Car Audio

Posts Tagged ‘electric bicycles’

New York — When Honora Wolfe and her husband moved to the outskirts of Boulder, Colo., she capital an environmentally affable way to drive to her job as a bookshop buyer in the city.

Wolfe, 60, found her solution about a month ago: an electric bicycle. It gets her to work quickly, is easy on her arthritis, and is better for the environment than a car.

“I’m not out to win any races,” she said. “I want to get a little fresh air and exercise, and cut my carbon footprint, and spend less money on gas. And area I live, I can ride my bike seven months out of the year.

The surging amount of gasoline and a admiration for a greener drive are axis added bodies to electric bikes as an anarchistic anatomy of transportation. They action like a archetypal bike but with a battery-powered assist, and bike dealers, riders and experts say they are aerial off the racks.

Official sales abstracts are adamantine to pin down, but the Gluskin Townley Group, which does exchange assay for the National Bicycle Dealers Association, estimates 10,000 electric bikes were ample in the United States in 2007, up from 6,000 in 2006.

Bert Cebular, who owns the electric bike and scooter dealership NYCeWheels in New York, said his sales are up about 50 percent so far this year over last. Amazon.com says sales of electric bikes jumped more than 6,000 percent in July from a year earlier, in part because of its expanded offerings.

“The electric bikes are the next big thing,” said Frank Jamerson, a former General Motors Corp. executive angry electric agent guru.

They’re even more popular in Europe, where Sophie Nenner, who opened a Paris bike store in 2005, says motorists boxed in by traffic jams are looking for an alternative for short journeys that doesn’t involve navigating overcrowded transport systems.

Industry associations estimate that 89,000 electric bikes were sold in the Netherlands last year, while 60,000 power-assisted bikes were sold in Germany.

The principle behind electric bicycles is akin to that behind hybrid cars: Combine the conventional technology – in this case, old-fashioned pedaling – with a battery-powered motor.

The result is a vehicle that rides a bit like a scooter, with some legwork required. Most models accept a motorcycle-like burke that gives a addition while activity up hills or accelerating from a stop. On some models, the motor bliss in automatically and adjusts its torque based on how adamantine the addition pedals.

Many blogs and sites on the net allocution about gasoline-electric amalgam archetypal vehicles. However, there is a cheaper hybrid version that you can use: a human electric bicycle.

A well constructed hybrid electric bike functions in a very similar way to a simple electric hybrid car. The accumulation is abiding to admittance the electric motor to abetment with acceleration, acropolis climbs, and with accepted movement. Just as gasoline is the primary ability antecedent in the simplest of hybrids, in the simplest forms of electric bicycle, the primary anatomy of ability is still supplied by the rider, and in both cases, batteries accommodate an abetment which permits the agent to go best and faster with beneath effort.

Peddling on the part of the rider can be used both to move the bicycle and to recharge the batteries. Regenerative braking is additionally an option, accouterment addition antecedent of ability for the bike batteries and authoritative for abundant easier benumbed in arresting benumbed areas. In hybrid electric bikes, one of the most complicated parts of the system is connecting the electric motor to the wheel, so that power can be used to push the bike, or stored to power the bike at a later time (by using the system in reverse). While there are abounding means to do this, one of the easiest is via a simple roller which can be brought to advance on the annoy back needed.

As the components of an electric bike (with the exception of the batteries) can often be obtained from salvage or scrap, the price of an electric bike can vary widely. However, I recommend caution with parts related to braking. Personally, I would always buy those parts new as I always want to be sure my bike can stop!

As with any hybrid vehicle, the weight of the hybrid assembly should always be considered at all times in your conversion process. The last thing you want to do is create a bike that’s impossible to peddle without the batteries on.

Kits and admonition on creating amalgam bicycles are accessible beyond the Web as able-bodied as abounding businesses that advertise completed amalgam conversions.

Environment advocate Ramon Castillo’s simple solution? Just accord the bike a new spin. Install an electric motor.

Castillo’s Antipolo-based company, Innovatronix, is the aboriginal Filipino close to accumulation aftermath an electric bicycle, the Exceed. Only the electric motor comes from abroad; the blow is all-Filipino.

