I have been at this game long enough that I don't see any really off topic discussion here. This is all further breakdown of why we need gears on an e bike. Gears are not going away anytime soon. Automatic transmissions are much more likely than transmission elimination. Elimination of gears would require a major rewrite of the e bike regulations.
Why do ebikes need gears?
- Thread starter Cyklefanatic
- Start date
Cyklefanatic
Well-Known Member
Canada may be a small ebike market but our regulations do not force transmission use. In Canada an ebike is limited to 110kg or 260 pounds!!!
. At 110 kg you could add a lot of motor, battery or gearbox. The high weight was put in place to accommodate scooters with lead acid batteries many years ago. They are limited to 32 kph but are Impossible to pedal and look so out of place on any trail or pathway. The weight limit should be reduced but so many businesses have sprung up that work to the letter of the regulation that there would be a lot of push back. They do not serve the ebike market only people who have lost their license or adults who never had a drivers license.
. At 110 kg you could add a lot of motor, battery or gearbox. The high weight was put in place to accommodate scooters with lead acid batteries many years ago. They are limited to 32 kph but are Impossible to pedal and look so out of place on any trail or pathway. The weight limit should be reduced but so many businesses have sprung up that work to the letter of the regulation that there would be a lot of push back. They do not serve the ebike market only people who have lost their license or adults who never had a drivers license.500 Watts and bicycle components, dictates gears.Canada may be a small ebike market but our regulations do not force transmission use. In Canada an ebike is limited to 110kg or 260 pounds!!!
Art Deco
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Selinsgrove Pennsylvania
When I bought my ebikes my friend, the local judge, said I was the first person he knew to buy an ebike that hadn't lost his driver's license first. They still are very rare here.
Lord Zene
New Member
- Region
- USA
I’d like to disagree that the bike market will be later than sooner. Look at this forum for instance and the amount of people working in different ideas here. Most of us can’t afford to get into the electric car game sk we play here we have to use the same principals or Vice versa. I started playing with super capacitors tk help keep my batteries from smoking on heavy dumps it was a couple years later that Tesla bought Maxwell the leader in super caps.I knew I was on to something. I will agree that we are in one hell of a tech renaissance in a way. It’s hard to believe that less than 20 years ago we barely knew what a smart phone was. I’m particularly interested in the battery and super cap development.A "wide range" of RPM is completely relative. Even Teslas have carefully tuned torque curves and efficiency ranges. The only reason a Tesla is such as speed monster down low, is that they start out ludicrously overpowered and give up the top end completely. That's not to say they aren't adequately "fast", but given the performance metrics below 100mph, they should be Bugatti-eaters on the track above it, and they are far from it. They are actually VERY slow above 100mph by supercar standards. And the efficiency at both very low and very high speed is quite poor, and the Tesla REQUIRES active battery cooling systems and complex BMS to keep from total nuclear meltdown when driven hard.
Translate that to a tiny bicycle motor and controller at todays level of technology, and that same performance range drops dramatically. We simply cannot add the weight and complexity of the systems that make a Tesla a decent (but still limited) wide-range performer, so we are stuck using traditional gears for the foreseeable future. Bike tech is going to be a long ways behind the best e-vehicles, and the fast charging needs to truly extend our range even farther, so real efficiency is still a long way off. That's not to say the future isn't bright however. It's a pretty cool time to be alive - technologically speaking.
Boy how unfortunate to have lost all that.A "wide range" of RPM is completely relative. Even Teslas have carefully tuned torque curves and efficiency ranges. The only reason a Tesla is such as speed monster down low, is that they start out ludicrously overpowered and give up the top end completely. That's not to say they aren't adequately "fast", but given the performance metrics below 100mph, they should be Bugatti-eaters on the track above it, and they are far from it. They are actually VERY slow above 100mph by supercar standards. And the efficiency at both very low and very high speed is quite poor, and the Tesla REQUIRES active battery cooling systems and complex BMS to keep from total nuclear meltdown when driven hard.
Translate that to a tiny bicycle motor and controller at todays level of technology, and that same performance range drops dramatically. We simply cannot add the weight and complexity of the systems that make a Tesla a decent (but still limited) wide-range performer, so we are stuck using traditional gears for the foreseeable future. Bike tech is going to be a long ways behind the best e-vehicles, and the fast charging needs to truly extend our range even farther, so real efficiency is still a long way off. That's not to say the future isn't bright however. It's a pretty cool time to be alive - technologically speaking.
Hasaf
Member
On my TSDZ02 (I think I got the section of alphabet soup right) I have experimented when riding into strong winds. There is a point that I can go faster by moving my NuVinci N380 into a lower gear. This would indicate that the dears are needed by the E side of the ebike equation.
Another example, on my Kansas to Utah "Never Plug-In" tour, over several weeks. I regularly used the Nuviunci to trim for speed and power draw. I only had the power my solar panels generated, so that was an essential thing.
Another example, on my Kansas to Utah "Never Plug-In" tour, over several weeks. I regularly used the Nuviunci to trim for speed and power draw. I only had the power my solar panels generated, so that was an essential thing.
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