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Invention Makes Citibikes Electric
An anonymous reader writes "Inventor Jeff Guida has come up with a way to turn any Citibike into an electric scooter. His ShareRoller is about the size of a small briefcase, weighs just seven pounds, and has a 12- to 20-mile range. From the article: '"Years ago, I would've needed a giant engineering company and several million dollars in development research and it still would've taken two years or more," Guida said. But 3D printing has changed all that. In the coming months, Guida hopes to design a universal bracket so that the ShareRoller can be used on any bike. He has some competition there, as there are a few companies that make wheels that convert regular bikes into electric bikes, but he says the ShareRoller is more convenient.'"
Oh, right. They are too cheap and reliable. We need big business to be able to make money on bicycles, otherwise they are just toys.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
I remember these designs. They absolutely stripped the tread off the rear wheels within a few hundred miles of using them, and kept the local bike shops in serious business replacing wheels. Not tires: the wheels.
I hope they have ironed out all the flaws that plagued roller drive systems in the past. Like heavy tyre wear, heavy roller wear, only certain tread profiles working with the roller, the drive slippage in the wet and the inefficient power transfer.............
The US is one of the top few countries with the most overweight populations in the whole world. It's got massive levels of obesity, and health problems coming from weight and lack of exercise. It has a childhood obesity epidemic along with associated problems like diabetes.
The very LAST thing it needs is one more way to take an enjoyable, healthy form of exercise and.... give people a way to avoid the exercise part.
Sinclair Zeta from 2004:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/g8koe/c5martin/zeta.htm
Look, years ago I saw some guy cobbled together a chainsaw motor to friction-drive the rear wheel of a pedal bicycle. No giant, multi-million dollar two year project there, and no 3D printers either.
This incessant trumpeting of 3D printing as some kind of revolution is tiresome.
For over a grand it seems like you could get a second hand scooter or something.
Yeah pretty much. Also, being fat makes the bike way to top heavy, and I fall over a lot.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Some of the ideas put forth are old. Motor assist for pedal bicycles has been around practically since small gas engines were available. Electric assist is newer, but still not by much. Battery and solid state technology are making it much more capable than what we had even a few decades ago.
What is interesting is combining all this into a unit which can be installed "in seconds". That opens its use up to some applications for which motor assist may not have made much sense in the past.
Oh, and all the carping about 3D printing? Sure, its not economic for mass production. But it has its place for smaller shops who need too knock off a few prototypes quickly and cheaply. Once the design is finalized, more traditional fabrication techniques can be used.
Have gnu, will travel.
If they make it compatible with bicycles that fold into a car trunk, it could reduce drunken driving. People who find themselves too drunk to drive could rent drivers to take them home. These drivers would arrive in a folding electric bike, fold their bike and put it in the trunk, take the sensible drunk home and return on the electrified bike. They could do it in a regular bike too, but with some electric assist more people would be interested.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
That's why the article says this: "For legal reasons, the ShareRoller won't engage when you're at a standstill, so I had to pedal a couple of times before I could engage the 1.0 horsepower motor with a handlebar-mounted throttle."
The law banning electric bikes does not apply unless the motor "is capable of propelling the device without human power." Here, it's not (although it doesn't sound like it needs much human power).
That still doesn't mean this is legal to use. It's possible the Citibike agreement bans (or will ban) their use. Probably won't result in a fine, but it could result in a ban. And money damages if the device does cause excess tire wear. But the general NYC ban on electric bicycles doesn't apply.
Tire-drive systems are useless in the wet.
If you're impling that shops are taking advantage of people and selling them a new entire wheel, that's way, way down the "low" scale. I don't know a bike shop around that would replace rear wheel instead of replacing the tube and tire, unless the person damaged the rim by riding on it for too long with a flat tire; if you chew up the edge of the rim, it'll slowly destroy the sidewall of the tire.
Another reason rear wheel replacements can become necessary: most inexperienced cyclists brake exclusively with their rear brake, falsely believing that braking with the front brake will result in instant death/them being thrown from the bike. On bicycles with rim brakes, braking wears the edge of the rim, especially in places where it rains or snows (road sand etc.) Eventually the rim wears past the safety limit (on most modern wheels, there is a machined notch half-way on the brake track. If you can't feel it, your rim is too worn.) If you're the second or third owner and a bike is a decade old, having to replace a rim isn't unreasonable, as it's one of the wear components, just like the brake rotors on your car.
