Schwinn debuts Toshiba-powered Tailwind electric bike

Schwinn has been pretty big on electric bicycles for some time now, but it seems to be particularly excited about its new Tailwind bike, which it says "sets a new standard for the electric bike industry." That boasting is apparently due in large part to the bike's use of Toshiba's newfangled Super Charge ion Battery (or SCiB), which has a promised 30-minute recharge time, or about an eighth of that of competing bikes. The rest of the bike's specs also look to be up to Schwinn's usual high standards, and include a Shimano Nexus 8-speed internal geared rear hub, a brushless motor with 180 watts of continuous power or 250 watts at peak power, a rear roller brake system, double wall alloy rims, and Continental Town Ride tires, to name but a few premium features. Just don't expect any of that to come cheap, as the bike is set to retail for $3,199 when it hits shops early next year.

[Shotgun @ Sep 25th 2008 1:15PM]

Engadget stole my bike!

[CraigJ @ Sep 25th 2008 1:15PM]

ten out of ten for the tech, but minus several million for the horrible, dated, fugly bike design.

[Matt @ Sep 25th 2008 1:34PM]

You could take off the fenders and replace the curly handlebars with riser bars, which are found on most mountain bikes. It would also help to remove the chain guard, but that might not be possible depending on the design.

[--------- @ Sep 25th 2008 1:40PM]

I could not disagree more with your take on the design, I would buy this bike for the looks alone.

[avester @ Sep 25th 2008 1:59PM]

I agree with unabomber, this is very good looking bike.

[CraigJ @ Sep 25th 2008 2:03PM]

compare to this:

http://www.specialized.com/bc/SBCBkModel.jsp?sid=09SanFrancisco&eid=178

Hey, to each his own. Personally I think it looks like a cheap k-mart bike from the 70's

[phanbouy @ Sep 25th 2008 2:44PM]

not really.. look at the hubs, and wheels and spokes for that matter. try finding anything like it on a regular bike < $800

rear rack looks pretty nice too

[CraigJ @ Sep 25th 2008 3:02PM]

The front hubs looks like that because that's where the motor is. I wasn't suggesting that the bike was teh sux or has crappy components, I think it's pretty cool, I just find the design to be dated, and Schwinn, apparently, agrees. FTA: "Classic Lines - All the great style that’s made Schwinn an American icon is right here."

I do wonder about the battery pack though. Notice that there are vent holes in abundance on the front of the pack. I wonder what happens when you get stuck in a down pour. There is a lot of energy there if that thing can pump out 180 continuous watts. I assume the engineers planned for this, but there is no mention of it on their site.

Also, what is the range? I didn't see that on their site either.

[Shotgun @ Sep 25th 2008 1:16PM]

Engadget stole my bike!

[Dean @ Sep 25th 2008 1:17PM]

Um, Schwinn as a bike company went bankrupt and was sold to various holding companies. The brand is now being slapped on a bunch of crappy Walmart/Costco bikes.

So the "usual high standards" of Schwinn bicycles of the 50's through the 80's no long exist.

[Alexander @ Sep 25th 2008 1:20PM]

I second that! Schwinn play no role in the bike business anymore.

[jorvay @ Sep 25th 2008 3:05PM]

Too bad...The 1998 Homegrown frame was a work of art.

[jared @ Sep 25th 2008 1:22PM]

just fyi, schwinn isn't really known for quality components. the name was sold to a generic bike manufacturer in the US, and know they're kind of known for bargain bikes at wal-mart.

nevertheless... looks like a cool idea. anything that makes it easier for someone like my mom to ride a bike to the market is a plus.

[Mileage @ Sep 25th 2008 1:23PM]

I can buy an actual motorbike for that price. I mean, if I wanted to switch from my car to something that emitts less emissions in the city I think I'd rather spend my 3 large on a real motorbike and look infinately cooler doing it then with this Mary Poppin's special.

[xcrunk @ Sep 25th 2008 1:28PM]

Seriously, I can pick up a Kawasaki Ninja 250 that looks better, drives faster and isn't that much more expensive, $3,499.

