. Have you
named this? Does this have a name? Does she...?
>> Adam: This guy? It's an...
>> Court: It's a guy.
>> Adam: ...old guy, guy, gal, old glory.
I don't know. This bike has been
through a lot, been through a lot.
>> Court: Yeah. But she still looks amazing
and I can't wait to see what you've got back
here. So take us on a tour. Show us the office here.
>> Adam: Yeah, okay. Well, come on in. So
the team is cranking. We're hard at work.
We're a couple of months away from shipping
our first bikes right now which is super
exciting.
>> Court: Yeah.
>> Adam: A little stressful, that's right,
but not in the bad way.
>> Court: Yeah.
>> Adam: Victor over here is working on a
battery pack right now.
>> Court: Oh, awesome.
>> Adam: Hugo is doing some, what are you
working on Hugo?
>> Court: Hey, Hugo.
>> Hugo: Got work on the controller.
>> Adam: Yeah.
>> Court: Oh, man.
>> Adam: Tara is selling bikes, making sure people get the right size.
>> Court: Look at this, what is all of this
up here, it's like a master flowchart?
>> Adam: This is like crunch time. This is
the dates so you can see like, man, we're
two feet away from shipping.
>> Court: And you got a little gong here for
that day, that special day.
>> Adam: Yeah. Every time we sell a bike,
we ring the gong.
>> Court: Oh, my gosh.
>> Adam: We rang the gong this morning.
>> Court: Sweet. Oh, you were telling me,
yeah.
>> Adam: Yeah.
>> Court: So, you know, being right Downtown
San Francisco, it's a pretty big bike culture,
a lot of people are out here riding around and
actually doing it. So you said someone came
in, they were on another electric bike and
they were like, "Look at this thing. This
is awesome," and they picked one
up from you guys.
>> Adam: So it's super cool, the guy came in and
he's looking at lots of stuff, the bike you saw
over there, the original, we made a lot of
upgrades. We upgraded the drivetrain, the
battery pack. The components, it's kind of
like looks the same but like almost everything
is different.
>> Court: Take us through it. So, you know, I
did a review on this and you can see it like
test ridden and stuff but it's always
great to hear it, you know, from the team
that's building this thing.
>> Adam: In person, yeah.
>> Court: Yeah.
>> Adam: So this is the latest and greatest
here. And there's some things about it that
are very prototype. This is still 3D printed
and you can see is plastic.
>> Court: Yeah.
>> Adam: The frame is not painted obviously.
But this is pretty true to the production bike.
And so the thing that caught this gentleman's
eye yesterday who came by was the belt drive
because we added a belt drive here which is
an upgrade. We're super excited about this.
It's totally quiet. Oops, there it goes.
>> Court: Oh, we're on right now.
>> Adam: Totally smooth and I think he was
like, "Well, belt drive, I've got to come and
try it out," and he tried out and he liked
it so much, he bought one today. So we got to ring
the gong today.
>> Court: Oh, that's sweet. And, you know,
talk a little bit about the drive system.
You've mentioned that this thing, it offers
like pedal assist modes, there are two of
them, one is a little bit more power, the
other one is a little bit less power. But
you've got, it's sort of like cadence and torque
sensing, is that right?
>> Adam: Yes. So we used a torque sensing
bottom bracket and it can sense torque or
cadence, right, do you can kind of pick and
choose which you want. And we have this controller
here on the handle bar that lets you sort
of toggle through the modes. So you can turn
it off. One thing I really, I get confused
on when I ride some ebikes is sort of like
big popup electrical screens, right, where you
kind of have to like, you're riding in traffic
and watching out for cars and people and cats
and also kind of like dialing through a menu.
And it's kind of like the way you shift gears, you just click a little thumb button. And
we wanted shifting gears kind of electronically
to be just as easy. So this guy, you just
click it off or low or high. And basically
what it does, the way it's set up right now
is low is sort of a 250 watt mode and high
is a 350 watt mode. And down the line, we're
going to be putting on an upgrade to let you
kind of go and change that and customize that and
fine tune it. But right now, it's just kind
of a real quick kind of on the fly way
to change how the bike feels or, if you're in
traffic, you can just turn it off and ride
it like a regular bike.
>> Court: Very cool. Well, one of the things,
you know, this is the Porteur, so you showed
me earlier there's like a rack or something
that kind of works with the front, is that...
>> Adam: Yeah.
>> Court: Can you show that? Is that top secret?
>> Adam: It's a little top secret but I'll
give you the sneak preview.
>> Court: A little preview, okay.
>> Adam: Just a little bit.
>> Court: Sweet.
>> Adam: So one thing, we have this big cargo
rack on the original bike.
>> Court: Beautiful.
>> Adam: And originally, it was huge. Actually,
this is quite big, so we made it a little
smaller but it attaches in the front right
there. And one thing we found out is that
a lot of people loved it and they were like,
the idea of a front mounted rack is on the
frame of the bike. You can carry all the weight.
It's awesome.
>> Court: Yeah.
>> Adam: And so people just didn't, it wasn't
their thing, right. They wanted a rear mounted
rack or they just wanted a lighter weight bike.
And rather than locking people into one
thing or the other, we kind of tweaked the design
in a way to let you kind of get the best of
both worlds. So you can have the bike as-is
right now with no rack but you just lock...
>> Court: Yeah. And it just looks like a regular
bike. Yeah.
>> Adam: Or this little piece here that, it's
hard to do with one hand.
>> Court: Got it.
>> Adam: Two hands makes this much easier.
So this guy just clicks in...
>> Court: Open the cables like that.
>> Adam: Like that.
>> Court: Oh, it's so easy.
>> Adam: Open the cables. And then the rack,
this is a very prototype version of the rack,
just welded together pieces of material here
with a plywood on it but it will look just
like the original one there.
>> Court: Beautiful.
>> Adam: This guy just drops in just like
that.
>> Court: Oh, sweet. And then you've got like
that little screw right there. So...
>> Adam: And just a little bolt. Yeah.
>> Court: So you preserve that, you know,
the utility aspect of this bike but without
having to carry it all the time.
>> Adam: You just kind of sort of take
it or leave it, right, so kind of whichever way you
want. So we really like that because you can
still, you can put 50 pounds in this thing.
>> Court: Wow. It's a lot of cats right there.
>> Adam: but it rides great. It really, really
rides. When you have the rack or the weight
mounted on the frame, not on the wheel, it
rides great. So again, this will be basically
an identical sort of trade with original one.
And then the tubes coming out here will have
the same kind of really graceful nice curved
shape powder coated to match the frame. We're
getting samples of that in the next couple
of weeks.
>> Court: Yeah. Man. Oh, I came just it's
almost like the perfect time here. You've got
this final prototype that we're looking at,
you know, sans-paint but beautiful,
beautiful bike. It was tons of fun to ride
and I love that you've upgraded the motor.
Now, it's the 350 watt, so you're getting a little
bit of extra power, a little bit of extra
speed. The battery design has always been
impressive to me just the way it's kind of
integrated and it's just, you almost don't
even notice that it's an electric bike and,
of course, that belt drive system. So I can't
wait for this to come out. I really appreciate
the kind of behind the scenes tour, you've been showing me sneak peeks and stuff. It's a great
team. It was fun to meet everyone. And that's
it, yeah, Faraday. San Francisco. Thanks, Adam.
>> Adam: Bye, guys.
