It's a struggle we all face. There's the urge to bike to work each day, and then there's the realization that you're too huge / lazy / tired to make it on your own. Brilliant minds at MIT understand your frustration, and rather than asking you to drop a few grand on a bona fide
electric bike, they're developing an apparatus that can convert any standard bicycle into one that's juiced. The GreenWheel contains an electric generator, batteries and an electric motor, all of which only need a wheel to be respoked in order to fit in. Under its current configuration, a single GreenWheel (yes, one can be added to each wheel) can propel a bike and your faineant derriere for around 25 miles; start peddling and that range doubles. There's no clear indication of when these things will splash down at your local bike shop, but word has it that Copenhagen and South Africa are already looking to add it to their public transportation systems by 2010.
[Via
DVICE, thanks Scott]
posted February 26th 2009 7:13PM
your peddling simply recharges the battery, the battery either does all the work(the peddling) or you can set your controller to assist; these technologies have been long in place
when that bitch hits a hill then your gonna be flinstoning your ass to the top i bet
I remember seeing a video about a year ago of a very aero dynomic electric bike travel between two cities in alberta about 150km with pedal assist, but the motor does most of the work...can't find the damn video so much green marketing on Google, its drowning all the results. To be fair, this was a very expensive bike, without taking into consideration the bike, the electric components came to about 4000$. The only way MIT can make it affordable is to bring a great battery(light + lots of juice) to market and for a good price. I'm talking something = or better than lithium LiFEPO4, but at the price of convential batteries. I heard 6 months ago, that china was suppose to release these batteries in mass production which means reduced cost, if you get from them directly that is, but far in price from convential batteries nevertheless. A popular site for electric bikes follows, they tend to run out of stock of the best stuff or used to due to high demand:
http://www.itselectric.ca/Products.html
Hey they're a good band! Oh, you're on about an electrica-magigy-thingy-madoodle, meh.
Has anyone considered that this implementation is a world different than the 'weekend engineer' e-bikes everyone has been linking to? This isn't a separate battery pack, speed controller, and hub motor with wires all over the place.
This is an entirely integrated single-piece solution. It's far more elegant and compact than anything anyone has linked. This is something that a person with little to no experience with wiring or electronics can still hook up and use. I'm sure someone will pick them up in bulk, add a rim/spokes, and resell for a modest profit so that eliminates that issue.
From the specs it's a very impressive device and could do wonders for commuting.