[phanbouy @ Sep 25th 2008 1:53PM]

or do like i did and get a kawi ninja 250, then search craigslist for a used carbon fiber frame or road bike and have both options for pretty different uses

[avester @ Sep 25th 2008 2:01PM]

Yeah, you sure are polluting a lot less with a motorbike...

A bicycle is a lot handier at big cities, since you can skip around the traffic, and on some cities you can drive on the sidewalk too.

And you don't have to buy gas for this one.

[phanbouy @ Sep 25th 2008 3:11PM]

on the other hand, bicycles do not require registration, titles, insurance, expensive maintenance, expensive riding gear, etc, etc

[Smileypanda @ Sep 25th 2008 3:22PM]

@Avester
I don't see your point, you can do that on a motorbike, too.

[Mikey @ Sep 25th 2008 3:22PM]

...or spend less than 1/100 the price and pick up a moped conversion kit on e-bay. Its alot closer to the idea of this bike than a full motorcycle. Using a 50 cc gas motor you could get 100+ mpg at 30+ mph for under $300 (including the bike).

I plan on making my own using an old leaf blower and connecting the output shaft to a drive gear on the peddles. The idea is to use the bike's 21 speeds as a manual transmission. A home made version of the featured bike (all electric) would be much more expensive to make, but would be interesting...

[pretol @ Sep 25th 2008 1:38PM]

for 3000 bucks? You're shitting me! I get better efficiency eating sandwiches and pedaling....

What's the demographic? The oh so many of the old people that are dieing (literally) to get on the bicycle?

Maybe I'm wrong, I'm no market researcher... Maybe there are buncha weaklings dieing to spend 3000 for a pedal assist bicycle from a Kmart brand.

p.s. Oh Gawd, You can buy a used SV650 or a miata...

[jordan @ Sep 25th 2008 1:46PM]

that thing is ugly! for that amount of money u think they couldve come up with a better design

[--Ed @ Sep 25th 2008 1:46PM]

Wow! I hope they bulk up that frame and put fatter tires on it because now that we don't have to peddle us fat Americans are going to get fatter.

What is wrong with a bicycle just being a bicycle and using your feet to power it.

[kevjohn @ Sep 25th 2008 1:49PM]

I was all on board until I got to the price.

(From now on, can we all just refer to that as "engadget comment 1", or just "#1" for short?)

[blackfeather @ Sep 25th 2008 1:54PM]

Childish Pun Follows:

A "low emission" vehicle named "Tailwind"... Hmmm Does it go faster after having lunch at Taco Bell?

[phanbouy @ Sep 25th 2008 2:15PM]

Maddox' opinion on people who point out their puns: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=puns

i still think your joke was funny, incidentally.

[SFuller @ Sep 25th 2008 2:21PM]

3K??? I can buy a more versatile bike for $1000 and use the $2000 saved on burritos to power my pedaling.

Regarding Schwinn the company, yes the name was sold to a holding company years ago, and the name has been mainly showing up on bikes sold at Wal-Mart over the past few years. That said, the name is being put on some quality bikes as well.. The latest iterations of the Paramount are carbon fiber and have a good component set.

[Eric @ Sep 25th 2008 2:28PM]

I can see all the lazy fatsos now:

"I bike every day, but I just can't lose any weight!!!!....uh....sure, I'll take whipped cream on that..."

Sad thing, is, that merely a paraphrase of a conversation I overheard between two large women sitting on a patio, eating ice cream sundaes at a little lunch place on the bike trail here. When they were done, they got on their bikes, and pedaled home, as slowly as possible, all of < 1/2 mile.

[Elliott @ Sep 25th 2008 2:43PM]

For the same price, i could just buy a motorcycle...

[phanbouy @ Sep 25th 2008 2:46PM]

or a motorcycle and a pretty decent used city bicycle for less than $200

[Knives_Out @ Sep 25th 2008 2:47PM]

isn't "electric bicycle" an oxymoron?

[Sarig @ Sep 25th 2008 4:06PM]

Not really, no.

