Capacitor-powered e-bike

geeksquid said:

But do I even have to elaborate on the huge difference between a car's charging system and trying the same thing with a bicycle? A car's engine is the "generator" and is running 100% of the time and is turning the alternator at the speed it needs to operate efficiently 100% of the time and keeps the car's battery topped off. Most of the electricity that the alternator is producing is to power the car's electrical system, lights, accessories etc. This power is NOT being produced to propel the car down the road. That's the duty of the gas engine. On a bicycle, 100% or close to it, of the energy the bike's generator/alternator produces is needed to actually propel the bike itself. An ebike runs out of juice pretty quickly. You can't generate enough power from a generator fast enough to keep the bike in perpetual motion, thus you'll use up what reserve power you have in a short time and have to stop and replenish the batteries. On a bicycle, the weight of the generator, even though it's lightweight by generator standars, would seriously lower the efficiency of the bike's overall performance because even a 29 lb. generator weighs more than the entire bike in many cases. This theory has already been thought through countless times and if there was a way to keep an ebike going perpetually, we'd be seeing it and at a very high price.
If the term "capacitor" is actually in reference to the so-called capacitor battery technology being developed by EEStor in the Austin area and supported by ZennCars, this charging theory might change. They claim to be able to charge an electric car's entire battery bank in 5 minutes with enough juice for 250 miles or more.

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Ahh, some real discussion in this thread, finally! Okay, first of all, perpetual motion is a dream, for any vehicle, anywhere. Can an electric bicycle travel endlessly, because it has a generator attached/trailing along behind it? Of course not. But, it will go farther than it will without the generator, because although the generator isn't replacing 100% of what is being used, it is replacing quite a bit of it. Is this the solution for people who ride 40 or 50 mile per day? No, but then again, a 2 cycle in-frame is also a poor choice for someone who rides that far, that often. That guy would be much better off with a 4-stroke engine, although obviously a 2-stroke would suit his needs much better than an electric bike. Did you miss the portion of my post that you quoted, where I said "you would want to have a detachable generator attached to your electric cycle/scooter. So you burn zero gasoline for 98% of your trips where battery power alone is enough, then attach it for those few times per year that you need more range."? Those are the people for which a detachable generator makes perfect sense, not for you.

geeksquid said:

I've seen a lot of references here and there regarding solar panels to recharge your bike's batteries. First of all, it doesn't take much imagination to figure out the awkwardness of mounting the panels on the bike, even folded up. The size of the panels needed to recharge 24v or more would be very large and would depend on how quickly you'd want to recharge. A good example to give you some perspective on just how many photovoltaic cells or panels you'd need to equal a standard 120v recharge of about 2 hours is a cordless, rechargeable lawn mower. They use pretty much the same setup as an ebike - a 24v motor and a pack of two 12v SLA batteries. The Epic cordless mower uses this standard setup and offers a solar panel recharger option. They state that the solar panel will take 2-3 days to recharge the batteries if the panel is in full sun and 4-5 days on partly sunny or cloudy days. And these are estimated times and under ideal conditions. You'd need to consider that unless you have a tracker to keep the panel always oriented toward the sun, there's no way you could keep the solar panel oriented for the optimal effect unless you stood there and kept moving it by hand. That's not feasible. So, the moral of the story is, if you want a 2 hour recharge or even a 6 hour charge, look at the size of the solar panels you'd need to do it and where you'd mount them and the cost. Just the one solar panel offered with this mower is $284 delivered and it's no more than a trickle charge. If you WERE willing to spend the money on more panel arrays and wanted to carry them with you on the bike, it's not feasible to mount them and it's even more weight to add to the bike, reducing efficiency even more. If you wanted to recharge at home only and wanted a fast charge, you could mount them on your roof, but the cost per watt is still prohibitive and you'd never recoup the cost since recharging with 120v costs a few cents.