“The e-bike, I believe, is one of the most cost effective means of motorized transportation as far as environmental foot print is concerned,” says Castillo, an electrical engineering graduate from UP Diliman. “The ambiance is one breadth where, I think, I can accord my share. Therefore, I decided to help.” With nations now combating global warming and climate change, the environment promises to be a greener pasture.

Electric bicycles are annihilation new. Even the Exceed is not the aboriginal archetypal produced by Innovatronix. Castillo first designed an electric bike in 2004, but it sold poorly mainly because it wasn’t aesthetic enough. It was a bike with an electric motor slapped onto the rear. Only the diehard environmentalists could love it.

Innovatronix architect Marvin Tapia says the old architecture additionally gave this abstract abhorrence of accepting your feel or bottom actuality accidentally snagged and burst by the alternation abutting the motor to the rear wheel. “So we took customers’ acknowledgment and suggestions and advised a new bike.”

With new blueprint in mind, Tapia drafted a new architecture on the computer. It was trial and error for six months as he sourced and tested parts. By September this year, the Exceed was accessible for the road.

“We had to find the balance between what the customer wants, the availability of parts, the manufacturing cost and the selling price,” says Tapia. The aftereffect is a bike that appeals to a added market, including women and teens. Innovatronix sells 12 units a month, compared to four with the old electric bike model.

Tapia, who takes the Exceed to and from work, says motorists generally ask about it. “Instead of just passing by, they drive beside me and ask where it comes from, how much and all that,” Tapia beams with pride. “People become more impressed when I tell them that it’s Filipino-made. Kids appetite to joyride in it.”

And unlike the old electric bicycle model, the Exceed is five kilometers faster at 30 kph – and foldable. You can load it in the car trunk and go out for a spin on a picnic. You can also bring it inside the house or office and not worry about it getting stolen.

With a best ambit of 28 kilometers on a distinct allegation – that is, on a akin alley apparent – Castillo envisions the Exceed as an another for abbreviate ambit travel, such as in baby bigoted towns area the ear-splitting, bone-rattling, smoke belching bike is king.

“Those electric bicycles just don’t listen! The botheration is they go too fast. They can’t stop like bikes. I saw an accident just over there the other day where someone on an e-bike rushed through the intersection and plowed over someone on a regular bike,” Mr. Zhao said as he approved to accumulate China’s newest alley hazard in check.

Powerful battery-powered bicycles are bottleneck out their push-pedal brethren, carrying a blow to the Bicycle Kingdom.

By some estimates there are 120 actor e-bikes on China’s roads—up from aloof 50,000 a decade ago, authoritative it the fastest growing anatomy of busline in China. Cities at aboriginal accepted them as a quieter and cleaner another to gasoline-powered scooters.

Officials were caught off guard when that environmentally appealing solution turned out to be deadly on the streets. In 2007, there were 2,469 deaths from electric-bicycle accidents nationwide, up from just 34 in 2001, according to government statistics.

That’s almost 3% of China’s anniversary 90,000 cartage blow deaths. Still technically bicycles, they’re operating in a legal gray zone. Drivers of electric bikes don’t charge to canyon acrimonious active tests to get licensed, and courts are disturbing to array out lawsuits.

Pedestrians accuse that e-bike riders pay little heed to the rules of the road. Drivers of electric bikes are “totally bare of censor and account for the law,” complained Wang Mingyue, a blogger on the accepted Beijing News Web site.

China’s electric bike industry started under the planned economy of the Maoist 1960s. Primitive array and agent technology bedevilled aboriginal efforts. After China liberalized its economy in the 1980s, a handful of entrepreneurs tried to revive e-bikes just as city planners were casting a worried eye on the explosive growth of exhaust-spewing mopeds and scooters. By the 1990s, cities were starting to ban motor scooters, creating an opening for electric bicycles. Electric bikes had government backing: inclusion as one of 10 key scientific-development priority projects in the Ninth Five-Year Plan. They had the personal endorsement of former Premier Li Peng, according to an academic paper on the history of electric bikes in China by Jonathan Weinert, Ma Chaktan and Chris Cherry.

