Claims to never run out or power and can recharge 70% of the battery if you maintain 10 mph

 

Self Charge E-bike

What a load of nonsense. 'Self-charging' ebikes are nothing new (a nonsense concept in itself) and regenerative braking is as old as the electric motor.

What a load of nonsense. 'Self-charging' ebikes are nothing new (a nonsense concept in itself) and regenerative braking is as old as the electric motor.

 

Its not regenerative braking though its a hub motor that does the charging so they say

Its not regenerative braking though its a hub motor that does the charging so they say

But that's exactly what regenerative braking is. Engage and pedal and you've got a 'self-charging' bike.

You can't create energy only transfer it, so where is all that extra power coming from....three guesses.

(Clue) How strong are your leg muscles.

Seems all over the place to me.

 

28kg? Without pannier-rack, lights, mudguards etc?

 

5kg heavier than the fully loaded Cube Touring bikes (and they are pretty heavy).

 

OK so how does it recharge?

We know that regenerative breaking isn't worth the weight. Can they use the motor in reverse as a dynamo then?

And the plan is to charge it 'when freewheeling downhill'?

No-one is going to want to pedal that weight uphill or on the flat against dynamo resistance to charge up the battery, so it's a downhill only option. Won't that make it feel, on an MTB trail, that your brakes are permanently on?

 

Also a 7 speed mountain bike??

 

And those battery ranges don't look that good - is that meant to be with the battery self-charging function or without?

I've got that feature on my KTM eRace P hub drive - only ever use it going downhill if ever - using it otherwise kind of defeats the point of an assisted pedelec...

 

You can make any electric bike self-charging. Just put a small direct drive motor in a wheel that doesn't already have one. Connect the three phase wires to a three phase rectifier and add a regulator, or you can use a spare controller that has regen. As soon as you start to move, the DD motor will start charging the battery.

 

If you add a motor that's bigger than the driving motor, your battery will never run out. Bon voyage!

 

Another thing you can do is get a a long piece of 6mm threaded bar and mount two 18" propellers from an R/C model shop, one at each end. Install the bar along your bike held on two bearings. A thrust bearing on the front would be best. When you pedal along, the wind will turn the front propeller, which will drive the rear one around and push you along. You don't even need a motor.

 

If you want to get even more technical, you can use one of these devices to drive your bike. they don't need any charging, nor any battery. you can get the magnets on Ebay very cheap.

 

Easier solution is to fit a really big rear wheel, then you’ll always be going down hill. Simples

The person in that video is a moron.

The person in that video is a moron.

Crikey, you can tell that just from their hand. Was it the fingerprints or the scars? I better not show my face then.

Claims to never run out or power and can recharge 70% of the battery if you maintain 10 mph

 

Self Charge E-bike

It's a crowd funded project, I see they have 1 backer with $10 for the $10,000 enterprise so far with 29 days left. Shipments start in August so they're going to be VERY busy in July!

I also see that one of their 4 man management team is David, the Director of Photography - just what you need in an innovative ebike company eh?

I find the general lack of knowledge and understanding of basic physics astounding. It's what allows B.S. like this to gain any traction at all.

Maybe schools are still managing to make a fascinating subject as boring as they did in my day, but a life of curiosity and forensic observation can overcome.

To be fair, they're not selling a perpetual motion machine, it's just that they are "pedalling" a system that is much inferior to just using the extra weight for a bigger battery or ditching it for a lighter bike. Either would give them better range.

 

But it's the 28 kg 7 speed 'mountain bike' spec I can't get over

 

And to be fair to Dave the photographer, the mock up looks great. Compared to the designer and engineering team, he's knocked the ball out of the park!

I thought that the idea of an electric bike was to use electricity from a battery to make the bike easier to pedal, not to have to pedal harder than a normal bike to put electricity into a battery.

If the process of turning mechanical energy to electric energy and back was efficient enough it could be worth it. It could flatten out the hills in the sense of requiring the same user input on hill or on the flat; it would just be that the user input required would be much higher on the flat than a cycle without; basically like always going up a not very steep hill. That might be worth it for people who otherwise couldn't make it up the steeper hills.

 

However, there aren't many people who (a) can't make it up hills but (b) want to ride far enough battery range is an issue and © are willing to pay the efficiency and added weight price of treacle on the flat. Maybe not any such people? For others a conventional ebike or conventional bike will be the better answer. Especially given the efficiency is likely to be low and the weight likely to be high.