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Look geek, it's very obvious from your posts that you are very much against electric bicycles. For what reason, only you know. Solar charging of an electric vehicle is not only possible, it's possible to power an electric bike/other type of light electric vehicle without even using batteries. You may or may not ever be able to afford doing so, but it's very, very possible to do. BTW, were you aware that 1,000 watts of solar cells weighs around 2 lbs.? Also, no powered bicycle of any type is cost effective, at least when compared to a real bicycle. On a real bicycle, a few hundred calories will get you quite a few miles down the road. See if feeding your 2-stroke a hot dog and an apple will get you across town.

myocardia said:

Ahh, some real discussion in this thread, finally! Okay, first of all, perpetual motion is a dream, for any vehicle, anywhere.

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Ahh, some real discussion in this thread, finally! Okay, first of all, perpetual motion is a dream, for any vehicle, anywhere.

Yes, that was my point without going to the trouble in SAYING it was a dream. I was assuming that everyone would know that already.

Can an electric bicycle travel endlessly, because it has a generator attached/trailing along behind it?
Of course not.

But discussions do come up endlessly from people who think "what if" and I was just addressing that. Many actually do think it's possible just like in a car. I'm referring only to electric bike technology and what's possible with what's available now.

But, it will go farther than it will without the generator, because although the generator isn't replacing 100% of what is being used, it is replacing quite a bit of it.

But what do you mean by quite a bit? And how "further"? Real numbers? What I'm saying is that with the limited amperage that can be stored or carried on a bike, if the amperage can't be replaced as it's being used, there's no point in attempting it. Even if the generator was pumping juice into the batteries as you were driving and even if you went a little further, you'd still have to stop at some point and recharge before resuming. And having to run a generator that much would defeat the purpose. I just don't see how it could possibly be practically feasible. A car's alternator has a powerful engine behind it turning at many thousands of RPMs and it's a very easy chore for it to keep the car's battery charged and it's only 13.8v. A bike would have a minimum of 24v to keep replenished with the added burden of the electric motor being the bike's sole source of power.

So you burn zero gasoline for 98% of your trips where battery power alone is enough, then attach it for those few times per year that you need more range."? Those are the people for which a detachable generator makes perfect sense, not for you.

Yes, if an electric bike is their sole means of transportation and they had to go a distance beyond the capabilities of their bike's batteries, of course having a generator would allow them to recharge independently and they wouldn't have to depend on a plug-in being available. But the added weight of the generator is going to reduce their bike's range to start with. Again, the generator probably weighs more than the bike itself. If the generator doubles the weight the motor has to pull, it has to lower the efficiency considerably. The solution might be a generator that weighed only 1 or 2 lbs. but had the same output but that won't happen anytime soon. The real solution boils down to a super fast charge like the so-called super capacitor batteries and whether this technology is real or not or is practical or not.

Hi Geek, I've been saying all along that if you regularly ride long distances, an electric bicycle isn't for you. If you need to go more than 20 miles on a regular basis, look elsewhere. In other words, if you live somewhere besides a city, your two choices are either 2-strokes or 4-strokes. So, roughly half or a little less of the US population has no chance to be able to benefit from an electric bike. Hasn't this been what I was saying all along? I'll go reread my previous posts in this thread to make sure, but I'm pretty sure that was pretty much my point. You need to stop ignoring this point, though: while generators are comparatively heavy, they are also extremely easy to remove.

edit:Oh, and I also think that generators are a bit too expensive to only buy for the use you and I have been describing. I would hope that if anyone ever used one like we've described, they already owned the generator, or I believe that in most instances they've wasted their money. They've wasted their money because it would have cost them less money to buy another bike plus a gasoline engine for the second bike. For those few people who already own a lightweight generator like the Honda 1000iA, it makes quite a bit of sense.

edit #2: The generator will be replacing ~4A of output @ 24V. How much farther that gets you depends mostly on your age, it seems. At the very least it would be replacing the amount of extra energy required to move the added weight of the generator.

myocardia said:

Hi Geek, I've been saying all along that if you regularly ride long distances, an electric bicycle isn't for you. If you need to go more than 20 miles on a regular basis, look elsewhere. In other words, if you live somewhere besides a city, your two choices are either 2-strokes or 4-strokes. So, roughly half or a little less of the US population has no chance to be able to benefit from an electric bike. Hasn't this been what I was saying all along? I'll go reread my previous posts in this thread to make sure, but I'm pretty sure that was pretty much my point. You need to stop ignoring this point, though: while generators are comparatively heavy, they are also extremely easy to remove.

edit:Oh, and I also think that generators are a bit too expensive to only buy for the use you and I have been describing. I would hope that if anyone ever used one like we've described, they already owned the generator, or I believe that in most instances they've wasted their money. They've wasted their money because it would have cost them less money to buy another bike plus a gasoline engine for the second bike. For those few people who already own a lightweight generator like the Honda 1000iA, it makes quite a bit of sense.

edit #2: The generator will be replacing ~4A of output @ 24V. How much farther that gets you depends mostly on your age, it seems. At the very least it would be replacing the amount of extra energy required to move the added weight of the generator.

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Also one thing to think is all in all these bikes are thousands of dollars less then what you can buy from suzuki,kawasaki,HD, and triumph. not to mention you get your kicks from actually building them. Another place to check is ebay blach......they have some cheap afordable china girl 1000Watt two stroke portable generators that would be perfect for a backup setup incase you cant snipe a few amp hours from your local convienience store.

I was in another forum doing searches on ebikes in general, and the capacitor question was raised, and the most logical answer was to use the peddles as a form of generator to power the capacitors, to run a alternator/generator from to make electricity as you needed it, and this at most is looking at replacing the battery with an alternate form of power, charging the capacitors to hold enough useable charge to work a electric motor, and it has been done by a german dude that wants to sell them for an arm and a leg, to be precsice a 40k arm or leg, its called the erockit, or e-rockit, something like that, still too much for my e-pocket.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzdNI8geL7w&feature=related

I was thinking that the same thing could be done on a cheaper pocket, possible needs more reserch, but if your motor is lets say a 36v and your generating 48v and the capacitors are 48v, would need a dc to dc converter to step it down to the 36v, i have been looking at this and think that a alternator or 2 would do it, but the only problem is the wieght, most are heavy and bulky.

Most people that ride an ebike, realy dont want the added use of a petrol generator, as its not only still useing fossile fule and old technology, and more to spend, and still polluting the enviroment something that most ebike riders dont want.

I was in another forum doing searches on ebikes in general, and the capacitor question was raised, and the most logical answer was to use the peddles as a form of generator to power the capacitors, to run a generator from to make electricity as you needed it, and this at most is looking at replacing the batter with an alternate form of power, charging the capacitors to hold enough useable charge to work a electric motor, and it has been done by a german dude that wants to sell them for an arm and a leg, to be precsice a 40k arm or leg, its called the erockit, or e-rockit, something like that, still too much for my e-pocket.

When i watched the youtube I felt my wallet snap shut.

I was thinking that the same thing could be done on a cheaper pocket, possible needs more reserch, but if your motor is lets say a 36v and your generating 48v and the capacitors are 48v, would need a dc to dc converter to step it down to the 36v, i have been looking at this and think that a alternator or 2 would do it, but the only problem is the wieght, most are heavy and bulky.

Hi Geek, I've been saying all along that if you regularly ride long distances, an electric bicycle isn't for you. If you need to go more than 20 miles on a regular basis, look elsewhere.

That was my experience - I owned electric for several years, and they were cool and all, but the range was limited. As my riding strength slowly rose, I found that I didn't want an engine that turned into a heavy passenger about 25km into the trip. I sold both my e-bikes and got a normal pushbike and my god was it suddenly a whole lot more useful, the range was easily doubled for the same effort, and the bike was a lot cheaper.