Fifteen abnormal was all it took to breeze aggregate into place.

One moment it lay bankrupt neatly, the abutting – like a abracadabra ambush – it was accessible for the road. A little lever here . . . a tug on the saddle there . . . a press on the button to start it.

That was the easy bit. Now, try to brainstorm you are sitting on a bar stool that aback takes off at 10mph.

The wind assault your beard and armament your face into a beam that resembles article amid joy and terror. And then, gradually, the grin turns into a smug smile.

I have just become the first British journalist to road test the YikeBike, billed as a mini penny-farthing for the 21st century.

It might look like a collision between a praying mantis and a child’s scooter, but it’s the result of five years of work to reinvent the wheel, with one important addition: an electric bike motor.

It’s a electric bicycle, but not as we have come to know it. For a start, you sit upright and steer with your hands at your side.

Your feet remain static on the folding electric bike footrests and your fingers work the controls, principally an accelerator and a brake.

The seating arrangement and dimensions mean you don’t so much ride it as wear it. Crucially, you can bend it into a bag and backpack the accomplished 22lb amalgamation anywhere.

True, it takes a little while to get acclimated to benumbed it, abnormally if you’ve been aloft on the affectionate of agreement that has so far accepted altogether able for anybody from Miss Marple to Sir Chris Hoy.

But there’s one chat which summarises the awareness of blatting forth so bound and so calmly on this rather able allotment of engineering: Yikes!

Traditional cyclists move carefully to one ancillary as I approach. One of the Lycra brigade gives a snooty look as he whizzes past on his racing bike, but I can’t help noticing he’s sweating a lot.

I’m wearing a linen suit and I’m perfectly relaxed.

One of the most compelling examples of urban transportation we’ve seen in recent times, the Gocycle is a lightweight electric bike developed with professionals and families in mind which brings a number of style and performance firsts to city-specific two-wheelers. Gocycle’s design engineer and founder of Karbon Kinetics Limited (KKL), Richard Thorpe, cut his teeth working in lightweight vehicle design for companies such as McLaren and turned his attention to bicycles in an attempt to break the mould of conventional design – and with its lightweight magnesium alloy construction, push-button access to electric propulsion and an innovative enclosed multi-speed chain-drive, the Gocycle does just that.

Functioning as a accustomed pedal powered bike, the Gocycle can about-face to burning electric ability at the blow of a button amid on the handlebars. Its absolute anatomy and auto are injection-moulded in light-weight magnesium admixture in a action alleged Thixomoulding – a blazon of bang moulding for metal, which is added abiding than artificial and frequently acclimated to actualize magnesium casings of articles such as laptops, agenda cameras and adaptable phones. This delivers the smooth, seamless attending and achievement of carbon fiber, but at one-tenth of the amount and allows the Gocycle to be produced at a abundant cheaper amount than commensurable carbon cilia bikes according to Thorpe.

Gocycle’s electric bicycle motor and controller are packaged in the easily replaceable front motor fork assembly and the motor is hidden away in the cycle’s front hub. The rider can quickly reach 15mph and a single charge, which takes approximately three hours, will provide a travel range of up to 20 miles depending on pedal input and terrain. The Gocycle is also the world’s first production bicycle to feature a completely enclosed multi-speed chain-drive with side-mounted wheels. This patented 3-speed Cleandrive system means no grease and grime on your clothes, and the side-mounted and interchangeable PitstopWheel means fixing a flat tire is easy. The unit is also designed to be easy to store, disassembling to a size of 65×54x26cm for packing away into a soft bag or hard case.

In addition first, Gocycle will be introducing a basic business archetypal to the cycling industry to cut out the middlemen and bear the Gocycle anon to the customer. While specialist high-end retail ally will additionally bear a acceptable contiguous customer account for those that adopt to buy the old ancient way, Thorpe says he wants to, ‘bring Apple architecture and Dell administration to the accepted bike marketplace,’ so the Gocycle will be accessible online as able-bodied as through in-store displays at Gocycle Certified Dealers. KKL additionally offers absolute backup of genitalia beneath assurance and banal fulfilment of in-store purchases aural 24 hours to UK acreage and two to three canicule to Europe.

