Seems that everyone is jumping into the eBike market these days as we can see from some recent announcement by Tesla, General Motors and Maserati.
Tesla Electric Bikes?
We know that Elon Musk is always working on something. From electric cars to rockets, and solar energy systems to underground roadways… he’s got a lot going on.
In a recent interview he mentioned that Tesla maybe looking at developing an electric bike, specifically designed to compete with Uber and Lyft ride share systems. No details have been announced but if past experience is anything to go on, we can look forward to some rather interesting technology coming from the Tesla brand,
General Motors Announces New E-bike… and it needs a name.
GM is looking to be very close to launching a new propriety eBike developed by their Urban Mobility Solutions division in Oshawa Ontario.
Under the guidance of director Hannah Parish (who brings a wealth of cycling industry experience to the project) it appear this eBike will be available in two models… one that folds and one that does not.
GM’s CEO Mary Barra said in a press conference that a concept eBike would be “designed to help people stay mobile in an increasingly difficult-to-navigate urban landscape.”
At the current time GM has not released and technical specifications, but based on images it appears that the bike will have a great deal of integration, delivered in a sleek and compact package.
The bike is yet to be named… as such GM has also announced a public naming contest with a rather healthy $10,000 USD for the winner and $1,000 for the other nine finalists.
https://www.ebikebrandchallenge.com/call-for-entries
Bafang Powers New Maserati E-road Bike
From the high-performance world, Maserati has just announced the Trofeo e-race bike which features Bafang’s ultra-compact M800 mid motor.
The Bafang M800 has a 200W power output and a max torque of 55Nm. The claimed total weight of the system is less than 4.4k, including the integrated 200Wh battery, 2.2” TFT display and ‘satellite shifter pods’.
According to the official Maserati press release, ‘Since an e-road bike will very quickly exceed the legal motor assist speed threshold, the drive unit has been tuned to perform optimally when starting off and accelerating on short sprints and steep climbs. But even more important: when the limit is reached, the drive train runs almost resistance free and the rider’s own pedaling effort is not affected.’
The Maserati Trofeo will be available in Europe from Spring 2019 at a suggested retail price of € 9999.
There is no word yet, if this technology will be available in North America. We can hope.
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