However, pursuant to this thread, I have thought for quite some time that a solution in which the bike used capacitors and regenerative braking, without any other battery at all might still be an improvement on the basic pushbike, at least in my location, which is quite hilly. Here's my reasoning:

It's about smoothing the pedaling required. Human pedaling is efficient in a narrow power band. Hills kill this, after a certain point, a certain steepness. The capacitor only needs to be able to store enough for one hill climb - the largest hill on your route. Energy is then recaptured on the downhill (during which you continue pedaling), and whatever the energy shortfall is, is then gradually recaptured at a very low rate along any flats. Once the cap is full, the recharging drag can be dropped. So the rider doesn't stop pedaling at any point, but because they spend less time at the most inefficient range for the human body, their overall personal energy expenditure is less, and so their effective range and probably average speed too, are improved. The ride is also considerably more comfortable. And the bike has no range limits at all, nor would it ever need recharging (although a recharger would obviously be possible, and you would probably top it up when you got to any resting point, if a power socket was available, which would take a very short amount of time).

I know that the drag and weight losses in this setup are not insignificant - my thinking, however, is that in making the use of the human engine more efficient, the gains might outweigh the losses. The style of riding would probably change a lot - you would come down hills slower, and go up them faster. Which is a safer way to ride, considering the pathetic traction that pushbikes have. One of the main reasons to blast down a hill (other than that it feels awesome and scary) is to build up kinetic energy that you can use on the flat or going up the hill on the other side. But this is quite a wasteful method of energy storage, the wind resistance very quickly balances out all of the potential energy gains. I'd envisage a rider cresting a hill with a depleted cap, switching the thing into aggressive recharge mode, and coming off the top of the hill at no more than average riding speed on the flat, pedaling as they go, until the cap is full (at which point they might as well turn off recharging and maximize the kinetic energy (and save time) by letting the bike reach top speed).

Obviously this setup would not be beneficial on flat terrain, it would really only be extra weight, unless you were going short distances and recharging, or if headwinds were a problem (consider the headwind to be the uphill and the tailwind to be downhill, and similar effort reductions might result, but only for short trips there and back, or ones that zigzag the wind (like a postman might be making)).

I don't know if this would be more efficient than just having an appropriately wide gear ratio for the bike. That's an obvious choice if you have hills that are seriously steep, it's light and cheap. But it doesn't get around the fluctuating speed you get in hilly terrain, with the big energy losses reached at top speed. Essentially I'm describing a bike that strikes me as could be useful in my town, Auckland, for average sized commutes. I would find value in a bike that could climb Queen St once (about 90 meters), with me assisting at a steady output. I'm thinking there are a lot of hilly towns where a similar bike would be useful - San Fransisco, maybe?

No real idea if this idea is viable, if the weight and conversion losses outweigh the human efficiency improvement. Gut feel is that it would depend on the terrain, and the human. A strong rider would laugh at the very thought of missing out on a nice hill climb and the chance to have their heart hit 200bpm. A commuter might like not having to change clothes.

Many a time my hearts got to pumping hard when that battry has fallen flat, and I start to swear at it to no avail, I curse those chinese that made this motor so dang heavy, and curse myself for buying it.

I think that your right about the conversion of losses to what we would gain, and that there are some percentages that will and do occour with it all even with a fully charged battery.
As to having a flat battery on the otherhand is the effect that we wish to remove, and the potential of having at hand some form of generation rather than waiting for the battery to charge would be disireable, but with everything there are pro's and con's and the first thing is to acknowledge that even if a bike is heavy and made the amount of power that still would be desired if the power to wieght was effective .

All it comes down to is can it be done, and from seeing the person ride that e-rocket I think that it can, but I think that the price tag on that is worthy of a lot of swear words directed at that guy, My opinion was that the price was excesive as there are no motorcycls that I know of that anyone would buy that was anywhere near 40k.