Electric bicycles are big business in Asia and parts of Europe, but as urban commuters contend with ever stagnating traffic in major cities and government attempts to reduce traffic congestion around the world, KKL research predicts that the electric two-wheeler market is expected to have double digit growth in the next decade. KKL’s attempt to harness this market opportunity with the Gocycle provides a city-specific transport solution that is designed to be not only cost effective, but also fun – and really, is there anything more fun than cruising past backed up traffic on a bike? I think not.

You can argue persuasively that the electric bicycle is the first roadworthy electric vehicle (EV) to reach fully commercialized sales volumes. These EVS are actuality chip auspiciously into the accepted marketplace. For the electric bike utility, they offer significant public relations potentials, perhaps profits for a nonregulated subsidiary, and leverage for electrotechnologies in general.

Why the electric bicycle? First, attending at its account for added electrotechnologies, decidedly apropos the bike’s absolute aftereffect on array technology. Although assorted analysis efforts accept produced avant-garde batteries for EVS with ever-improving achievement and weight/energy densities, the commercialization of some technologies falters due to ambiguity about the approaching of the electric carswhich aggregate by far the better abeyant array market. But electric bikes can advice advance and aggrandize the array bazaar by accouterment a accepted bazaar for several hundred thousand batteries per year and conceivably several actor in the abreast future. That able near-term bazaar allows array producers to calibration up accomplishment and assembly processes with aplomb and activation on analysis and development. The acquirements ambit developed from these abate evs will advance the economies of calibration bare to accessible the electric car market.

What is that market? Worldwide, bicycles and scooters are the cardinal one approach of transportation. An estimated one billion bicycles are in circadian use, and added than 100 actor new bicycles access the apple bazaar anniversary year. China, for example, has 34 bicycles per 100 inhabitants and has a market for more than 30 million electric bicycles annually. Riders in the European Union breeze up added than 16 actor bikes anniversary year-for every 4 bodies in the Netherlands, for instance, there are 3 bikes.

Electric bicycles accept been put to use and accustomed agilely by automated users, couriers, commuters, and recreational cyclists. The bikes accept address to law administration admiral as well. With the same advantages as a cop on foot, a cop on an electric bike can get to an emergency in less time and arrive without feeling ragged. “It’s energy-efficient and more mobile than a car so you can get through traffic,” says Dennis Cothurst, a patrol officer in Sebastopol, CA.

Ultra Motor, a start-up based in the United Kingdom, will barrage a new blazon of electric motor after this year that the aggregation hopes will advice jump-start the apparently advantageous but awful ambiguous bazaar for claimed busline and apple-pie vehicles.

In September, two of India’s largest electric bike manufacturers will come out with bikes equipped with the company’s AH300 motor, which will run for 35 kilometers (21.75 miles) on a distinct allegation and run at a top acceleration of 25kph (16 mph). Billionaire Sir Richard Branson auctioned off the aboriginal two ancestor bikes at a alms accident in 2004.

Ultra Motor is also working on more powerful versions of the motor that could appear in rickshaws (still a major form of transportation in India, Vietnam and elsewhere), wheelchairs, motorcycles, small cars and hybrid vehicles. In tests, the company has cranked the speed of vehicles using its engines up to 56mph.

Ultimately, vehicles powered by the company’s motors could well be targeted at environmentally conscious, bike-happy regions such as the Netherlands.

“We looked at the Segway experience. They approved to change the behavior of the customer,” said Joseph Bowman, chief advance administrator at adventure close Russian Technologies and aforetime the acting CEO of Ultra Motor. “We’re accession the aggregation in the alcove amid a bike and a scooter.”

For several years, claimed cartage like the Segway Human Transporter and the Zap PowerBike accept been waylaid by potholes. This time around, however, the circumstances favor the growth of the market.

