Bike Sharing Gets an Electric Update

How cute...NOT.

Minor Point: what an ugly POS; I trust that's a prototype because it looks about as comfortable to ride as a porcupine.

And I trust they'll have all the anti-theft protocols all worked out. Although they may have solved that by making it too ugly to steal, not to mention utterly uncool [sorta like the first Toyota Echo model] to be seen with.

Epic Fail Mr. Macallister, better luck with Ver. 2.0

Its a good idea, but there should be generators installed on the bike so if you run out of juice your peddling will recharge the battery.

And Ironwolf if you look at the many examples of bike sharing around the world and how spectacularly they work you won't be so skeptical.

How about fenders so people with office clothes can use it without getting all dirty when rolling over a puddle?

And what about somewhere to carry your briefcase / purse / backpack while riding?

And a comfortable seat? After all, you are trading pneumatic wheels for solid ones and you aren't putting any suspenssion on it.

And a less flimsy handle and, by the way, I can see the high tech disk brakes, but I don't see the brake handle. Actually, I would rather see the whole bike a little more sturdy.

I regularly use the bike sharing system in Barcelona, Spain, and if these were the bike on offer, I wouldn't use them and, anyway, they wouldn't last.

Indeed, the system in Barcelona could be upgraded to support regular and hybrid bikes at the same time. The trick is not to make an elegant bike design but a whole system that works and gets the job done.

Satyam

Would not the motor also act as a generator with some extra electronics, good idea bdhoro87.

We got electric locomotives hauling some of our freight trains, going downhill with regenerative braking, they push power back into the overhead gantry, we don't run enough trains to always make use of this power, so it ends up back in the national power grid, the railway therefore saving a bit of money.

Bike sharing is okay, provided you have the means to ensure the bike is returned.

My city in NZ, had so called Green Bikes (pedal only)within weeks there were no bikes left, they went one way, then got abandoned, while another city, the idea works perfectly.

Old.Timer:

The bikes in Barcelona are attached to a rail and you have to have a membership card to pick one up. To get that card you provide your credit card number and they will charge you a few cents for every half hour after the first free half hour and for the full bike should you fail to return it. Each bike has an RFID tag on it so just by latching it into any rail at any other station you get off the hook.

The system knows exactly which bike is in which rail. A couple of vans with trailers go around redistributing the bikes to make sure all rails are evenly full. Unfortunately, Barcelona slopes to the sea so people usually take the bikes from the upper side of town to downtown, literally down-town, but fail to pedal uphill so bikes tend to pile up near the coast until the van comes to take them up town. An electric bike would solve this as you could still coast downhill and motor uphill.

So, the design of a particular bike does not make a system work. And the design of this particular one is not the best. Google for "fat tire tours", you'll see it offers bike tours on several European cities. The name points to soft, comfortable easy bikes. That's what people want. Quite the opposite of this design here.

Satyam

It just goes to show that sleek is a marketing tool for the masses. And since when has public transport been comfortable?

Seems silly to me. The uno (electric unicycle) is being manufactured as a reasonable alternative to cars, but I don't believe that the future lies in less energy consumed, but rather in smarter energy consumption. Another recent popsci article talks about roads with solar panels built into them, which could easily take us off fossil fuels and exponentially cut down on transportation costs.