I have been looking at some other things that might be some form of generator, but most need to be in the same area of what power can be generated, even if the generator needs to be on a trailer or side car type of setup,,1 that caught my eye was a unit called a bedini generator, just a lot of thinking outside of the box by me mostly, but as it is there is nothing to loose and more to gain in looking and getting more of a knowledge base to what could be done rather than what some people try to say that some things cant be done and dismiss things offhandedly without doing the actual research, and at most, somethings get dismissed from the knowledge base,caused by the laws of thermal dynamics, that law is at most famous for just being famous,,I can qualify this argument by saying that if that law was even anywhere to being accurate that all electric motors wouldnt get hot at all, if that law was anywhere near to being actualy accurate and used to make things that waste power in heat, and most when people refer to that law it only applies to when it can only be used, as it never realy is used and most times used badly and inaccuratly to just assume that its accurate from being at most famous for being famous
Still a lot of research is getting done by a lot of other people that have come to see how much technology is out there that is supressed and can not be taken in to account because they do not follow certain rules and laws, as mentioned thermal dynamics being just 1, erronously, and with this no patents can be submitted as they will not be excepted as the rules and laws are contradicted, and most get put into catagories that mislead and state them as novalty and dismiss them as not real working apparatus to make electrical power.

I keep looking and am hopefull that someting will be able to get used, with research and thinking outside the box.

Sorry for the spelling mistakes,lol.

crow how long ago did you have your electric bicycle? reason i am asking is i had one about 5 years ago and yes i could only get 20 miles it weighed a ton, hard to pedal and slow as a turtle. the technology of these things withen the last 5 years has changed big time. number one is the batteries. the new lifpo4 batttery's are extremly lighter then batteries in the past. my whole set up wieghs only 56.4 pounds. bike and all and i don't have a heavy bike but it is a lower line mountain bike and is not light by mountain bike standards. as far as hills and range i live in the caribbean and their is little to no flat area's i live on the north shore and work on the south shore and yes i have mountains between work and home and do the commute 3 times or more a week. i loose speed on one mountain it is long and steep in some areas and i ussually drop to around 17mph without pedaling. most of the other hills i can keep around 21mph and on the flats it does around 28 to 29 mph but i keep it around 23 to 25mph which is a comfortable speed for me. yesturday i forgot to put the battery on charger at work and went home without charging. i ended up putting 27 miles on the bike without pedaling or a charge and thier was still battery on way home. i imagine not a lot but have no way of knowing. these new batteries do not run down like an old battery. they drop what feels like a full charge to none just like that, no warning. i have the smallest 48 volt battery out thier. it is 48 volt 1,000 watts and 10ah. mike on the forum is building a bike using a 20ah battery and i imagine he will get around 60 miles to a charge. electric is not like gas. our 2 strokes are the same thing they used 50 years ago. electric is constantly changeing with new technology. newer even lighter and stronger batteries are on the horizon. i would venture to say in a few years my electric bike will be outdated with new and better yet equipment. so much research is going into batteries and green living and the electric bicycle comunity will benifit from it

I wonder at the application discrepancy, both "If you need to go more than 20 miles on a regular basis" & worse yet "I didn't want an engine that turned into a heavy passenger about 25km (15.5mi) into the trip"...as replacing it with "...a solution in which the bike used capacitors and regenerative braking, without any other battery..." entails pedaling as your primary propulsion, which while valid - is negated if you consider the above ranges would benefit a massive increase with an equal application of effort.

Simply put, even the "25km/15.5mi" battery range could easily be doubled if the motor was only used half the time and/or at half the speed - or as the above, only when needed for hill assist.

I understand there's weight considerations when utilizing an ebike as an HPV only, yet how much would a capacitive system save? The motor weight isn't negated and a LiFePo4 pack small enough to only have a 15mi range would weigh roughly 8lbs - based on my 48v 1000w motor w/a 16lb 15ah pack & 30mi range (w/o pedal assist).

