In terms of maintenance, most cyclists would benefit more from internal gear hubs and carbon belts. From a product development POV, seems better to make auto shifting IGHs. Indeed this is how share bikes are designed.
Yes, but for racing bikes, which are the target market for wireless shifting in 2025, the efficiency losses of an internal hub are a non-starter.
The casuals whose bikes haven't seen a wrench since they were assembled aren't buying wireless groupsets. For them: we're in agreement about belts and internally geared hubs.
Automatic shifting has yet to prove itself to be more than a curiosity. A 20-something year old Autobike came into the shop I was wrenching in. It still worked shockingly well for being covered in rust. In good shape it would be an entirely adequate solution, if only it solved a problem anyone had.
My money is on e-bikes entirely supplanting any demand there may have ever been for automatic shifting on a bicycle. The motors have enough oomph that they make a lot of shifts unnecessary if you're not looking to maximize speed/battery life/whatever.
The complete market failure of the Autobike suggests that the demographic of people not on bikes who would ride if they didn't have to shift is either not that large or wasn't reached by their marketing.
This was literally the only one I've ever seen. And I volunteered for a year and a half at a community bike shop that was infamous for attracting oddities and evolutionary dead-ends. For instance: a side-by-side bicycle built for two. If there were a gazillion Autobikes out there, we'd have seen a couple. People simply didn't buy them.
1x setups have negated a lot of this. My wife does not enjoy bicycling and we got her a cruiser, it is very simple for her to understand "click up for harder, click down for easier".
That's long-term maintenance for commuters and casual riders. This product is for competitive and serious riders, and it reduces another type of maintenance (setting up and maintaining their bike for high performance).