I did consider the theoretical possibility of painting the bike in some paint that converts sunlight into electricity.

You park the bike in the sun and gets something like 20W-30W trickle charge 5 hours a day, 100WH-150WH charge, that's enough for commuting purpose.

The thing is, this monster weighs 28kg!!

 

Whatever the added weight of the additional battery charging gear is there are two much better design philosophies.

 

One is simply use it for more battery.

 

The other is to reduce weight (the Orbea Gain philosophy) so you need to use less battery assist in the first place.

 

Now if regenerative breaking gear was very lightweight, cheap and reliable you could just about see it as worth having as an option for when you're freewheeling downhill and would have to brake anyway - free energy is free energy after all. But that scenario isn't actually that common on a lot of rides and the fact that basically no ebike manufacturers have thought this worthwhile suggests that it isn't worth it.

 

And certainly the enormous weight of this bike suggests this mob haven't cracked it either.

 

Though we do like Dave's photos!

The thing is, this monster weighs 28kg!!

 

Whatever the added weight of the additional battery charging gear is there are two much better design philosophies.

 

One is simply use it for more battery.

 

The other is to reduce weight (the Orbea Gain philosophy) so you need to use less battery assist in the first place.

 

Now if regenerative breaking gear was very lightweight, cheap and reliable you could just about see it as worth having as an option for when you're freewheeling downhill and would have to brake anyway - free energy is free energy after all. But that scenario isn't actually that common on a lot of rides and the fact that basically no ebike manufacturers have thought this worthwhile suggests that it isn't worth it.

 

And certainly the enormous weight of this bike suggests this mob haven't cracked it either.

 

Though we do like Dave's photos!

28Kg isn't an outrageous weight, it's typical of many of the larger ebikes coming out of Germany from R&M for example.

 

My rides have lots of ups and downs, that's why I bought an ebike, so I'd benefit from being able to recharge the battery on the downhill bits but I suspect the Wh gained might not be that great. The engineering challenge would be how to engage the motor/generator while freewheeling so this would probably preclude using a crank motor.

You park the bike in the sun and gets something like 20W-30W trickle charge 5 hours a day, 100WH-150WH charge,

 

What sun? This is England in June!

.

 

Whatever the added weight of the additional battery charging gear is

 

...

 

Now if regenerative breaking gear was very lightweight, cheap and reliable you could just about see it as worth having as an option for when you're freewheeling downhill and would have to brake anyway - free energy is free energy after all. But that scenario isn't actually that common on a lot of rides and the fact that basically no ebike manufacturers have thought this worthwhile suggests that it isn't worth it.

 

 

Assuming you already have a direct drive hub motor, the 'additional battery charging gear' usually weighs nothing. If you want to, you can design it to use the existing hardware. Mostly its a software thing.

Some ebike manufacturers HAVE already implemented it years ago.

I won't say it's a sham, but if self charging was realistic, don't you think Shimano, Bosch or Yamaha would have come out with one?

'Self-charging' (regen) is already realistic, but only if you're already committed to a direct drive motor. At that point, everything required to implement it would be present, so would be silly not to.

Edited June 17, 20196 yr by danielrlee

I won't say it's a sham, but if self charging was realistic, don't you think Shimano, Bosch or Yamaha would have come out with one?

 

BionX notably have for years had regenerating direct drive rear hub motors. They have four switched power levels and four switched regen levels, so the regen use and amounts are optional.

 

Owners are split on the regen feature, some use it and say it's valuable, others say it's not worth bothering. I think that's more down to the individuals and differing circumstances than the quality of the feature.

 

Regeneration hasn't been helped by some very poor implementations over the years, giving it an unduly bad reputation for high drag with little energy recovery.

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BionX notably have for years had regenerating direct drive rear hub motors. They have four switched power levels and four switched regen levels, so the regen use and amounts are optional.

 

Owners are split on the regen feature, some use it and say it's valuable, others say it's not worth bothering. I think that's more down to the individuals and differing circumstances than the quality of the feature.

 

Regeneration hasn't been helped by some very poor implementations over the years, giving it an unduly bad reputation for high drag with little energy recovery.

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The hillier the terrain the more useful it would be I suspect.