This Rare Futuristic eBike is a Total Nightmare

Quick Overview

The Revo Hess eBike, which raised over $6.7 million on Indiegogo, is a total nightmare and arguably the worst bicycle ever made due to its unserviceable hubless design, extreme weight, ineffective brakes, and a company that vanished, leaving most backers without a bike or refund.

Key Points: The Revo Hess eBike raised over $6.7 million on Indiegogo but only delivered about 150 units out of 2700 orders before the company vanished. The bike is extremely difficult to pedal, very inefficient, and stops almost immediately when pedaling ceases, making it unusable as an analog bicycle. Its hubless design introduces significant resistance, noise, and makes the entire wheel an unserviceable bearing, contrasting with reliable traditional hubs. The Revo's cheap caliper brakes are dangerously ineffective, failing to stop the 70-pound eBike quickly, a critical safety flaw. The bike's advertised smart features like the fingerprint scanner, GPS tracking, and app integration are largely non-functional or unreliable, with the app failing to pair. A terrifying design flaw causes the pedal assist to engage automatically if the bike is pushed fast enough, creating a 'death trap' that cannot be easily turned off without keys. The company, identified as Beno, poorly covered its name with tape, indicating an attempt to distance itself from the project as it went 'south,' an unethical failure.

Context: The Revo Hess eBike was a highly anticipated 'futuristic' eBike that garnered over $6.7 million through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. Despite its significant funding, the company behind it vanished, delivering only a small fraction of the ordered bikes and leaving thousands of backers without their product or refunds. The video explores the bike's design, functionality, and the reasons behind its failure, revealing it to be a deeply flawed product.

Detailed Analysis

The Revo Hess eBike, a 'futuristic' hubless design, proved to be a catastrophic failure despite raising over $6.7 million on Indiegogo. The company vanished after delivering only about 150 of 2700 ordered units, leaving most backers stranded. The bike itself is a functional nightmare: its hubless wheels create immense rolling resistance, making it extremely difficult and noisy to pedal, and impossible to service due to proprietary, unreplaceable bearings. Weighing over 70 pounds, it is far heavier than advertised. Crucially, its cheap caliper brakes are dangerously inadequate for its weight and speed, posing a severe safety risk. Advertised high-tech features like the fingerprint scanner, GPS tracking, and a smartphone app are largely non-functional or unreliable, with the app failing to pair. A critical safety flaw allows the pedal assist to engage automatically if the bike is pushed too fast, creating an uncontrollable 'death trap' that cannot be easily turned off. While it boasts unique styling and some thoughtful features like integrated turn signals and a USB charging port, these are overshadowed by its fundamental mechanical and safety deficiencies. The company, Beno, even attempted to obscure its name on the bike with tape, suggesting an awareness of the project's impending failure and an unethical abandonment of its backers, despite having produced physical bikes.