...so I'm not sure what the advantage would be as it seems that dissatisfied with the range of an electric bike, you'd wish to replace it with a system that has even less range? Please don't take this the wrong way, I embrace tinkering in all it's forms, even just for it's own sake - but I'm struggling to see any benefit over the more traditional battery storage & either pedaling more w/a smaller battery and/or restricted throttle application (as expected with the capacitive system) or simply investing in a battery pack of a greater capacity.

Jut as a BTW, I live in a "hilly, rural area"

To store just 1% of my big battery (1 KWH) that's 10 watt-hours at 48 VDC.

You would need a 30 Farad capacitor. Go check out the size and weight of 30 farad caps. They are popular with the car audio guys and there's lots of them out there. Small problem though, they are rated at 16 volts. So you need 3 in series to make the voltage. And 3 in parallel to make up the capacity.

Now look at 9 of those suckers and tell me how that would work. For a whole 1% of a 25 lb battery that's 6"x6"x12"

You guys have fun with them capacitors -

Yes, there's a bunch of assumptions about the use of it, and how light the capacitors would need to be. They're not there yet, might never be. Whereas batteries are, if you have enough $.

its not hard to build a dc generator that will supply 48 volts at well over 40amps if you so choose to build one. And it can be done with off the shelf parts available at a autoparts store and a place that sells small engines

Thats 2 kilowatts electrical. Would need at least 3 hp mechanical.

Ya might as well power the bike directly off the 3 horsepower engine.

Mike B said:

Thats 2 kilowatts electrical. Would need at least 3 hp mechanical.

Ya might as well power the bike directly off the 3 horsepower engine.

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sure beats a generator with 4amps at 12 volts output now don't it

@CROW
Bedini is , kind of , just a start in a whole new world of electric energy producing/converting contraptions...If your mind is set that way (thinking out of box), you should really look into that stuff (http://www.free-energy-info.co.uk/ would be a good start...). And some guy called Nikola Tesla , solved those problems that bothering us looong time ago. As for capacitors for storing el. energy - yes , they can do the job (Russians had a small fleet of electrical city buses in Moscow and some other city , propelled exclusively by ultra capacitors; working time was 6 hours before recharging time (matter of minutes)). Mind you , cost of those (capacitors) was only affordable to Russians , and the size of one (there was a picture in a article I've read, and I can't find the link-some years ago) was about old 5 gallon motor oil can (don' know about weight).
However , there are different types of capacitors (or super/hyper/mega capacitors , if you like) , just need to do a research on the net. Very important point with capacitors is : those things are discharging instantly. Of course , for use on a bike , it would be controlled by some electronic circuit , but if you touch them inappropriately , or give 'em bad look - you can be fried in a split second (much different than your ordinary battery pack). On the plus point - you can make your own capacitors (providing that you know what you are doing), but , you'll also need to know how to safely harness that power , which , all together means - you are an expert. Capacitors that I'm talking about can be recharged with appropriate aerial and ground connection (home made things) and that system can also recharge the batteries, but , again , it is immense power we are talking about (like tapping in high voltage cables) , and you should have adequate knowledge and OOs of brass to do such a thing. I for sure don't.
Now a little off topic (but it is connected , in a way). E-biking is all about efficiency. More powerful motor , needs more batteries (which are heavy - thus needs more capacity for the same range...etc). A guy (if he is still alive) in my country , invented hydraulic bike , which can go with significant speed at minor effort for pedaling . Even steep uphills weren't a problem for a overweight lady that rode that bike (she was his inspiration and employee) , also with significant speed. What would happen if electric motor (smaller one - like ones for model airplanes) is engaged to rotate hydraulic motor that was attached to the pedals ? If model plane can fly 10-15 mins with small battery pack , at full throttle - how long it could run with e-bike pack ? Now , I don't know anything about hydraulics (someone here might do ? ), but we all know how hydraulic jack works (bike used same principle ) - and there , in my opinion , is the answer for extending range , without setting lots of $$$$ free from the wallet. Note - bike didn't had chain , or gears(as far as I know) , just a motor on the pedal housing and pipes/hoses to actuators on the back and front wheel.
Any ideas ?

