E-Solex from France

E-solex is a french electric bike I came across the internet, all tough I am not a fan of its design aesthetic, I do think it has some clever solutions like the removable battery and its cover…The concept of taking the battery with you to charge it at home or at the office is in my opinion a MUST HAVE.What do you think?

There is a great story about e-solex at Autoblog Green

Link to video 01

Link to a nice video of it in DailyMotion

Link to Esolex website

Batteries

After we decide how much power we are going to need for our e.Moped, we will need to look up for batteries to juice up the electric motor. I started a little research and found three companies: Powerstream, Ultralife Batteries and Valence Technologies. I just added them to our link section.

But which is the best battery to use? How many of them do we need? How many Amps? 12 Volts 20 Volts or 36? only time will tell.

Yamaha superbike converted to electric

Meet the Lightning Lithium, an electric superbike converted from a 1999 Yamaha R1 Superbike. Built by Richard Hatfield, a motorcycle enthusiast and solar panel importer based in Burlingame, and Todd Kollin, from Electric Motorsport.

They used 28 LiFePO4 batteries which weight 6.6 pounds each. The conversion cost 15,000 dollars and can be seen in detail in this video.

Some tech specs to boost our knowledge are:

Lightning Motors’ 1999 Yamaha R1 electric conversion

Price: $15,000
Powertrain: AC regenerative motor powered by lithium iron phosphate batteries, 550-amp system, one speed
Battery Spec: 28 Batteries of 90 amp-hours at 3.2 volts and 6.6 pounds each.
Maximum torque: 80 pound-feet
Maximum rpm: 8,000
Potential horsepower: 70
Estimated range: 80 miles at 65 mph
Dry weight: About 400 pounds
Charge time: Seven hours with on-board charger that plugs into a standard outlet

Sources: Threehugger and LA Times online

Air powered

DIY Moped Runs on Air. Looks well interesting. And fairly affordable.
Read more here.

Two electric bikes that need some design flare

I just found two interesting projects of modifications on bikes to go electric. Although rough models, there is nothing a good design around it won’t do. Check their websites to know more about them.

The first one is the Ebike project from Jim Rudholm and George Horiuchi

And the second one is the electric bike from Eric Peltzer

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