[meme @ Sep 25th 2008 2:52PM]

To those who say that it'd be better for the environment or the pocketbook to be pedalling or burning gasoline: no, no, no, and no.

Electricity averages $0.10/kWh. This bike probably consumes about 50-100Wh/mi, split between human labor and electric power. Hence, this bike costs between half a penny and a penny per mile if powered solely by electricity. A 70mpg scooter burning $3.60/gal gasoline will run you about 5 cents per mile. And this doesn't account for the lower maintenance on the bike. Depending on what you eat, how much you eat out, and so on, food prices vary a lot, but I'd imagine that the average American spends about $4 per thousand calories, which is about 25 miles of moderate-pace biking. That's about 15 cents per mile. So, price-wise, nothing is even close to an electric.

As for the environment: lower speeds save energy (bike wins). Reduced frontal area saves energy (bike wins). Power plants are more efficient than gasoline motors, and emit less pollutants, esp. in comparison to small gasoline motors (I can give you a DOE study into this if you'd like). So, electric bike wins hands down. In comparison to food, this again depends strongly on what you eat, with meat being much worse than carbs, but everything having a cost. 1 kilogram of beef represents the calories of about 60 miles worth of moderate-speed biking and consumes as much energy as the average European *car* does in 155 miles. So, if you eat meat to go biking, you might as well club a baby seal along the way. Even non-meat foods, however, usually have about as much energy input put into them as they contain in food calories (this after turning solar energy into stored food calories at a rate between a fraction of a percent and a couple percent efficiency -- photosynthesis is efficient, but plant metabolism wastes most of it). Mostly hydrocarbon energy inputs (nitrates, ag. equipment, transport, etc). Your body then turns them into kinetic energy at less than 20% efficiency. So, a big blowout there, too.

Now, the question about an electric bike becomes, "Is it worth it?" Well, that depends on what you're replacing. Let's assume that you're replacing a 30mpg gasoline vehicle ($0.12/mi, ignoring maintenance). To make up for $3000 when you have a savings of... let's be pessimistic and say $0.11/mi... means 27,000 miles, which assuming you bike 10 miles a day, is 7 years. Not a short period, but certainly a justifiable number. If you bike 25 miles a day, that drops to 3 years.

To pre-emptively address to other points:
* What about exercise? Well, if that's your goal, then yes, you don't care about electric assist. But if your goal is saving money or the environment, go electric.
* What about the batteries? Advanced lithium ion batteries last for thousands of charge cycles. The SCiB, for example, is rated to have only a 10% loss in capacity after 5,000 deep cycles. Despite sharing the "lithium ion" moniker, these are not the sort of batteries you find in your iPod or laptop.

I hope this addresses all of the points raised!

[jvitosky @ Sep 25th 2008 4:38PM]

Forget waiting for a bike that's too expensive, doesn't go fast enough, and doesn't have the range you need.

Check out how to *really* motorize any bicycle at...

http://motoredbikes.com/showthread.php?t=10392

[jvitosky @ Sep 25th 2008 4:38PM]

Forget waiting for a bike that's too expensive, doesn't go fast enough, and doesn't have the range you need.

Check out how to *really* motorize any bicycle at...

http://motoredbikes.com/showthread.php?t=10392

[Amani576 @ Sep 25th 2008 4:58PM]

Personally, the Nexus hub isn't the best thing to have put in there. Sure, it's a fine hub, but, they could've put an SRAM i-Motion 9 on it and had better a better gear range.
But then again...
I doubt some people who use these bikes pedal enough for it to really matter how effective of a range they have.

GR

[Danny Ray @ Sep 25th 2008 9:50PM]

Http://www.ampedbikes.com

Here at AmpedBikes, we have tested every battery available Li+, Lico2, Limn, Lifepo4 we are having an inframe injection mold manufactured for us and BOY if I could get my hands on these batteries!

The bike is completely overpriced and in my opinion they did not do their homework with the US market.

The benefits of riding an electric assisted bicycle as a commuter are immense!

