You do not have to be very old to remember a time when there were no electric bikes . Or at least , no commercially available ones .I personally have experimented with electric bikes since the 1970s . I was always experimenting with different technologies , and virtually all the raw materials were scrounged from the local dump . For political reasons , that source of supply has dried up , but that is a story for another day . The first successful electric bike , was based on a Corgi . This was not a dog , but a motor scooter originally developed for use by paratroopers in warfare . We found this corgi on the dump with no engine or transmission . We powered it with a ford starter motor friction driving the rear wheel , and energised by a big car battery . It had a speed of about 8 MPH , and , surprisingly , a range of about 5 miles . We rode it on a disused airfield . After lots of fun , we abandoned it because the dog chewed the tyres . I realised that what was needed was a more efficient motor , and a better drive . Over the years i tried every motor I could find , including 4 car heater motors at the same time . Success was finally achieved by using a motor from a most unlikely source . It was the motor from a Phillips washing machine ! These motors are a DC motor with rare earth magnets as the field . In the wash part of the cycle they run on 24 volts , and on spin cycle , 230 volts . The motor weighs about 8 pounds . I realised I would need at least 24 volts and preferably 48 . The only batteries I had were small car batteries ! . I built a recumbent trike to carry the weight . It was front wheel drive through a multivee belt onto sturmey archer 3 speed hub . So the motor had 3 gears . It would do about 14 MPH with a range of at least 20 miles . Stopping it was the big problem . It was strictly illegal , overweight and no pedals . It was impressive enough for two of my mates to make copies of it . We used to go out for rides together , and the local coppers used to stop and chat with us !
Now what i am really getting at , is this . There was no one invention that lead to commercial electric bikes , it was really a combination of things coming together . The first , was better magnets , first the ferrite magnets and then the Neodymium ones . Then we had the development of power FETs . And microchips . Then the availability of Sealed Lead Acid Batteries . Then , brushless motors . Of course battery development is still ongoing , with no reason to believe that we are where we want to be . The 200 mile , low cost lightweight battery is yet to come , and it may yet be a capacitor instead of a battery . We have seen evolution . The revolution may be yet to come . What do YOU think ?
