It’s rare that a company comes along and reinvents the wheel, but it looks like that is about to happen.
Superpedestrian, a start-up in Boston, announced on Monday that it has received $2.1 million in financing to help build a wheel that transforms some standard bicycles into hybrid e-bikes.
The product, the Copenhagen Wheel, is a design from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology SENSEable City Laboratory. The original goal of the wheel was to entice more people to more bicycles in large cities in lieu of cars by giving them help from a motor.
“If you think about today’s cities, they have been developed for the scale of the automobile, with people being required to travel great distances that are quiet large,” said Assaf Biderman, founder of Superpedestrian and associate director of the SENSEable City Lab. “Most cities are built around topographies that require motorized transport and it can make cycling and walking very difficult.”
Superpedestrian’s solution is to slip a motor into an existing analog product: the bicycle.
While the new wheel is still round, it has technology that makes it different from most normal bike wheels.
The Copenhagen Wheel replaces the rear wheel of a bicycle. It includes a motor powered by a built-in battery and sensors. When someone pedals with the new wheel in place, the bike uses sensors and an app on a smartphone to measure the amount of effort the rider is putting into each pedal. It then offers an additional boost when necessary.
One of the most interesting components of the new wheel is that the rider doesn’t need to tell the bike when help is necessary, the wheel just figures it out using the sensors and gives the bike a push.
“Riding on a flat surface, or up a hill, will feel exactly the same,” Mr. Biderman said.
The wheel doesn’t need to be charged or plugged in on a nightly basis, either. Instead, the wheel captures the energy from the brakes when a rider goes down hill and then stores that power in a high-capacity lithium battery. The motor also acts like a generator, creating power for later rides when the rider pedals in reverse.
The company said the wheel will last for 15 miles in each direction and will fit on most standard bicycles.
Superpedestrian is expected to start taking orders for the wheel next month and will begin shipping to customers at the start of next year.
The financing round is being led by Spark Capital with participation from David Karp, the founder of Tumblr.
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine
"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten."
Ecclesiastes 9:5 (KJV)
Cool idea. I wonder how long it will take to get prices down to that of the batter assisted bikes that are already on the market? More to the point I wonder if it will catch on, because it's going to take a lot to get people to take any form of bike to and from work instead of just popping in the nice climate controlled car.
Electric bikes have been around for a while, but none of them with this level of sophistication where the bike knows when to turn on the motor or to leave it off. The problem with some E-bikes are that the motor is too damn powerful, so some countries eg China has laws which requires drivers licence for E-bikes which can go over a certain speed due to the number of accidents.
Presumably with this one, it won't give too much power so the bike would just be peddling at an athlete's speed tops.
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mr friendly guy wrote:Electric bikes have been around for a while, but none of them with this level of sophistication where the bike knows when to turn on the motor or to leave it off. The problem with some E-bikes are that the motor is too damn powerful, so some countries eg China has laws which requires drivers licence for E-bikes which can go over a certain speed due to the number of accidents.
Presumably with this one, it won't give too much power so the bike would just be peddling at an athlete's speed tops.
Pedelecs that adress this problem have been around for decades. In Germany for example the speed your bike gets from the motor may not be higher than 25 km/h or else you will need some type of license. The simple solution is to implement a switch that turns off the motor if your speed exceeds this limit. You can go faster of course by using the pedals.
If I understand this Copenhagen Wheel correct the "only" new thing about it is that it puts all the standard technology into an easy to mount wheel.
Kits to turn bikes into e-bikes have been around for a long time.
Pedal sensors that measure torque and candence (and with that information know when to utilize the motor) are standard in modern pedelecs.
Recuperation is standard in modern pedelecs as well.
pedelecs really are not available in the US and are expensive. . . .The cost is more than my last (and nice) used car for example.
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine
"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten."
Ecclesiastes 9:5 (KJV)
Yeah, they´re expensive. I´m not an expert on this but you get decent ones over here for about 2000€ perhaps a bit cheaper.
You can get a cheaper car but a car can not replace a pedelec and vice versa.
There are rentable bikes in most cities, for example by the German railway company, that offer rentable bikes in most bigger cities. The bikes are parked at stations plastered all over the town and you can unlock them by calling the bikes number with your cel phone and then return them to any station you like.
Anyway, these rentable bikes have been extended with the possibility of renting pedelecs in some cities. Pedelecs are nice to have in cities like Stuttgart which has lots of hills and can make riding a bike annoying especially when you´re transporting larger loads like gorceries. In cities without hills most people don´t really need them, imo, but they´re handy for old and fat people.
And perhaps for people who would like to take the bike to work but can not arrive sweaty and have no chance to change clothes.
Neat idea, but think it is too complex for the simple task of getting around the town. If you don't like pedaling all the way all, you really need is electric motor assist that you can turn on and off with a switch on a handlebar maybe with few different power settings. A purely electromechanical thing without all sorts of unnecessary electronic junk.
I'm surprised at the price of the e-bikes in the States; how universal is that? I looked up stores in New York (which I assumed would be an e-bike-friendly city) and found the prices way, way higher than in Toronto; up here you can get them for anything from $800 CAD and up (more like $1200 for a higher-range model).
As to the original topic, I think the biggest appeal of this system is that it's (looks to be, anyway) as idiot-simple as switching out a normal bike wheel, which will probably have broad appeal for the type of person who doesn't even want to get their hands dirty with a normal conversion kit. From the looks, it might also lighter, which will appeal to the city crowd who have to get their bikes up elevators or narrow apartment staircases.
It also looks "stylish" whereas normal conversion kits look more like something that was designed by someone in the wheelchair industry.
This looks like it appeal to the hipster ipod crowd.
Sky Captain wrote:If you don't like pedaling all the way all, you really need is electric motor assist that you can turn on and off with a switch on a handlebar maybe with few different power settings.
Yeah, auto-assist is nice, but being able to spend remaining charge at will just cruising home (or when you're carrying shopping bag) would be really good.