zabac70

hydraulic efficient now there is a pipedream
I guess you have no idea how much a hydraulic pump/ motor/ storage tank for fluid and plus the engine to power them weighs? Hydraulic systems are great for moving heavy weights by lifting or pressing not so much as moving by it.
Now if you had done the research you would already know they are using rc battery packs on Ebikes. You would also know that they are using RC airplane motors to power Ebikes both straight to the wheel and through the crank and bikes pedal gears

I'm perfectly aware that people use rc battery packs for e-bikes (I posted about it few years back , while people still used led batts in majority and brushed motors). In previous post , I've used it just to compare energy consumption between big motors (that are used to propel the bike) and little ones , used for smaller model plains.
As for hydraulics - you probably meaning on things that come with big trucks and bulldozers and such... What I'm talking about (unfortunately I can not find the picture of that bike) is the size of little energy drink can (for the motor) and the actuator is bigger in diameter , but much flatter (probably custom made , but not necessarily, since I don't know about it much). Weight isn't significant (judging by it's size and knowing how much ordinary Crystalyte motor weighs). Tank for hydraulic fluid was seated below and behind the seat in a can like shape - not very big (maybe like 1,5 L bottle ?).
For the sake of argument , I'll try to make an example... If you turn hydraulic motor 5 times -you get only one turn at the actuator , but energy(effort) for turning the motor is (more or less) 5 times smaller. Of course - there is 5 times loss in speed (if we disregard all the other losses and forces), so , basically we need to turn the hydraulic motor faster to get desired speed. As we know RC motors are happier in higher revs and they pull less amps if they turn faster. That is where we get better efficiency , because hydraulic "gearing" has less loses than usual chain and gears. Of course , I'm somewhat challenged regarding knowledge about hydraulic components so this may sound silly , but , I'm talking of what I have saw (that was before e-bike expansion). I'll try to get in contact with the guy that patented that thing (and take a pictures , if he permits me) if I find an opportunity , that is if he is still alive , but anyhow I can try with his sons and grandsons (they have a tire repair and selling shop very close to me).

deacon said:

You know that could be the new super hub motor they we are all talking about. They are somehow storing enough batteries inside that hub to make it self contained. A fast charging battery with a super efficient generating capacity in the hub itself might be what is happening with it.

Also that flash recharge has to be in the battery car dvd players technology.

It looks to me like you get about 1 mile of riding from a 1 hour charge from a 1.5 amp charger with an sla battery. All that is a gross estimate, the real numbers are less of course.

Ways to increase that....

1.With a more efficient battery you would get more range per amp hour of charging. The new lithium polymer batteries are much more efficient I'm told

2.a charger that charges at a higher rate. They say the lith charger is at least 5amps. So the charge time would be 12minutes per mile of use. With more miles per amp probably as well.

3.the amount of regenerative energy created would increase the range of the bike as well. If you regenerated energy at a higher number of amps it would factor in. Maybe that is the real secret of the self contained hub.

This is all just guessing I'm no engineer but that seems to me how it would have to work. There is definitely a relationship between all those things. An improvement in any one part would effect the end result. With the push to E cars the improvements should be coming down the pike much faster than before.

I honestly think that the battery and charging improvements will lead because those are applicable to automobiles directly, but so is regenerative technology so that might be right there with the others.

New technology can actually be applied to bikes quicker than it can to autos, I would think. It is less expensive to put that technology on a bicycle i think. In a car you have to gear up a whole plant, For a bike a guy in the garage can do it. Not me of course, but some guy somewhere can do it.

And for the record I wouldn't have a problem tapping into the power grid either. I expect there will be power stations in the parking lots of municipal buildings one day. For me though the ideal would be exchange stations. No muse no fuss, just switch out your used battery for a charged one for a buck, from a vending machine even.

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Looks like an effective technology and I must try it once. It will actually save a lot of power as per your review.