Sanyo landed a huge hit with its eneloop brand that includes a number of “green” products, such as lamps, batteries or even Wii controllers. In the past few months, the company also introduced electric bikes that featured eneloop technology, one of which it wanted to sell outside Japan as well.
Now Nippon gets another two eneloop-branded bikes [JP], a carbon fiber model and a foldable bicycle. The way both models work is the same: Every time you drive downhill or decelerate, the electric motor switches to a dynamo, allowing for regenerative charging. Both bikes are pretty cool but have one disadvantage: The hefty price tag.
There are more and more electric bikes coming out of Japan in the last few months. Bridgestone Cycle, which is based out of Tokyo (yes, the tire company), has developed a new model [JP] that’s boasts an assisted travel range of up to 30km with a single charge. Bridgestone claims this is 30% more than what their previous electric bike reached.
It seems that electric bikes have gained significant momentum in the last few months on the market for “green” products, especially in Japan where Yamaha just announced a total of three new models [JP].
Sanyo today unveiled the Eneloop electric hybrid bike [JP], which will be on sale in Japan in early February 2009. The company is following Toshiba, Yamaha (Yamaha even sells two bikes) and Panasonic with their new addition to its Eneloop series of particularly “green” electronic products.
The bike is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery and harnesses energy from braking when the bike goes downhill while being able to double the rider’s pedal force when going uphill through powering the front wheel. Sanyo claims their bike can travel 1.8 times faster than non-electric bikes.
Japanese electronics companies really seem to believe in the concept of electric bikes. Following Yamaha and Panasonic whose bikes were unveiled in July (Yamaha presented another one last month), Toshiba exhibited a model manufactured by Cannondale during the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), which was held in New York last week.
The bike is equipped with a battery module that is based on Toshiba’s proprietary quick-charging lithium ion rechargeable battery “SCiB”. Measuring 100×300x45mm, the module features a voltage of 24V (weight: 2kg). Toshiba says the bike reaches an assisted travel range of up to 30 miles with a single charge.
Yamaha started selling a lithium-ion battery-powered electric bike in Japan in August (Panasonic followed up with its Vivi RX 10-S soon thereafter) and now presents the PAS CITY-C [JP].
The new Yamaha bike, which was manufactured in cooperation with Tokyo-based design company Plus Minus Zero, bike will be Japan-only.
No, not that GPRS.
If I knew how to ride a motorcyle, I’d buy one of these. I’ve pledged not to buy a vehicle until I can buy a real electric, but I never said anything about how many wheels it needed to have. The Electric GPR-S from Electric Motorsport is more expensive than a normal motorbike but cheaper than its EV brethren.
Its specs aren’t exactly eye-popping: 70mph top speed, 60 mile range. But! It only costs eight grand and, because the battery is the most likely part to either wear out or be improved, they’ve made it super easy to replace. And it’s pretty sexy, to boot. I’m seriously going to keep my eye on this thing and take some motorcycling classes.
[via Wired Gadget Lab]
Yesterday Yamaha Motor unveiled [JP] their PAS Brace, a new electric bike with an assistance system that adopts to the gear position and the driver’s running speed. The 8-gear bike will be available in black, red or white for an MSRP of $1,150.
Yamaha says the bike’s so-called S.P.E.C.8 mechanism is the main selling point. The system automatically recognizes when a driver shifts gears or changes the speed and adjusts the level of electric assistance accordingly.
If the bike runs faster than 15km/h, the auxiliary power unit starts to reduce its output, depending on which gear is currently put on. If the bike reaches a speed of 24km/h or faster, electric assistance will be stopped. Owners can choose between 3 modes: automatic, “power” and “auto-eco plus”.
The Yamaha bike is powered by a 4.0Ah lithium-ion battery with a rated voltage of 25.9V. With one charge, the assisted travel range can reach up to 39km when riding in automatic mode (power mode: 23km, auto-eco plus mode: 61km). The PAS Brace is sized at 1,760×530×820-1,000mm and weighs 22.2kg.
Yamaha has set a sales target of 2,500 units for its bike, which hits Japan August 8. Panasonic presented their own high-end model earlier this month but both companies don’t seem to have plans to export their bikes.
Last week Panasonic presented [JP] a new electric bicycle to be released on the Japanese market on August 20. The so-called Vivi RX 10-S will cost $1,400. Panasonic hasn’t said yet whether they will bring the bicycle to overseas markets as well.
The bike’s main feature is a braking system that can recharge a 10Ah Li-ion secondary battery, which weighs 2.5kg, has a rated voltage of 26 V and is located next to the rear wheel. Every time the owner brakes, a mini motor mounted on the front wheel generates power. According to Panasonic, charging the battery via this method alone proves to be almost impossible however. The recharging system fails when riding faster than 24km/h.
Panasonic says in internal experiments, the regenerative braking system extended the assisted travel range from 90km to 125km when riding in normal mode. Using the bike’s automatic mode, the maximum distance owners will be able to cover is 182km.
The so-called Vivi RX 10-S comes with an aluminum-made frame and weighs 25.7kg. The company says it aims at selling a total of 3,000 bicycles in the first year.