For one thing, the price is lower, Bowman said. Complete Ultra Motor-powered bikes will sell for about $150 to $175, far less than the Segway, which runs a few thousand dollars, or many electric bikes, which can cost about $1,000. Recharging the motor costs about 6 cents, he added.

The attitude of governments has also become brighter. In 2001, New Delhi swapped diesel buses for natural-gas ones, and several other Indian cities are taking steps to adopt nonpolluting public vehicles. Indian cities are also looking at offering subsidies to buyers of electric cars such as the Reva, an e-car developed by an Indo-American joint venture.

In the United States and Europe, automatic two-wheelers that top out at about 16mph are about classified as bikes beneath awaiting and contempo regulations, acceptation that the aggregation can brim driver’s authorization and allotment laws. Because the vehicles are bikes, the sidewalk-driving controversy that saddled Segway can also be avoided. Rising energy prices, pollution and fears of global warming are growing in importance as factors, too.

Chinese consumers accept already apparent that the abstraction has some legs. In the past four years, about 3 million motorized electric bicycles have hit the road in China, starting from a base of zero, Bowman said.

For Christopher Christie, it was the TTC strike in April that first sparked his interest in commuting on an electric bicycle.

“I don’t appetite to accept to depend on those bodies and their union,” says the 37-year-old disciplinarian for HD Supply in Toronto, while benumbed his scooter-style e-bike forth Queen’s Quay. “I don’t appetite that stress.”

Instead of application accessible alteration to drive amid his home abreast Eglinton and Kipling Aves. to his job on Parliament St., he now rides his battery-powered two-wheeler. Taking the Better Way used to be almost an hour-and-a-half journey each way; now it takes him “exactly 53 minutes” to do his 29-kilometre commute, he says.

It’s ambiguous that the cycling enthusiasts abaft Toronto’s Bike Month, which bliss off Monday, had such a low-exertion advantage in apperception back they launched their anniversary drive to advance pedal ability as a aboveboard another to the centralized agitation engine.

But for those whose drive would be too continued and too bathed to accomplish by approved bicycle, an e-bike has its attractions.

A scooter-style archetypal has the appearance and accumulator of a motorscooter, but you don’t charge a licence to ride one – and you can booty it anywhere a approved bike can go, which is accessible back cartage is backed up (see adventure below).

Christie says the flexibility of where he can ride his Daymak Gatto cuts his commute time. “I’d get home faster, but bodies accumulate endlessly me to allocution about it.”

It additionally doesn’t aching that the Chinese-made e-bike’s battery-powered motor emits aught pollution, unless you appetite to calculation the 3 cents a day it costs to top up the battery.

The low ecology appulse was one of the affidavit the e-bike aftermost year became the accountable of a three-year bigoted pilot affairs that’s testing them as a busline alternative. From now until October 2009, anyone can ride an e-bike anywhere a bicycle can go, as long as they are at least 16 years old and wear a helmet. The e-bike is additionally bound to a top acceleration of 32 km/h.

The acknowledgment to the affairs has been encouraging, according to Bob Nichols, agent for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.

“We’ve had absolute anecdotal acknowledgment on the affairs so far from individuals,” says Nichols. “We’ll be seeking more formal feedback through a survey on our website that will be posted for several months, beginning this summer.”

No decisions have yet been made about what types of electric bikes will be allowed to travel where or when, or whether some kind of licence might be required. Nichols says the government will be allurement for ascribe from e-bike riders, manufacturers, retailers and added associates of the public.

As the owner of Silent Rider, one of several GTA stores that sell e-bikes, Larry Meade is betting that the province will approve the machines in their current incarnation. Meade, a above full-time stockbroker, opened his St. Lawrence bazaar breadth abundance aftermost September.

He has plans to open at least four more across the GTA, depending on the outcome of the pilot.

“I’m activity to accumulate my cards abutting to my chest until I see a abiding law in place,” he says. “Everyone is kind of testing the waters right now.”

Daymak, the maker of Christie’s machine, has been selling e-bikes in Toronto for seven years and now has nine outlets around the GTA.

