Scientists at Stanford University have developed lightweight, pliable batteries that are so light they are compared to feathers. These ultra-light batteries have been described as supercapacitors and resemble paper.
By utilizing carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires, scientists at Sanford have been able to coat a sheet of paper with ink made of the nanotubes. The end result was a storage device that is highly conductive and low cost, not to mention high performance.
Now, before anyone gets too confused on the difference between batteries and capacitors I need to explain the difference:
1. Batteries are great for storing and holding energy for long periods of time until you use them.
2. Capacitors can store the energy also, but they hold the energy for shorter periods of time, while having the ability to discharge the energy much faster!
According to Stanford studies conducted by assistant professor of science and engineering Yi Cui, the university researchers designed and created the nano-batteries by using the nanomaterial that easily sticks like ink to fibrous material. This property makes the batteries far more durable while allowing the batteries to charge and discharge (40,000 charge/discharge cycles) far better than the current state of the art batteries, lithium-Ion.
Some of the benefits of creating these batteries border on the incredible. For one thing, because this material is so thin and durable, you can easily fold the batteries and or crumple them into any shape that you want to. They have even been soaked in basic solutions or acidic solutions while keeping the performance of the batteries intact.
Of course there are obvious applications for these batteries, especially in the realm of electric types of vehicles like electric scoters or even electric bikes. Because the batteries are so light and thin they could easily be pasted to the frame of and e-bike or electric scooter and this would increase electric output while taking off the extra weight caused by the usual storage batteries.
One of the most important facets of electric scooters and ebikes is battery capacity. Over the last 10 years there has been some brilliant advancement in the technology behind the batteries and their capacity. The one thing that you must keep in mind with electric bikes is battery capacity, because it may take some time before technology can improve batteries to the point where they can compete with gas. As I just said, battery capacity is the key. The more efficient the entire system is the greater the distance and longer the charge will last you.
Now for some tips on how you can save energy and reduce the battery output of your electric bicycles charging system.
Here are several basic ways you can add power and recapture energy with your electric bicycle
Pedaling – There are some models of electric bicycles on the market that allow you to charge the batteries while pedaling. The concept is pretty basic, as you pedal the e-bike the power is generated and sent back into the batteries. Of course, this means that you will be pedaling and that while you are charging the pedaling may become harder because of the drag due to a heavier bike and the generator creates more drag as well. However don’t despair, because if you get to a hill you can use the second method of generating electricity for your electric bicycle which is ….
Coasting – Some ebikes have systems that can recharge while you coast on an ebike. The downside to this method, however is that you can’t generate very much electricity using this method because you obviously need to climb a hill to be able to ride down it and generate the electricity and the amount of energy you will spend as well as the slope down will determine how much electricity is generated and stored into the batteries.
Regenerative Breaking – Now, believe it or not, one of the best methods of charging your batteries outside of plugging the darned thing into the wall is by regenerated breaking. Quite simply, this method stores electricity into your batteries by using the breaks. Some of the electric powered cars of the 1990’s had this option, but since the electric car pretty much got squelched, some of the advancements in the technology got shelved and was not improved upon. Once again, there is a downside to this system and that is you don’t normally ride on your breaks. So, once again, there is a limited amount of energy that you will be able to create using this method.
Motor Generating-Last, but certainly not least, is the system of recapturing energy by doing so while the motor is running. However, this method of generating electricity is in the experimental/ development phase right now. Hopefully, by the end of the next decade we will have something like this to look forward to. If it becomes a reality, then the electric bikes and scooters will be greatly enhanced and electric biking and electric scooter use will be something that will be very desirable in most households.
We have only to wait and look forward to the future!
Here is a new website that I found that I think sells a good, high quality product. The name of the company is the Golden Motor company of China and their plant is located just outside of Shanghai. This company carries the latest
in high quality hub motors, batteries, electric scooters and they even sell an electric car kit! Actually the electric car kits are for smaller types of cars like golf carts or ATV’s.
