Yike Bike Electric Bicycle - The Wheel Reinvented

At Scooter Underground, we are always on the lookout for cool new urban transportation products and there is really nothing newer or cooler than the YikeBike www.yikebike.com

The brainchild of Kiwi entrepreneur and inventor, Grant Ryan together with friend and co-founder Peter Higgins, the Yikebike is a very interesting and, in our opinion, a very misunderstood product.

So, when is it coming to Canada, and what do we think of it?

We have spoken to the people at YikeBike and Canada is not on the radar at the moment and that is probably a wise decision. They want to pick the worldwide markets where it has the most potential and focus their sales and customer service efforts there without diluting them with a shotgun approach. All we can say, is that if and when it comes to Canada, Scooter Underground will be the place to find out about it.

What do we think about it?

We hate reviewing products that we have yet to see or touch but with regard to the Yikebike, we have done a lot of homework and we feel that we understand the market niche this product will fill.

You can go to their excellent website for a lot of the detailed stats, YouTube videos, and FAQ’s, but here is the meat and potatos:

Weight: 9.8 kg (21 lbs)
Speed: 20 km/hr
Range: 9-10 km per charge
Recharge time: 30 minutes
Carrying capacity: 100 kg (220 lbs) rider and cargo
Price: 3,500-3,900 Euros ( $5,200 – $5,800 CDN) est.

Grant Ryan admits that one of the inspirations for the Yikebike was the Segway (yikes). The Segway was a very cool product that was announced to a lot of fanfare and turned out to be a huge marketing flop. Now, I don’t know Grant Ryan, but based on his past accomplishments I am assuming he’s no dummy and he has learned a lot from studying the Segway. Both the Yikebike and the Segway are  very cool, relatively safe transportation products.

However, due to some great engineering and the use of high tech materials, the YikeBike weighs 9.8 kg (21 lbs) – about 4 times less that the weight of a Segway. It also folds to a fraction of the size of a Segway or most folding bikes and is so nice and neat in its folded design that there are no bits and pieces sticking out to scratch and snag things.

Who is it for?

Let’s start with the estimated market price. Currently the Yikebike is priced at $3500-$3900 Euro (that’s about $5,200 – $5,800 CDN). At those kinds of prices, this is going to be a real niche player initially. The folks at Yikebike admit that out of the gate they are targeting to be “Porche and not Toyota”. Their design and materials are all first rate. Most of the frame is black carbon fibre (initially the only color available). They have also chosen state-of-the-art  LiFePO4 fast-charge battery technology but opted for a relatively small battery size to keep the weight down.

The Yikebike is really not an urban transportation product like an electric bicycle or a scooter – rather, it is an elegant and uber cool solution to “the last mile problem”. In large cities, there are thousands of commuters who ride trains, subways, busses, or even cars but they still have a bit of a jaunt to get to their final destination point. The Yikebike, due to its, slick design, light weight, and portability allows it to link in with these other modes of transportation to get the commuter to where they want to go and not have all sorts of storage and security problems when they get there. Even if you take a car to work, you may want the freedom to run errands at lunch without the drudgery of fighting traffic and finding parking spaces – the Yikebike could liberate this type of urban commuter.

Many readers looking at the Yikebike balk at its lack of range( 9-10 km). The trade-off was made between battery size and weight and the range should be adequate for most purposes. That’s about a half hour of riding before you need to spend another half hour charging – this bike is not meant for those who are commuting 10-20 km to work each way. A more traditional electric bike like the eZee bike is better suited to that purpose. Just like a carpenter has many tools and chooses the best one for the job, the urban commuter has to look at the task they have at hand and choose the right product – for many of them the Yikebike may be just right.

The Yikebike would be an ideal way to get around a large campus but at the current prices, only the people on the Microsoft or Google campuses will be able to afford them.

Summary

What’s hot

• Super cool and innovative design
• Top quality materials and built like a Porche
• Light weight
• Elegantly folds into a small package in about 20 seconds
• Take it with you – no parking or theft worries
• Fits a wide range of rider sizes

What’s not

• Like the Segway, the Yibebike does not offer the rider any exercise – you stand on a Segway; you sit on a YikeBike – no pedaling
• 100 kg capacity may limit it for many North American sized males who want to carry books and a laptop
• Hill climbing capability may be limited compared to an electric bike due to small battery and no pedals
• In a regulatory “no man’s land” – where will you be able to ride it is uncertain – like the Segway
• Price is sky high initially but that is sure to change. The initial models are like luxury prototypes. I am sure that if the concept catches on, they will be able to use a high quality production facility somewhere like Taiwan where they are still obsessed with quality but have lower production costs than New Zealand.

Sanyo Eneloop Electric Bicycle at Scooter Underground

We are pleased to announce that the folks at the Scooter Underground will soon have a couple of Sanyo eneloop bicycles for testing. As soon as we get them, we are getting to work to put them through their paces. We will report back to you to tell you how they perform in real world Canadian conditions.

