Gas powered E bike?

I've started to look into this a bit myself... with not a lot of success so far TBH

While there's a few examples of eBikes (trikes are actually a bit more common) that are... "sort of" hybrids, that is they've done what you've mentioned - strapped a small portable gasoline generator & a battery charger to their electric ride, I can't help but think this isn't quite ideal. While they've reported extended range, the problem is that you're lugging around this "powerful" 50cc engine spinning a generator capable of roughly 1000w output: Honeywell 1,000 Watt 49cc Gas Inverter Generator limited by the charger's output - while you'll extend your range, you'll still run the batteries flat & will be sitting there w/the genny chugging away waiting for a sufficient charge to build up.

Which causes me to question the entire setup, all that added weight for a perhaps marginal increase in range, I suspect it may be a classic case of diminishing returns *shrug*

A more interesting take would ofc be if that generator had 1000w DC output (& an electric starter) that was capable of powering the electric engine(s) while simultaneously charging the battery bank during lower demand. So say, 50% throttle or less and you're running on just the batteries, @ 20-30% drain the generator kicks in and starts charging, @ 50-100% throttle you're running off of both the battery bank and the generator's output (which would ofc be for a "limited" time depending on capacity of the batteries), and/or just the generator's output at a reduced speed while the batteries charge. Stick on a few solar cells & be easy on the throttle and that may be jus' the ticket...

but...

I'm a bit of an electric n00b and haven't the slightest idea if this is practical or possible in our scale, I'll freely admit I'm jus' kinda daydreaming

I hope some of our electric guys come in here to set me straight

What about an electric motor powers the bike and an electric generator charges the battery by spinning like a friction drive off of the tire?

That'd be perpetual motion - pull that off and you'll be a millionaire

It's that pesky law of conservation of energy, your setup would always suffer a loss - it'd take slightly more power to spin that friction genny than it would be capable of producing.

Double batt pack charge one from the generator while the other powers the bike,then throw a switch and run the other batt while the other used one charges

I get what you are saying barely but maybe just to extend the range? Could it be efficient enough to maybe extend range 50%?

Yup, in the generator industry it's called "Power factor" like Barely says, if you could get to 1.0PF, you'd solve the world energy crisis, 1.0 means it makes as much power as it takes to run, The highest I've seen is .82, nice thought though, I do like the thinking!!

Mac