As for the electric hub motors they sell one conversion kit called ” The Magic Pie” This ebike conversion kit is their top of the line electric bicycle conversion which can not only with a hub motor in the back of your electric bicycle but also add one to the front on what Golden Motor calls a”dual hub system”. Golden motor touts itself as a manufacturer of super thin /high torque motors that can give n ebike enthusiast the power and
performance that you would want without draining your wallet.
There are three different hubs that have different power levels 24, 36 or 48 volt systems. You can see the different hub
I get notices from time to time about different sites and shops in the electric scooter or electric bicycle business that are running specials. I love to help people out in these businesses because they have always been so nice to me. I have been moving away from selling other people’s products by way of affiliate programs pretty steadily now so that whenever I endorse a product, I can do so without being biased. I am in no way affiliated with 50 Cycles but I am a friend of theirs by way of this blog, and they have quality products that I love to write about.
I got an email from them and they have stated that they are having a sale of some of the e-bikes that they have had custom built for customers and for some reason the sale did not occur. Now, 50 Cycles is located in England and they sell all sorts of wonderful electric bikes through their Internet site, and I am not sure if they sell internationally outside of the UK. If you are from the U.S. you may want to visit their site and see if you can purchase one of these bargains and have it shipped to you. I’m not sure how much international shipping would be from the UK but 50 Cycles may have a sister store here in the U.S. Either way, it would probably be a good idea to at least look into one of these gems if they are a really good deal.
Here is the link to the 50 cycles site:50 Cycles They also have a pretty good 50 Cycles Blog as well.
This week in Abu Dhabi there is an environmental summit in which corporations and governments from around the world will gather to impress upon each other the commitment to put the planet back in environmental harmony. Worldwide businesses will gather to display the latest in green technologies.
A person like myself can only question and ponder if electric bike enthusiasts and electric scooter fans alike will be represented at this summit. It would be great if there were at least a few electric scooter or electric bike models were present at this important summit. One of the electric vehicles that were talked about at the summit is an electric car that could go about 300 miles on a single charge. This was featured on the CNN site and you can see the clip here: Electric Car at Dubai Summit
As I have stated before, I don’t think humans are heating up the environment I believe that the Earth is probably going through a warming cycle right now and it will probably go through a cooling cycle someday, but I don’t know when. However, I do think that this energy summit is very important, because I don’t like being dependent on oil and I do like to live in a clean environment. So, I guess you can say that I am somewhat of a tree- hugger.
My question is this: If you can get a car to drive almost 300 miles on a single charge, how far can you get an electric scooter or an electric bike to go? It seems to me that over the last four years, batteries have taken a leap forward. Here is an article from Technology Review on a battery breakthrough.
Apparently, there is a Texas company named EEStore that has created a battery that can out perform lithium – ion batteries. The batteries can outperform acid based batteries by almost 10 times, or so the company claims. From what I can see, there is quite a bit of controversy about whether the batteries and the capacitor storage syste can do what they say they can do.
I tried to find out more by going to EEStore’s site, but the site is currently down. Apparently their site is being renovated and will be online very soon. You can find out more about this company from Wikipedia.
Anyway, I am very enthusiastic about the possibilities behind all of this green technology and being an electric bicycle and electric scooter enthusiast, I am very excited to see fine companies pouring the energy into creating products that help us get away from our dependency on oil.
KTM the Austrian sports motor company, is planning on unveiling and producing an electric motor cross bike this year. The company which has grown steadily since 1934, is planning on utilizing lithium ion battery technology which will give the motor bike a duration of about 40 minutes of high energy work. KTM has been involved in off road vehicles considerably in the past and now it plans tom expand itself into the rapidly growing electric scooter and electric bike markets where it will have a definite distribution advantage over other companies that are in a similar niche market.
Not only has the company expoanded into the electric bicycle market but it is also getting involved in the production of light weight cars that they began in 2006 called the X-bow.