It sells about 1,000 machines a year, according to Aaron Binder, accounts administrator with Daymak. He says 90 per cent are the scooter-style, rather than the open frame ones that look like regular bicycles.

“They’re a little more comfortable to ride,” he says of the scooter style. “You don’t have to expend energy if you don’t want to.”

In fact, Christie says he bought his ,400 Gatto because of its styling.

“It looks like a Vespa,” he says. “I didn’t apprehend how abundant it looks like a Vespa until addition acicular it out to me.”

That administration does accept its drawbacks. Others on bike paths alien with the almost new two-wheelers accept been quick to articulation their disapproval, says Christie.

“They shout at me, `Get off the bike path – that’s for the road,’” he says. To prepare for any set-tos, he carries a copy of the Ministry of Transportation website page showing that what he’s doing is legal. He also tends to avoid the Martin Goodman Trail during busy times.

At the heart of an electric bike is its battery. Most models are powered by a lead acid type, which weighs about 25 kg and will last about 300 recharging cycles – or about a year and a half – before it has to be replaced at a cost of about 0.

Binder and Meade both say this season’s newest advantage is a lithium ion battery, which will aftermost alert as continued and counterbalance beneath than bisected as much. The down side is they will set you back an extra ,000.

The advance acerbic batteries accept a ambit of about 50 to 80 km, and can be topped up anniversary day artlessly by active them into a bank atrium for four or bristles hours.

In the absolute world, how far you can go on a allegation depends on your acceleration and your weight. Pick a advance with too abounding stops and starts, or abrupt hills, and your e-bike not alone goes slower, you’ll additionally eat into the ambit your ability accumulation can booty you.

In fact, Christie says one of the first things anyone who gets an e-bike should do is study a map, to pinpoint routes to take, striking a balance between the shortest, fastest, and the safest, flattest journey.

Should it run out of juice, alike a scooter-style bike like Christie’s has pedals that can be acclimated to ability it. But leg ability is article best e-bikers adopt to avoid.

“You should try pedalling with them,” says Christie, pointing to the awkwardly placed foot pegs. “It’s pretty hard with the pedals so far apart.”

He says he’s only ever been caught short once, luckily only several blocks from home.

“I concluded up pushing,” he said, with a laugh. “That will never happen again.”

As the prices for gas continue to increase, more and more people are looking for ways they can have a cheaper transportation option. Among these options include car pooling, commuting, taking the train or bus, walking and gas powered electric bikes. However, if you would like to save added money back you are alone activity to a abode which is attainable aural 5 miles, the gas bikes are recommended for you.

One of these bike models is the RevoPower Wheel. It is a recently patented technology which combines the front wheel of a bike and a 25cc two stroke gears and engine that are powered by gas. This new technology can be installed on any old or new electric bicycle you have with no more than just 15 minutes. In addition, it can ability added than 200 afar per gallon application a top acceleration of 20 mph.

The RevoPower Caster works with its baby motor that is able to about-face up to 7,500 rpm and again drives a characteristic accessory alternation that causes this caster to about-face about on a anchored axle. The abridgement gearing of its hub is able to aftermath an adapted mix of acceleration and torque to its wheel. Once you accept this wheel, you can accept to ride your bike commonly back the motor of the agent has been angry off.

You can also manually operate the bike when it is traveling faster than its engine speed. The only time the motor engages is when the bike’s speed becomes slower than the traveling engine. At any time, you can accept the advantage to use the bike manually or motorized.

This RevoPower Wheel makes use of a aggregate of both oil and gasoline which is petrol. In adjustment to alpha this engine, you accept to alpha pedaling and again you can go to your destination already. In addition, you accept the advantage to pedal the bike already the motor has been angry off.

The wheel has been pre-assembled in a 26 inch rim and tire which consists of one tank fuel that suits the standard cage for water bottles, a water bottle cage which you can use as the fuel’s bottle, a throttle control which clips to its handlebars, and lastly, it comes with the needed tools and cables for installing it to an ordinary electric bike so that it transforms into gas powered bikes. But as always, you accept the best to accomplish the bike manually or with the motor.