If you've got a nice hub and spokes, you can have a shop just replace the rim. Labor can start to become a factor, although a hand-built wheel is usually better built than a lot of machine-built wheels (ie what they'll pull off the rack.)
For example, if I were to destroy the rim on my bike (in a way that wouldn't have damaged the spokes), which has a generator hub to power the lights, and double-butted spokes...I would almost certainly just have the shop buy a new rim and re-lace everything to the new rim.
Please help metamoderate.
Yep, I have a bike and 8 miles is about it. I'm too fat and not quite up to much more than 8 miles. I also have a condition in my left hip, where statin drugs attempted to devour all the muscles in the left side of my body a few years ago, and that hip gets tired waaaay early, and is uncomfortable. It yells, "I'm tired... I'm tired.... I'm tired" in my brain even walking around a food store sometimes, and I have to take it easy. There's LOTS of people with some weirdity that keeps them from performing athletics like bike riding. BTW, if you can avoid taking statin drugs, do so, as the are ing dangerous.
Seriously am I the only person who has been to China? E-bikes are the most common form of transport in most cites in China and retail at about USD $400. His unit is $1200 and has less features that a $400 e-bike. Does no one do their homework anymore before launching a new product?
"Years ago, I would've needed a giant engineering company and several million dollars in development research and it still would've taken two years or more,"
horseshit, its batteries in a box with a motor, everything that was made on that 3d printer could have been fabricated with hand tools and some metal flashing found at the hardware store, even with paint and the trip there and back, still would have taken less time to make.
Whatsamatter, fattie, can't pedal for more than 5 minutes without having a coronary?
I expected more math literacy on Slashdot. Silly me.
12 to 20 miles at a top speed of 16 MPH is an hour (+-25%).
That's up and down the steep hills of San Francisco, of course, in all sorts of weather. Do you want to try it - twice a day, to and from work in rush hour traffic? (Didn't think so.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It mentions 18 miles per hour in the article for the top speed, but I wonder if that's for 'not' or 'barely' pedaling. Can it take somebody with a max speed of 15mph pedaling on their own and get them up to 20 if they're really working at it?
but to fat and lazy to actually ride a bike enough to be in good enough shape to travel 20 miles without breaking a sweat.
Consider that there's a lot of work and sweat between 'fat&lazy' and 'slim&active'. Most people have limited choice about distance from work. A device that gets them started, to actually do it, can be of great assistance. I know there's a few hills where I would have liked this thing just for that spot. I'd still have to help it up, of course.
What about the guy who needs to travel 30 miles, and this is the difference between him biking and driving?
In other words, biking shouldn't be about exclusivity.
Selling millions - Not if it can only fit on one bike type. Fix that and maybe.
I don't read AC A human right
Yep, 3D printing, were the per unit price is likely 10x more than other techniques ...
That goes well with the one-grand-plus pricetag for a device that should be selling for a couple hundred bux or less in mass production.
If this catches on I expect to see an injection-molded version closer to the price I mentioned. Either this guy will go to that as he ramps up or the Chinese/Koreans/whatever will have a knockoff out in a few months after it catches on.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It's a stupid law, but a law none-the-less.
19-176.2. Motorized scooters. a. For purposes of this section, the
term "motorized scooter" shall mean any wheeled device that has
handlebars that is designed to be stood or sat upon by the operator, is
powered by an electric motor or by a gasoline motor that is capable of
propelling the device without human power and is not capable of being
registered with the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. For the
purposes of this section, the term motorized scooter shall not include
wheelchairs or other mobility aids designed for use by disabled persons.
b. No person shall operate a motorized scooter in the city of New
York.
c. Any person who violates subdivision b of this section shall be
liable for a civil penalty in the amount of five hundred dollars.
Authorized employees of the police department and department of parks
and recreation shall have the authority to enforce the provisions of
this section. Such penalties shall be recovered in a civil action or in
a proceeding commenced by the service of a notice of violation that
shall be returnable before the environmental control board. In addition,
such violation shall be a traffic infraction and shall be punishable in
accordance with section eighteen hundred of the New York state vehicle
and traffic law.
d. Any motorized scooter that has been used or is being used in
violation of the provisions of this section may be impounded and shall
not be released until any and all removal charges and storage fees and
the applicable fines and civil penalties have been paid or a bond has
been posted in an amount satisfactory to the commissioner of the agency
that impounded such vehicle.
http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/LAWSSEAF.cgi?QUERYTYPE=LAWS+&QUERYDATA=$$ADC19-176.2$$@TXADC019-176.2+&LIST=SEA2+&BROWSER=BROWSER+&TOKEN=35384350+&TARGET=VIEW
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
So you start with 3D printing for your prototypes and small production runs, then if/when you get enough orders to justify it you get someone to make an injection mould.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
NYC [treats] electric bikes [as] illegal [... No] (lights, signals, VIN numbers, etc).