In my opinion, I have never seen more beautiful bikes. The craftsmanship that goes into a KTM bike is outstanding. You can easily check out everything on their website here: www.KTM.com
Many electric bike and scooter enthusiasts are thrilled by the prospect of a company of this magnitude and excellence getting involved in these types of electric motor cross bikes. We can only hold our breath once again and expect ebikes to take another giant leap in technology when this caliber of company gets involved in the industry.
Now that we are fast into the new year, I thought that I would challenge you all in the electric bike community to try to make a New Year commitment to something other than losing weight. If you have been reading this blog at all you will probably know that I don’t believe that humans are heating the Earth. As a matter of fact, I DO believe the Earth is heating up slowly as part of a regular pattern that the Earth simply goes through on its own. However, I still believe in keeping the environment clean, because I like to have a nice clean place to live. Trust me, if I had my way we would be living under the ground in cool homes like the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings and have a pristine environment so, I am sort of a tree huger myself.
Anyway, I want to challenge as many of you as I can to use greener technology and either used an electric bike or an electric scooter this year. One of the cheaper methods of doing this is to use an electric bike kit. You can actually get a high quality ride by buying one of these and hooking them up to your bicycle, provided ypu get and match the correct size wheel bub to your frame. (Not a hard thing to do at all, trust me.)
I wanted to highlight a couple of these electric bike kits in this blog post. Some of you may like the kits that I have decided to write about and some of you might hate them. I have scoured the Internet to find the most popular electric bicycle kits that are out there and report on them so that if you are going to take me up on this challenge then you can make an intelligent buying decision.
The first kit I want to highlight in this series is the Crystalyte Roadrunner Brushless Bicycle Hub Motor Kit. This kit not only propels you on an electric powered bicycle, but it also assists you in your peddling power if you desire to do that as well. Basically the Crystalyte Roadrunner kit gives you the option to just pedal or assist your pedaling or use the electric motor all by itself. You can have the best of all three worlds!
Now, in case you don’t know much about brushless motors, I can give you a summary in just a nutshell. The brushless motor is a sealed environment and because they have no internal conecting parts then the maitainence on these types of electric bike motors is pretty much non existant. I can tell you that the power of this electric motor (torque) is pretty strong and it is great for making it up hills and carrying loads.
The Roadrunner has two versions that you can purchase. One model is the 4825 system and it has about a 1.8 horsepower motor that can get you up to about 24 miles per hour. One of the cool things about these kits are all of the options that you can get. For example, You can have a selection of a 16″ single walled, or a 20″, 24″, or 26″ double walled rim. On the throttle you can either have the full twist or the half twist option. There are also other options like a cruise control, a brake inhibitor and a host of other features that makes this kit a real good buy.
I believe that a picture is worth a thousand words and a video is worth a bazillion words, so here is a video for you to look at on the Crystalyte Roadrunner Brushless Bicycle Hub Motor Kit:
Good morning shoppers, we still have about nine days of shopping left before Christmas and you can still get that special electric bicycle for someone that you love. Don’t worry if you can’t get to a bicycle shop that sells ebikes, though because you now go to Walmart to get one of the more popular, economical models that is on the market today.
Yep, that’s right. You can now get the E-Zip 2008 Trailz Hybrid Electric Bike for both men and women from Walmart at a very reasonable price. It was bound to happen sooner or later, that major corporations, like walmart were going to start representing the more popular brands and actually, the Ezip Currie Technologies, the company that created the Ezip as well as an entire line of electric bicycles, probably couldn’t be happier. However, Currie didn’t just stop at selling to just the big guys like Walmart, rather than just sell wholesale to large businesses, Currie is now selling their entire line directly to consumers as well.
Now, before everyone gets their panties in a wad and starts sending me comments about how this is just a standard piece of equipment not worthy of being noticed by the elite, ebiker jet-set, let me stop you right there. Is this the most elite ebike in the world?
Probably not.
Is the E-Zip 2008 Trailz Hybrid Electric Bike the top of the line, state of the art ebike that you can buy on the market today?
Probably not.
