Introducing the P-500-X Pickup Truck-Bike Hybrid!

I am excited the first prototype of 2022 has arrived (though it was the second one ordered). It has been more fun than I imagined and multiple people have been stopping me on the street to learn more so I thought I’d make a little blog post on my initial thoughts on this awesome piece of equipment.

I ordered Big Capacity 2022 Electric Cargo Bike with Pedal Assist Fast Mobile 3 Wheel Trike Customized Tricycle on Ali Baba for around $5300 (with shipping) in the beginning of December. With various shipping hang ups due to COVID and other issues it took around 6 months to arrive (another trike I ordered in October is lost in transit). But it did arrive and I’ve had about a week to take it out on various errands.  

So a few days ago this crate showed up in my garage.



It was very easy* to put together. It came with some plastic hub caps- one of which was broken, but I think the spoke looks better aesthetically anyway. Also the master cylinder for the hydraulic brakes had a leak around the viewport- but it’s a common part for Honda/Yamaha/etc ATVs and motorcycles- I had a replacement delivered the next morning for $15.

But aside from those two issues it was in fairly good shape and easy to put together. If you’re interested in ordering your own- but are worried about your mechanical ability- I wouldn’t be (worried).

Pros

But perhaps you’re not settled yet and want to hear some more good things about this vehicle. Fair.

My top pro is how much fun it is. I know that’s not exactly a subjective metric, but riding a bike to a hardware store, loading it up with supplies, flowers, pots, etc., and then biking home is *chef kiss*. There really isn’t any other way to describe it.  

Granted, this is partly because it has been so nice in Chicago this week. Riding the trike to my local Home Depots is like driving a convertible El Camino- except your skin doesn’t get stuck to the vinyl seat.  

Also it’s great exercise. I’ve made a few trips to Home Depot now for flowers and cabinets for a room I’m re doing, and while biking around the city is great exercise- add a few hundred pounds of load to the bed and now you’re REALLY getting in shape.  Once I get back I feel like I’ve done my work for the day and it feels good to go down to my basement to do ‘real work’.

The best of course is being able to do all of these tasks without all of the ‘overhead’ of a traditional car. No registration and plates. No insurance. No city stickers. No gasoline. A bit of electricity from a 110v outlet and you’re good to go.  It makes me want to write a piece I’ve been noodling on for a while about how cars are a poor tax. 

Cons

So with new baby and new job, it gets hard to write these pieces. This one has been sitting in my ‘to finish’ box for a couple of weeks now, and I have another trike to write on, so I’m going to try to land the plane pretty quickly. I’m only adding it so if it feels like I was very abrupt with the ‘Cons’ that is why.

The first -1 was the master cylinder for the hydraulic breaks (which I love) arrived busted. This was an easy fix. For $15, I had a new one from amazon overnighted to me but note the one I bought was for a clutch on a Yamaha or Suzuki. The moral there is that a little automotive know-how goes a long way on these things.  The one I bought was also a very significant performance upgrade and it had a little spot to mount a mirror which I also did.

The biggest -1 was the shipping time. But to be entirely clear, I think that was somewhat anecdotal since the well publicized delays at the port of LA. But I ordered in October and took delivery in April, so that was still a bit of an ouch- especially if you’re trying to order one to be here ‘soon’.

An old army buddy and I are probably going to make our own e-trike / electric motorcycle hybrids and another major lesson learned on this one was the importance of suspension. When I’m driving this trike- I normally am in pedal mode except when crossing major streets. In pedal mode, I pin out at around 6-8mph, and the bumps are fine. In ‘ebike’ mode I’ve had it as high as 18mph, which feels like a suicide run. If I were doing any serious cruising at that speed I would want some more suspension, you feel small bumps in your spine.

The second biggest -1 was probably the lead acid battery. I’m a bit of a snob for LiFePO4 batteries. I’ll probably swap it out when the lead acid one in there dies. It’s not a deal breaker- it’s really just me being a snob.

In the trikes defence, it does have a light and horn kit, though the turn signals are only in the back. I’m installing/crafting a light kit now for another trike, and having one on board when it arrives is nice. My hand crafted one will look cooler, but it is a non-trivial pain todo (blog post on that hopefully coming soon as well).
 

Final Verdict

 

All in all this is a great little trike that has already made several Home Depot runs for me (about 3 miles away).  As I said, old army buddy and I are going to take some lessons learned here and build our own, so please like/subscribe/follow to keep posted about that.

For $5500 I think it’s worth it. If I were going into production on these, I’d probably sell them (upgraded / received / assembled ) for $6500-$7000. Some people will scoff at that price, but if 1) you have the space and 2) you like making Home Depot runs for various projects, but don’t have the car space to carry anything you really can’t beat this thing (some folks will argue $7k will get you a pretty OK pickup truck, my counter would be fuel/insurance/registration and city stickers would make a $3k truck a more applicable comparison and then this one wins due to almost non-existant repair costs).

All of these prototypes will be for sale on first come first serve basis, and this one has already been claimed. But if you want one, calling up CoCo would probably be a worthwhile thing to do- or contact me if you can stomach my high markups (which on these prototypes are explicitly high to keep me out of the admin game).