But this box DOES have lights, as the ilustration clearly shows. Looks like it has signals, too, though that's not clear. (There are rear-facing lights, too.)
As another has already pointed out, it's designed so you have to start up manually before the motor will cut in, to make it escape the definition of a motor vehicle.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Here, it's not (although it doesn't sound like it needs much human power).
Yeah. The startup thing aside, after reading the NYC law I wonder how it'd handle an electric bicycle that uses some sort of strain sensor to decide how much 'assist' to give the rider. IE you could set it to 100% and it'd try to match the power the user is putting into the bike, 200% would be if you're old and out of shape, 50% if you just need a bit of assistance to get there on time/up that hill, etc...
It'd work a bit like those grid-tie solar systems that can't produce electricity at all if the grid is out.
I don't read AC A human right
The problem with 2 wheeled transportation alternatives is the weather
Bikes are unusable on ice or snow.covered roads
You'd freeze when theres a wind chill of 20 below 0
You'd get soaked in the rain
Too hot in the summer
You can drive an electric moped in NYC. Probably cheaper than this thing, too. New York State recognizes three classes of scooters/mopeds (under 20MPH, 20-30MPH, and 30-40MPH top speed) plus motorcycles. The license requirements increase with the max speed. All have lights and turn signals, and a helmet is required.
With NYC's traffic density, this isn't unreasonable.
So I take it that segways are also banned in NY then?
If that's the law, then yes they are. Just because police ignore a law or even choose to break it doesn't make it any less illegal for you or I to break the law. They could even use this as an excuse to jail someone they don't like even while they're riding around on their own Segways. This is why people think that selective enforcement is basically handing police a ridiculous amount of power.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
I hope the inventor knows what he is doing regarding the lights. Designing headlights such that they are usable and at the same time don't dazzle oncoming traffic is not entirely trivial.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
1. Define 'Brisk'
2. Where are you biking that you're not sweating? I bike in Alaska and I sweat. Your brisk might be awfully slow.
3. From what I've seen, they DO pedal, generally using the motor to provide extra speed, start and hill assistance.
Consider that this might be the difference between me using a bike to get groceries or driving - simply because of the weight of the groceries I'm planning on getting.
Worst case, consider the device a range extender - getting people so they're willing to bike for slightly longer distances encourages them to use it even more, and as they use it more they get into better shape, and as they get into better shape their range extends even more again.
I don't read AC A human right
Here in the Netherlands, where we have as many bikes as inhabitants, electrical supported bikes, have become very common. Google for "elektrische fiets" for some images of these. The battery packs are either build into the frame or put under the luggage carrier at the back. We installed under the luggage carrier, it often is a battery pack that can be taken out. The electrical motors are build into the wheel and there is a small dial on the steering wheel with which you can control the extra support needed. To still have to padel yourself, but the electronics will add some extra power to it. Often these bike have a display showing you the battery status. From a first glance these bikes look like normal bikes. Both old en young people are using these kinds of bikes.
On the kickstarter page:
Power: 750 Watts continuous
Speed: 18mph without pedaling
Range: 12 miles with standard battery, 20 miles with extended battery
Battery: 240Wh / 400Wh
Well, it seems with the extended battery you can get about 32 minutes or 9.6 miles at 18mph, which is only half the range...
Video of some good progressive thrash music
A French company named Solex made these with a combustible gasoline engine. They ate tires at a rate that no Citibike exploiter would allow. Watch these get banned/prohibited in 3...2....1.....
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
This is really the 'problem' with motorized bicycles in the USA. There is no unified legislative support to allow them. Each state has its own rules.
Some states do allow both electric and gasoline-powered bicycles, with various restrictions and requirements. A few allow registering them as mopeds, plates and all. Other states don't allow them in any form.
Some states only allow electrics, and while that seems like an okay deal it isn't... It's like saying "you can own a car but it has to be all-electric",,, and what does that mean? Way higher cost and way less range than a comparable-powered gasoline option would be, despite all the Consumer Reports praise for the Tesla.