However, I can tell you that you are going to spend upwards of about $2000 for a Rolls Royce version of an electric bike much less the fact that you will be buying it from a company that is probably not located in your town, which means you are spending good money without actually seeing too much of what your are purchasing.
On the other hand, if you are looking for a good quality electric bicycle that has all of the standards and features that you will need for average use then the E-Zip 2008 Trailz Hybrid Electric Bike will work for you just fine. Not only will it easily meet most people’s requirements but it won’t break the bank either. Currently, the Ezip Trailz is running for a mere $349.00 and you really can’t beat the price.
Some of the more prominent features of the Ezip Trailz:
PAS/TAG technology: This means that you can use the ebike with the motor only or with motor assisted power. You can pedal while you are using the battery which can increase your range.
It has an easy comfort design which will make your ride far more comfortable than many bicycles on the market.
Rack-mounted SLA battery for easy swapping. In other words, you can take the battery off and put a fresh charged up battery in with no fuss.
A 7-speed geared system.
Rear rack so that you can carry groceries, dogs and other stuff. ( Just kidding about the dog part.) You can also add a second battery (sold separately) for added range.
The E-Zip Trailz utilizes an exclusive 24 vilt Currie Technologies controller.
The charger is a UL listed Currie charger with an LED display so you can see when your battery is charged.
The frame has a unisex high comnfort design made of high tensile steel.
Really, when you consider all of the features that you would derive from theE-Zip, you have to hand it to Currie Technologies. I know many electric bike enthusiasts will probably decry my praise of this bike, but when you consider that you are getting 450 watts of power that can carry you a range of about 15 to 22 miles on a single charge, this really is a great feat of technology considering the price. The case can easily be made that for many ebikers and especially those of us that are getting their first electric bicycle, you really don’t want to shell out loads of money the first time around.
One other thing I want to mention, is the fact that this bike, despite its cheaper price, is a high quality electric bicycle. It has a nice design, it is pretty easy to maintain and most of the reviews I have read in many of the forums, have been pretty positive. Yes, there were some ebike “elitists” that get real freaked out by a standard model, but for most of us that is all we will ever need or can afford.
This guy says to his neighbor, ” I’m going to have to get rid of my dog, he chases anyone on an electric bike.”
“That’s a pretty strange problem,” says the neighbor. “What do you propose to do about it?”
“I guess I’ll take away his batteries.”
I hope that I can impart some good advice about electric bicycles rather than stun you with my brilliant wit and humor about the subject. However, these days with many people pinching pennies while trying to purchase an electric bike ( or e-bike for those of us in the know) it makes pretty good sense to educate yourself before you make a purchase. As you have already heard, “knowledge is power” in this case e-bike power in the form of consumer power.
Usually, the first problem a new e-bike enthusiast or e-biker (e-biker- wow that has pizazz! I wonder if it will catch on!) is confusion and disorientation that occurs when a consumer is confronted by the prospect of so many brands and styles of electric bicycles. This is also discounting the fact that you can also buy e-bike conversion kits which I talked about in my last several posts.
I think that buying an ebike should be very similar with the way you would purchase a car. You can consult consumer guides and look for brands that are very popular and mainstream for starters. However, you have to think about what process you go through when buying a car. For one thing, is comfort important to you? What type of performance are you expecting in terms of terrain, weather and distances?
It would be wise to suggest to novice e-bikers that in the same manner that you would consider these performance features on a car, you should likewise consider the same with an electric bike.
One of the challenges that a consumer may have to consider when buying an electric bike is that because the technology is relatively new, most of the brands are new also. Also, there are companies in the U.S. and abroad that sometimes make substandard models. The best way for you, as a new e-biker, to learn about the best e-bikes for the money is to read, research, test and ask other people that are knowledgeable. At this point however, it should be noted that if you ask deal;ers of electric bikes on the Internet what they think, they will almost always tell you that their electric bike or ebike conversion kit is the best one since sliced bread.
