Second Bike Build

Yep...gears are electric (shifters are wireless, with CR2032 cell batteries, and the rear mech is powered from a battery in the seatpost). Brakes are manually actuated, but use hydraulics rather than a cable...so there are no high tension cables (most of my bikes are this way now, and I cannot begin to describe what an upgrade hydraulics are over cables for brake actuation. Zero friction, zero cable stretch, means you can apply brakes with very little force on the levers)

The Chinese companies are quite interesting in cycling. Nearly all cycling parts are manufactured out there, mostly via a small number of OEM companies...however there is a real stigma over buying them directly (this is partly the reason I have gone for an unbranded frame). In the early 2000's there were a small number of high profile parts failures on some chinese bikes, and general opinion is that QA and customer service is not on a par with the "traditional" brands. It is reasonable to say that structural failures on a bike can easily result in death...ultimately we wear virtually no protection, and regularly hurtle down mountains at 40mph+ (I'm using imperal speeds for the non-cyclists here), with nothing but a thin layer of lycra between us and the flesh-grater that is tarmac.

...however, with a bit of investigation you can find out that some of these chinese brands are originated from more mainstream brands. And a lot of these OEM factories are looking to start selling direct, as the profits are far greater.

Let's take the groupset (gears and brakes), made by L-Twoo in this case. Most serious cyclists would only consider a groupset from the 3 main brands;
Shimano - Japanese company, probably 75% of the market, very well regarded kit
Campagnolo - small market share, but very much "for the purists" as they basically invented modern gear systems. Italian
SRAM - American, been around a while, considered an innovator. Famous for some rather unfortunate advertising

While these are based in Japan, Italy and America, all manufature is done in China. SRAM used to use factories near Hong Kong until 2016, at which point they shifted all work to places near Shanghai, leaving staff and equipment down south. They basically went "fuck it", and started making their own stuff, and called themselves L-Twoo. 8 years later they are looking to move out of the Asian markets, having recently had a massive stall at Eurobike (the biggest trade bike show in the world, in Germany). They have definitely been using early adopters as beta-testers, and online you'll find plenty of stories about failures (water ingress, vibration failures etc). From reading and investigating much of this, I think it is reasonable to say that a significant number of these failures are down to inappropriate usage...after all, those willing to risk early adoption tend to also play a little fast and loose with installation and use. I'd remarkably dull, and have installed the equipment with care, and taken some precautions around water ingress (using liquid electrical tape to seal power cables in mainly). I don't excessively stress my kit...I ride sensibly, avoid potholes whenever possible, and also (critially) maintain my gear. I also selected the manufacturers from online research and reviews (places like Chinertown, and Trace Velo provide reviews and opinions...and increasingly the manufacturers are providing more detail on their equipment, including toleraces and limits).

There are certain things I would not buy from China. Suspension parts, for example, where there are moving structural parts that I cannot check. I'm fine with stuff where movement is via bearings (all of which I can check and, if required, replace...and fortunately bearings account for 99% of all moving parts on bikes). I decided against chinese tyres...as I was going tubeless it's fairly critical that the lay-up of the carcass (especially the front) is good (also there are very few chinese tyre manufacturers). If gears fail I'm walking home (fine). If brakes fail...well, bad things happen, but there are reasons that all bikes (well, all road vehicles actually) are legally required to have 2 mechanically separate braking systems.

The cost saving...well, it's massive. Let's look at groupsets again. The L-Twoo eR9 groupset is a clone of Shimano Di2 105 (I say this as someone who has had hands-on experience of both);
L-Twoo eR9 - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005922459020.html - £350 (ish)
+
Crank & Bottom Bracket (RIRO) - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006481196419.html - £90'ish
Cassette (ZTTO) - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006343081906.html - £37'ish

Shimano Di2 105 - https://www.merlincycles.com/shimano-105-r7170-di2-disc-groupset-12-spee... - £899 on special offer, RRP £1700

So £477 vs £899.

I would offer to do a full service for you, however I suspect petrol/train costs would make it not worthwhile! As part of the neighbourhood bonding I'll be servicing my next-door-neighbours eBikes once it has cooled down a bit (I'm not doing it in a garage at 30-35'C!).

I'd strongly recommend keeping the laptop in a rucksac...there is no better anti-vibration system than the human body, and anything bolted directly to the bike can undergo some fairly heavy shocks, especially over the back wheel (I've lost a pannier before now slowly rolling off a curb...the bounce in the tyre shot it off the mount and into the road...fortunately nothing ran over it). When I was commuting I had clothes/tools/non-delicates in the panniers, but the laptop was in a small rucksac. I've just gotten my super-commuter/runaround back up and running after it had been slowly cannibalised over the past year for various different bikes. The frame is 11 years old now, having been bought back when I originally moved to Woodley, and was no longer commuting down the Kennet towpath. I think pretty much everything else has been replaced since, due to wear-and-tear (mostly dissolving in winter road-salt), or parts being pinched, or inheriting parts from other bikes. It's also had some cheeky holes drilled into the downtube, seatpost and drive-side chainstay to allow gear cabling to be run through internally (something I'd never do on a carbon frame, but this is a chunky aluminium bike, so it can be treated a little rougher)

Hopefully it's good for another decade, though I'm tempted to pop a mid-drive motor on it, and turn it into the ultimate runabout. Realistically it will never go more than 5-6km on a ride...

The use case for an eBike for me is if I want to go somewhere in civvies, and not be sweaty at the end of it (for example, a trip across town, which here involves a 10% climb almost out of the door). The commuter is really the only one of my bikes I would leave locked up somewhere for any length of time (even here, where bike stops are pretty chilled, and we've often left bikes stacked outside a bar in the evening...we are sitting next to them all, not that we could run after anyone!). I've done a couple of event volunteering things on the edge of town, and I want to get there in normal shoes and clothes, not cleats (I absolutely hate riding a bike without clipping in for any distance now, feels genuinely weird, and I keep lifting my feet off the pedals). One of my stated goals of moving here was to remove any dependence on a car, so having an eShopper loaded up with food is fine by me.

I know a fair number of people who love eMTB's...as you say, it's free uplift. A fair number of the trails in the Dales are good for that sort of thing. Up in Swaledale there is a place that specialises in them, as there are a lot of fire trails and bridleways for tearing about on. I think I'd find an eBike too short ranged for anything above short trips (or, as one chap found out on a club ride, simply dead weight, as the pace was such that the motor never kicked in)

Cargo bikes are very expensive, partly as they are all either custom-made/boutique or brought in from the continent. I've considered one, but I think I'd be better off with a general purpose eBike and a trailer. If you want a really cool trailer, I could see a system where the trailer has brakes linked to the bike (to stop a loss of control on descents, again thinking about the 10% climb by my house).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw7zM4NNEN8

I quite like the aesthetics of single-wheel trailers with a stay-hitch (ExtraWheel or BOB Yak), but I suspect a double-wheel with a high-hitch is overall more practical...though I do subscribe to the theroy of cool with bike stuff.