Also I tend to suspect that there are two invisible issues:
US cities really don't want to have to deal with all the problems that a huge increase in cyclists would cause. Also-
The US economy is inflationary and so the government isn't interested in anything getting cheaper than before. You trading your car for a motorized bicycle would be a savings of thousands of dollars a year for you--but for govt bureaucrats, it would be a loss of thousands of dollars spent into the economy each year. Why would they ever want that to happen?
Why oh why would people hop on a bike and be too lazy to pedal?
I have asthma, you insensitive clod. And a bunk knee.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Some states only allow electrics, and while that seems like an okay deal it isn't... It's like saying "you can own a car but it has to be all-electric",,, and what does that mean? Way higher cost and way less range than a comparable-powered gasoline option would be, despite all the Consumer Reports praise for the Tesla.
They say that because they (rightly) care about emissions and noise pollution. These days even chainsaws have to have a catalyst in some states. Places where we care about the air, like California. A motor vehicle has to have a notably more effective one, because presumably it will be run for more hours in more cases. (If you're running a chainsaw for a lot of hours, you probably have a good reason, and you're permitted some emissions.)
I would really like to be able to do more of my trips on a bicycle, but I live in a place where sun exposure can harm you and which regularly gets very hot. Even if I had a power assist I wouldn't bicycle. And in traffic in a city, I prefer to have a cage around me; it has been shown to be far safer than bicycling. That's because of the cars, you say. True enough. Let's start to phase them out. Self-driving taxis are the first phase, then let's make them bimodal road/rail vehicles and replace all the carpool lanes with PRT track. That will sell people on bimodal vehicles (they'll have to have track support to ride the modern carpool equivalent, which will actually be useful because it will whisk along at speed instead of getting clogged up with some asshole in an Audi or some Mexicans on their way to or from the border — that sounds racist as fuck on both ends, but from my experience using the carpool lane through LA, that's what you're going to be held up by over there. Besides, you can get away with apparent racism if it's self-effacing, right? Anyway, it's a cultural thing, not racial. You might as well just pass on the right when you get a chance, because they're not pulling over for you.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
In the EU, any electric-bike that uses any form of throttle, rather than electric-assist (torque sensors) for speed control is deemed by law to by a motorbike, and therefore needs the usual number plates, registration, mandatory insurance, rider licencing and so on. I'd be interesting to see if they can meet EU approval. There's also limits on wattage of the motor (250W), which this exceeds, and limits on the speed at which the motor assist tails off (25km/h) (which this exceeds)
Are you sure about this? Sometimes laws are written such that the exception is made in a different section. I check the section that refers to bicycles as well to see if it is there.
The problem with 2 wheeled transportation alternatives is the clothing
There, fixed.
"There is no such thing as inappropriate weather, only inappropriate clothing". Really, the weather is not offten the most limiting factor. It is the gear selection.
Bikes are unusable on ice or snow.covered roads
Skinny tires sink through the snow. Knobbies grip on top of the snow. Studded tires work great on ice, and have knobs for snow. Studded are the most expensive at $50 a tire, but only needed in winter and last for years.
You'd freeze when theres a wind chill of 20 below 0
Clothes, wear them please. Yes 20 below is a really cold windchill. It does stop me, but that is because I don't have wind blocking gear. You can find plenty of blogs of bike commuters that do it daily though.
You'd get soaked in the rain
What, you don't take a shower? Once again, there is gear to address that. I'm a lucky person with showers at work, but I don't cycle in my work cloths. Even for short errands, I may drop a clean shirt in my bag for a quick change when I get to where I'm going.
Too hot in the summer
Meh, I'll give you that, but that depends on your conditioning. Heat indexes over 105F can be dangerous but that only happens for at most 1 week a year for myself. So I take the motorcycle, which isn't far from being a electric bike.
I am surprised no one has told him motorized bicycles are illegal in NY state:
See here: http://dmv.ny.gov/node/1984
Reading the kickstarter page reveals more legal information:
And then this:
The information from the DMV website is pretty cut and dry. This device turns a regular bike into a motor assisted bicycle. So its still illegal. NYC defines its own laws so while the system might technically be legal in NYC, its still illegal outside of NYC.
Bottom line is this: buyer beware, it is not clear whether this is legal or not. It would be a shame if the device gets people into trouble. The inventor should consult with the city and get a clear explanation as to whether this device is in fact legal for street use.
This is awesome.
I'm not claiming it's for everybody but in Finland I used to bike to school (and I still bike around, summers and winters, raining or shining) and having biked under all of above situations I can say that they hardly make bicycles unusable.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.