Electric bicycles, an invention of the 19th century
Electric bicycles have become today one of the most conducive vehicles to move around the city. With them we have the best of the traditional bike with the advantages of new technologies, allowing a improvement in comfort for an effort that will be aided by the electric motor and the battery. Still, history tells us that these electric bikes are more than just a recent creation.
Actually, and to put us in context, it dates from 1890. That was the year when some patents were authorized for engines that would be used specifically in this mode of transport. Thus, and although the conventional invention of two pedal wheels dates from 1817, at the end of the 19th century the electrified germ slipped among us to grow at dizzying speed.
It happened in the United States, when Ogden bolton They granted him the patent for a battery-powered bicycle, which would include a DC collector, six brush poles, and a hub motor located on top of your rear wheel. He became, officially, the inventor of the now known as e-Bike. For his part, and in 1897 in Boston, Oseas W. Libbey managed to invent an electric bicycle which was characterized by being driven by a double electric motor, which was located on the center of the axle plate.
First prototypes
In 1896, Humber, a pioneering British bicycle manufacturer, exhibited the first electric tandem bicycle at the Stanley Cycle Show (lately supplanted by the Olympia Motor Cycle Show, which still exists today). On May 22, 1897, this tandem reached a speed of 60 km / h, a true turnaround in what mobility was then.
Something important for the construction of these first prototypes at that time, was that the lightness of the ones I was trying to achieve was not such. Because nickel cadmium batteries weren’t invented until 1899, Humber’s tikeemike was powered by lead acid batteries.
This only made it quite a bulky and heavy vehicle in this regard due to these storage units. While the first electric bike models in history seem a bit fun from a modern person’s point of view, in the years 1890-1910 they were seriously considered as a viable alternative.
Boom and bust
The types of electric bicycles were growing rapidly. So much so that they multitude of patents, but improvements in the combustion engine made it offer better performance in autonomy and power in those times. The already short route of these showed that electrified bikes still have a good margin for improvement.
Its peak came in the twentieth century by the rural zones They were looking for more effective ways to get around. Little by little it was more frequent to see them, until the history of these electric bicycles took a turning point. During the Second World War, due to the lack of motorized vehicles, they came to take the necessary force to become a type of mobility very much to be taken into account.
They began to play a more leading role, as they were an inexpensive and simple option for transportation problems in large metropolises. But the motorcycle revolution arrived, which was also spreading throughout the world. At the beginning, about the second half of the 30s, these overshadowed their growth in the market for a time. But thanks to the continuous advances they managed to stay in time, being a really serious alternative to the same motorcycles and cars (also electric of the time).
The ups and downs due to lower oil prices
As with electric cars, their interest decreased as the price of oil fell. This is how gasoline engines reigned throughout the entire twentieth century. That was a time when concern for the environment hardly existed.
After many years without being able to overshadow combustion cars, in 1973 came the biggest oil crisis. It is there that they gave a boost and the history of electric bicycles, in the same way that the rest of the first electrified vehicles, stormed the market. Hand in hand with a large increase in price, coupled with the great dependence of the industrialized petroleum world, caused a strong inflationary effect.
A certain interest in those first electric prototypes began to reappear, and a little more time for the industry, both the automobile and the bicycle, to begin to take seriously the electric mobility as a solution to suffocating pollution problems.
It was shown to be a truly versatile and inexpensive means of transportation, especially when compared to the powerful and huge engines used in the cars of the 1970s. The key year for this type of vehicle was 1975. Japan’s Panasonic ended up being pioneer in creating a central engine for bicycles that was seen as a resounding success. This coincided with the history of the introduction of neodymium magnets, which are built into all current electric bicycle motors, and the automatic winding of motors.
Technological evolution
Since then, in the last 30 years the market has grown exponentially. Today we are witnessing a great improvement in this regard. Technological innovations have brought to light large capacity batteries, of which electric bikes can now optimally replace cars on medium-distance trips.
Many manufacturers have come up with innovative new solutions to achieve better integration of electric motor pedaling and assist. Thus, innovation and technology brought highly relevant advances for electric mobility and sustainability. In this way, and combined with an electric motor, it began to satisfy the needs of people who used bicycles, but wanted more speed.
Egon Gelhard and Yamaha introduce the pedelec
Gaining more notoriety, in 1982 the inventor Egon Gelhard developed a subtype of e-bikes that worked on the principle of bicilec or pedelec (pedal electric cycle) in which the driver is aided by electric traction of the motor when pedaling. This brought numerous methods to make this a great success.
The first of these terms was already in use at the end of the 90s, at which time this innovation became more widely known, although the idea as such arrived in the early 80s from the hand of Egon Gelhard. This idea was put into practice for the first time on a bike that participated in the Tour de Sol in 1990 and was won in the corresponding category.
It was not until the 1990s that electric bicycles began to gain great popularity, since, in 1993, the Japanese company of Yamaha was in charge of helping to spread the pedelec model under the name of Power assist, around Japan and managed to achieve a major achievement. This caused the production of eBikes to increase, between 1993 and 2004, by 35%.
1991: Li-ion batteries arrive
In 1991, lithium-ion batteries were invented, marking a milestone for the history of electric bicycles, as well as for all other electric vehicles and early hybrids. Compared to their predecessors, these batteries can store the increased amount of energy per kg and can produce the most current.
In addition, they have faster charge times, which is why most modern devices, such as computers, smartphones, and cameras, use lithium-ion batteries. Last but not least, those batteries are the greenest of the bunch.
Later, in 2012 around 1,300,000 electric bicycles were registered, used only within Germany. Starting in 2008, the sales of electric bicycles were experiencing an increase of 30% annually. This allowed that, in the years 2012 to 2019, around 40,000,000 million electric bicycles were sold. At present, China is the largest producer, mainly intended for domestic consumption. This is not an obstacle for this country to export close to one million units per year, where it is estimated that more than 120 million of electric bicycles move through the eastern country.
Pedaling sensors and controllers
Simple and maintenance-free, this type of bike also reached its peak with the different parts that have been given and improved. It was made because in current models a pedaling sensor was introduced that detect speed to which we pedal, as well as sends this information to the controller.
There are pedaling sensors that additionally detect the force in which we pedal, but their use is complex and they are more recommended for terrain with little unevenness. In turn, the controllers are also being formed. These are a device that receives the signal from the PAS sensor, and according to the level of assistance that we have defined, it sends electricity to the motor. The power of the controllers is measured in amps, and they send the power to the motor in the form of pulses.
With the incorporation of all these ultra light and resistant materials, an increase in the number of electric bicycles in circulation is expected. Some prototypes today are among the most interesting, which have already left the drawing board.
- The Gocycle is a folding electric bike that can be stored in a briefcase, and weighs only 16 kg.
- The nCycle, is also a folding bike, has two batteries and bluetooth speakers to connect with a Smartphone.
- The German brand Audi is working on the prototype of the Audi Ebike; they are a weight of 1.5 kg without counting the motor and batteries and with a range of 50 to 70 km it is believed that it will be the lightest electric bicycle.