1. The average commuter adds 3.55 tons of Co2 to the atmosphere yearly.
2. By riding an electric pedal assisted bike even 4 days a week will reduce the Co2 emissions by 3 tons per person yearly!
3. Your health! You don't even notice it but month after month by commuting you start to actually pedal. You are getting healthy and do not even realize it.
4. Stress.. Your daily stress that only gets compounded in traffic on the way home is melted away by commuting by e-bike, increasing your mental health and daily outlook immensely.
5. Productivity.. If you encourage your employees to commute their productivity is increased by 30% over the first month.


There are sooo many reasons to do it and no reasons not to.

Danny L. Ray II

[Brock @ Sep 25th 2008 10:54PM]

Seriously, the price puts it near the range of the Tata's Nano (if that ever happens) and you can drive that in the rain. Sure, it cost less to run per mile than a motorcycle, but amortizing that will take a lifetime. If you want to look at it from an emissions standpoint, you need to calculate emission per person, as a car can take 3 or 4 other passengers for almost the same output as the driver's alone.

[spykerc8 @ Sep 26th 2008 1:33AM]

Doesnt this defeat the reason for why many people ride bikes, to save money, on gas and now you have to charge it using more electricity, on the other hand people who dont want to show up to work etc. all sweaty and stuff i guess this makes sense, although the design is good i prefer something a little more sporty and less cruise around.

[Chris @ Sep 26th 2008 2:33AM]

Too expensive and fugly. In china people seem to be zooming around on electic bikes all over the place. I doubt they pay $3,199 for theirs.

[Wicked Mongoose @ Oct 4th 2008 8:11PM]

I just got through taking a test ride on the electric systems e+ electric bike, that thing is amazing, hits 20-21mph with the 750 watt motor alone, then I hit 36 mph with pedaling. Quite possibly the smoothest bike ride I've ever had, simply incredible. It was at a design meeting of my local IEEE chapter. We got to meet with some of the engineers who designed it, a grill them on design questions. found out the reason they didn't want to run lithium ion batteries was because they were pulling 35 amps from the battery pack and didn't want the front wheel where it's stored to burst into flames. Its got enough pull to get you up a hill on the motor alone, and it looks a hell of a lot better than the "Mary Poppins Special" up there. The cost is pretty significant at 3.5 grand, but compared to the pile of poo that schwinn is trying to hock, its quite the steal. + you'd save that much money just by not paying insurance on your car for 2 years. Though you might want to watch out for speeding tickets, I was testing it out in a 20mph college parking lot, the college cops were not amused.
If you got the money to spend and the inclination to buy an electric bike, I can't recommend these guys enough:

http://www.e-ms.us/

This really is amazing though, I just wish they had lithium ion batteries that were stable enough for these guys to use. They said they were looking into A123 batteries, but they weren't getting a lot of support, which is a shame since A123 is turning into/are major players in the higher end of the lithium ion market. The NiMH batteries in the E+ currently have to be replaced every 1.5-2 years with constant use, that runs about 640 for the whole assembly. Lithium would cost more but could be worth it for the boost to range.

The low center of gravity from the batteries and motor being in the wheels lets you hit pretty big bumps without flipping you over the handlebars.

[RoadKing @ Apr 24th 2009 9:31AM]

I think this company has the best electric bikes available and made in the United States that are priced under $2000 http://www.SpeedyGoKartShop.com.

When I went to their website, I was intending on buying an gas or electric scooter. But once I learned more about the electric bikes, the more I liked them. I don't need a license (which I have) or insurance, no DMV registration, I can ride it anywhere, and I don't have to worry about parking or even traffic, as I can take the bike trail to work (as I work in the city 5 days a week.)

I just purchased the Black King on Monday, they were really nice and helpful, and made sure that I got in to the right bike for my lifestyle and height. Plus they set you up with all the basics that you need for your bicycle such as a pedometer/computer, multi-tool kit, bike cover, saddlebags or an under the seat bike bag.

I talked to the owner, Mike, and he said that pretty soon they are coming out with a custom shop, where customers have the option to customize their electric bicycle, such as the handlebars and stem, fenders, no fenders, rack, no rack, etc. they are a really cool company. And their bikes are very high-quality.