We”ll have “plump” people riding them on cold rainy days…. up hills! All  sorts of stuff that has been the demise of many electric bikes we have tested in the past. What is the real battery life? How long does it really take to charge? How smooth is the direct drive motor? We need lots of answers and soon we will have them.

So far, the homework we have done on the Sanyo eneloop looks really good, but we have to see for ourselves. We did the same thing with the eZee bikes before giving them our stamp of approval.

Stay tuned. We will have lots of new photos and some YouTube videos. The bikes should be here by mid-Feb and we will have a comprehensive early report shortly afterword. We will also publish long-term evaluations of the Sanyo eneloop.

Here are what some other blogs are saying about the eneloop electric bikes and electric bikes in general – the time has come!:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/business/17ping.html

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/eneloop/
CNN :
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2010/01/11/ces.hln.electric.bikes.cnn

Treehugger.com:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/01/ces-2010-sanyos-eneloop-bike-may-be-a-bike-world-game-changer.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqhp6jNaLmo&feature=related

A dealer in Chicago riding eneloop bike in the snow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDoKR7h-17I

Sanyo Eneloop electric bicycle

The Sanyo Eneloop electric bicycle is rumoured to be coming to Canada. Although we could not find anything official on the Sanyo Canada website just yet http://ca.sanyo.com/, Scooter Underground has heard it will be making it’s debut in the spring of 2010.

If its the same model that we’ve seen in the USA and elsewhere, here are the expected features and specs:

eneloop bike Product Features
The three-speed eneloop bike makes battery-assisted transportation easier on the rider and the environment. For example, its “Loop Charge Function” simultaneously conserves rider and lithium-ion battery energy and makes the Synergetic Hybrid Bicycle a regenerative form of transportation as it creates new energy while coasting or braking.

In addition, electric bike riding becomes smoother, more comfortable and less strenuous with the eneloop bike’s 1:2 human-power to motor assist ratio. Interestingly, SANYO was the first manufacturer to make an electric bicycle that meets this new eBike assist ratio standard in Japan, a standard which provides the rider enough pedal-assist power to facilitate commuting without awkwardly overpowering the rider’s pedaling efforts.

Additional eneloop bike features include:
•    250-Watt DC brushless motor
•    25.9 volt/5.7 Ampere-hour(Ah) lithium-ion battery
•    Charge time ~ 3.5 hours
•    Total bike weight ~ 23 kg
•    Taillight brake lamp
•    Handlebar panel switch
•    High-intensity, flashing LED tail lamp that operate when the headlight is turned on and flash faster when braking
•    Low frame and saddle design to allow easy step-through and mounting
•    Seat that accommodates 26-inch framing
•    Adjustable saddle with a range of 7 inches to accommodate riders of all heights
•    Neatly-designed frame with internal cabling
•    Shaped saddle with shock absorbing elastomer cushion to decrease rider fatigue

Expected riding distances*:
•    Up to 25-30 km in Standard Mode – no charging while riding (with the motor engaged)
(based on company start & stop driving pattern)
•    Up to 30-35 km in Power-Up Mode – regenerative charging via braking only
(based on company continuous riding pattern without stopping)
•    Up to 60 km in Auto Mode – full regenerative charging
(based on company continuous riding pattern without stopping—maximum distance)

*Riding distances are based on company driving patterns

The bike is expected to retail for approx. $2,300 CDN but prices have not been confirmed.

As soon as we have the opportunity to test this bike, we will report test results to our readers. It will be interesting to see how it stacks up to the excellent eZee bike, which we have had the opportunity to test over the last 2 years. (The Sanyo Eneloop is expected to be at a slightly lower price point than the eZee bikes though)

Top Quality eZee bikes - Consistently Top-Rated

eZee bike electric bicycles are one of those products  that stand out in a crowded market. When Scooter Underground was looking for a quality line of electric bicycles, the search was exhaustive. There are hundreds of brands of electric bikes, most of them from China, most of them junk.

However, one name stood out during our research — eZeebike. All around the world, wherever electric bikes were being put to the test or entered into competitions, eZeebike consistently ranked at at the top of the heap.

eZee managed to assemble a product that is ideally suited to “North American sized” riders in varying  terrain conditions.

There are a lot of electric bikes that seem to work okay carrying a 110 pound rider on flat terrain in warm, dry weather. What we wanted for our conditions were bikes that could carry a 200 pound rider, up hills, in crappy, rainy, cold, weather – that is our “real world”.

eZee has managed to put together a fantastic blend of a great motor, controller, battery, frame, and traditional bicycle components (mostly Shimano), and put them all on a quality frame.

Top speeds of most models of eZee bikes is limited to 32 km/hr which is a Canadian regulatory requirement for electric bicycles. A full battery charge is good for about 40 km but this varies according to the size of rider, load, terrain, temperature, and how much work you want to do by pedalling vs. using the motor.

An electric bike is a fantastic commuting solution and opens up cycling to many people who might never have considered biking to work.

eZee bikes retail from approx. $1,500 – $2,500 CDN

www.ezeebike.ca