Even though these challenges face most consumers of ebikes, you can still make an educated decision on how to buy one of them. So, in short order I am going to drop a couple of words of wisdom and advice to you can follow in order to insure that you get exactly what you are looking for. (Consider this an early Christmas present!)
One of the first factors to consider on an electric bicycle is the weight. Essentially, the weight of an electric bike is influenced by the heaviest components which are the batteries, hub motor and the frame. Whenever I look back at the start of this electric bike -n- scooter website, I am amazed at all of the changes and improvements that have been made since the inception of this site. The main advance has been lightening of the load. In particular, the weight of the frame, batteries and motor have all three been lightened, thus making distances and endurance much greater and less taxing.
When you consider these factors there are elements of the electric bike that need to be thought about. If you are going to be riding on rugged terrain, then a heavier frame will be needed, conversely, if you are going to be riding just on the street, then you will not need to worry about the frame being too heavy.
Motors are also becoming lighter and more powerful as a result of better technology. Awhile back, you had to be careful in inclement weather because the motors would go haywire due to getting wet. However, many of the motors today are waterproof and you don’t need to worry about what type of weather to ride them in. Motors usually come in two flavors, AC and DC. i could literally get into all of the nuances of electric bike motors but most of the advice I have boils down to this: the goals you have for your ebike ( like terrain, grade, distance and weather) and power that will be available. Don’t forget about cost either. After all the higher quality and better performing ebikes will run you more than cheaper or even foreign made models.
Most of the electric bicycles on the market today utilize brushless hub motors. These are motors that exist on the back wheel at the center and extremely beneficial for many reasons. First of all they are self contained and sealed, which makes them excellent for repelling water. You really don’t need to worry about what type of weather you are riding in. Another benefit of the brushless hub motor is that because they are located on the rear wheel, they do not place extra unwanted weight on the electric bike. The potor is actually a moving part of the bike which takes some of the strain off the entire system. Another great thing about this type of motor is the fact that it makes it real easy to replace a motor. All you have to basically do is pop off the rear wheel and pop on the new motor. It’s easy as 1 – 2 – 3! Not only is the weight on the center of the back wheel, thus making the bike easier to balance, but it overall makes the ebikke look really nice.
So,lets make a list of what I have covered so far.
1. Don’t get confused. Get educated and learn about e-bikes before you purchase one
2. Remember, many of the brands are new, so they may or may not have a good track record yet
3. Consider frame weight when you buy your ebike. What will you be using the electric bike for?
4. What type of weather will you be riding in?
5. How far will you be riding?
6. How often will you be riding?
7. Remember hub motors are the best buy for the money
8. If you want a higher quality bike then you will probably pay more
In my next post, I am going to cover batteries extensively as well as the controller aparatus on the ebike so, make sure you are here for the second part of my guide to purchasing electric bicycles.
Last Septmber, Jeremy Cleland who is a product manager at Mission Motors, an electric bike company declared that his electric bike prototype could hit around 150 MPH. Well, it turns out that Jeremy was wrong the ebike didn’t just hit 150 but 160 MPH!!! If you want to check out the entire electri bicycle article you can click on the link provided here: Mission Motors Electric Bikes.
Mission was apparently working on a new model called the 300 which will be a street legal electric bike that wil be unveiled in the year 2010. You can be one of the first by reserving a limited edition of the ebike at Mission by going to the company’s web site at www.ridemission.com
Personally, I would like to see an ebike that had longer lasting charges and greater distances, but I am hoping the progres in speed and the experimentation will lead to greater jumps in ebike technolgy. Anyone else have an an opinion on this?
According to Stanford studies conducted by assistant professor of science and engineering Yi Cui, the university researchers designed and created the nano-batteries by using the nanomaterial that easily sticks like ink to fibrous material. This property makes the batteries far more durable while allowing the batteries to charge and discharge (40,000 charge/discharge cycles) far better than the current state of the art batteries, lithium-Ion.
friend of theirs by way of this blog, and they have quality products that I love to write about.
scooter or an electric bike to go? It seems to me that over the last four years, batteries have taken a leap forward. Here is an article from 
