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Nearly a year ago, I emailed Wave Electric Bikes about their Wave Beach

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Cruiser, which claimed to be the world's most affordable ebike ever at 599 USD

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for early backers available through Indiegogo. It seemed too good to be

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true, and it was. The Wave 1.0 was a

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terrible bike with a shady crowdfunding campaign, but more on that later. So,

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they've sent us the follow-up, the Wave 2.0. Is it the improvement they need to

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reearn consumer trust? Or is it just a slightly less terrible bike with a

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slightly less terrible marketing strategy?

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description. The Wave 2.0 to is a non-crowdfunded bike that is currently

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listed on Wave Electric Bikes website for $1,000. The box comes with a big red

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warning stating that professional assembly is required if you don't opt

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for the $95 charge in the checkout to have someone come and do it for you.

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Though, the included instructions seemed pretty clear to me. So, I apparently

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took my life into my own hands by putting it together myself. I guess I

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won't be able to make any warranty claims. Now that it's assembled, let's

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see what we've got. The Wave 2.0 features a 750 W brushless hub motor,

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six speeds, and a reported 25 mph top

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speed with 23 mi of range using the throttle only and 40 m with pedal

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assist. These numbers are likely thanks to the 500Wh battery with Samsung cells

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and the aluminum frame, both of which are big upgrades over the Wave 1.0's to

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generic cells and steel frame. And my

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real world numbers actually get reasonably close to those. I've got to

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give them credit for that considering that Wave Electric Bikes obtained these

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numbers with a 165-lb rider on perfectly

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flat terrain with no stopping. But electrical components aside, as a bike,

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the Wave 2.0 just feels kind of cheaply

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made. The handlebars have a lot of play no matter how much you tighten

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everything. It doesn't come with fenders or a quick release on the front wheel.

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The pedals are plastic. The brakes squeak horribly when wet. The motor

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shutters as it starts up. The luxury stitching on the handlebar grips is

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already coming undone. The kickstand has already broken. My battery case arrived

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with a crack in it. And the rack is useless to hold any pany bags because

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the battery is completely in the way unless you raise it slightly with

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washers like I did. That would have cost them what 25. Furthermore, there's no

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deceleration curve for the motor controller, so it abruptly cuts in and

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out as you go below and above 20 mph.

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The only way to avoid this is by switching the bike to off-road mode,

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which instantly removes the speed limitation and allows the bike to put

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out full power regardless of speed, making it very explicitly not street

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legal in parts of the United States and Canada. Make of that what you will. Not

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everyone is concerned that their vehicle isn't street legal. One thing I do like

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about it is the fact that the front and rear lights are both powered by the main

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battery and can be turned on and off with the press of a button. Though, I

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wish they were significantly brighter. And the complaints don't end there. The

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LED display has no odometer, watt meter,

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speedometer, or estimated remaining range. It just has readouts for battery

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and pedal assist levels. And if you want no pedal assist, you have to turn the

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entire thing off for some reason. Also, it can be difficult to distinguish the

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buttons or the LEDs from one another,

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especially if you're wearing gloves. So, overall, the Wave 2.0 is just a

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cheaplymade bike. I wouldn't pay $1,000

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for it, and neither should you. So, what

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happened here? Why is it so lame? Well,

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ladies and gentlemen, I did promise to look into the history of Wave electric

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bikes, and wow, did I dig up some dirt.

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The Indiegogo campaign for the Wave 1.0 ebike ultimately raised 1.1 million, and

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once they had the money, their promises began slipping away. Delivery dates were

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pushed back multiple times. The Samsung

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batteries were changed to generic cells.

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The one-year warranty vanished. The promised top speed and total range were

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decreased. When the bikes finally started shipping, customers received

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parts that were damaged, incorrect, non-functional, or just missing. In all

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fairness, some customers are happy with their purchase. But many are not, and

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these folks are still posting angry comments on the Indiegogo page demanding

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refunds and decrying the lack of communication from Wave Electric Bikes.

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I spoke to my contact about all of this and he said that we definitely had some

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issues, but we were able to resolve these issues and produce the wave 2.0

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without any of these issues. Really, what brand of alternative facts are

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these because more than one and a half years later, some of the original

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backers have still not received their Wave 1.0 bicycles. And it gets a lot

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worse. While the campaign was still active, someone posted this image

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comparing the Wave 1.0 ebike to a seemingly identical bike from

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Alibaba.com available for $400. But upon closer

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examination, it's Yeah, it's exactly the

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same bike. Turns out there's a company that's literally called OEM Bicycle that

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sells these bikes in lots of 100. and they told me they've been doing so since

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2014 before the Wave Indiegogo campaign even

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launched. And they're currently doing the exact same thing with the Lady Wave,

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or should I say the OEM EN15194.

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That would be pretty disturbing since reselling a product is against

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Indiegogo's terms of service. Digging deeper, I found this forum post which

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points out similarities between Waves branding and music taken from Rad Power

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Bikes. And I also discovered that Waves logo is almost identical to Wave

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Broadband's logo. Is there anything they

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didn't rip off? My contact at Wave Electric Bikes denies that any of these

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things are ongoing problems and even says that it's the Alibaba vendors who

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are copying Wave and not the other way around and that Wave 1.0 customers and

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Wave 2.0 0 customers are completely

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unrelated, whatever that means. Because I don't agree. It looks like the Wave

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2.0 has the same frame design, brakes, LED display, battery case, motor, and

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motor controller as the Wave 1.0. I

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wouldn't be surprised if OEM bicycle or some other Chinese vendor is still

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supplying Wave electric bikes with parts or even entire bicycles. But because the

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Wave 2.0 is not crowdfunded, there's nothing inherently wrong with this. And

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lots of Chinese products are marked up and resold for much higher margins than

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what I believe Wave is taking. But none of that changes that the Wave 2.0 is a

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cheap bike sold by a sketchy company with a track record of disappointing and

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misleading its customers. They say they've moved on to a different business

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model. But some of the Wave 1.0 to backers and all of the Lady Wave backers

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have still not received their bikes despite the fact that you can currently

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buy them straight from wavelectricbikes.com

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which is making the backers very upset which leads us to a pretty clear

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conclusion. There are some significant and unavoidable costs associated with

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building a good ebike. So, you're probably not going to find one for less

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than $1,000. If that's too expensive for you, my completely unbiased advice is to

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just get yourself a regular bike from a wellestablished brand like Specialized

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Giant or Trek. Or you could get a moped or even a fixerupper motorcycle if

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you're mechanically inclined. Just don't buy anything from Wave Electric Bikes,

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at least until they've made things right with their current outstanding Indiegogo

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supporters. And always remember kids, if a crowdfunding campaign looks too good

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to be true, it probably is.

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you heard about us section. Thanks for watching, guys. Leave a comment below

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about your favorite bike or electric bike. Don't forget to hit the like

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button or the dislike button or both. Ah, that doesn't work. Get subscribed

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cuz we've got a lot more electric vehicle reviews on the horizon. and

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click up here for the last crowdfunding e vehicle that I hated, the FlyFly Smart

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Pad.