Future of Drivetrains, No Gears, No Chain.

[PedalUma]

No chain, no belt to maintain. No gears. All the feel and with regen.

 

[6zfshdb]

No chain, no belt to maintain. No gears. All the feel and with regen.

Interesting idea but how do you get home with a dead battery or electrical failure? With a chain, at least you could pedal the bike back.

 

[PedalUma]

Interesting idea but how do you get home with a dead battery or electrical failure? With a chain, at least you could pedal the bike back.

The thing is all you need to do is pedal the generator with a spent battery. Because you are always pedaling, the battery does not go flat. The battery is not even really needed, because it acts only as a reservoir. Electrical failure would only be due to something like sabotage.

 

[Chargeride]

How much energy loss do you want?

Yes.

 

[6zfshdb]

I think that's the theory, but I find it hard to believe a generator that small with it's inherent efficiency loses can create enough wattage to power the bike on it own. I suppose you could remain stationary and crank the generator to charge the battery though.

I suspect that generator simply provides power to a controller, similar to the way a torque or cadence sensor operates. I'd have to see a wiring diagram to be sure.

 

[RunForTheHills]

The efficiency doesn't really matter, because the people who will buy it don't really want to pedal hard. They are interested in a moped. This Rivian ebike is actually getting a lot of interest (not from me, though):

 

[PedalUma]

How much energy loss do you want?

Yes.

There is energy loss with any drivetrain. Here you get re-gen and reverse.

 

[kevinmccune]

Interesting idea but how do you get home with a dead battery or electrical failure? With a chain, at least you could pedal the bike back.

would imagine most of the time it would be a push me,coast me thing I cant see myself pedaling a dead ebike up any kind of upgrade,found this out when I mistakenly ran my old full suspension bike out of juice. I like the idea of electric coupling,a lot of the "broasters" do too.

 

[stompandgo]

The efficiency doesn't really matter, because the people who will buy it don't really want to pedal hard. They are interested in a moped. This Rivian ebike is actually getting a lot of interest (not from me, though):

Rivian, the company, is fighting for survival.

 

[stompandgo]

Rivian lost $3.6B last year.

 

[Chargeride]

Early days, electric cars are what they are, two minutes of research will reveal their limitations and strengths.
Apart from the explodytoxicgassy bit they are of a mechanical simplicity that approaches an absolute.
All the problems are scale, can we charge 100K cars?
How about a million?
To make it work we have to hand our freedom to a spreadsheet, we need to use our washing machines when the grid says so.
Or we could ask ourselves why we always need to be somewhere else