Kevin Harvey

When one sees the performance of the TESLA car & the fact that that it does not use gears then hub motors can only br called prehistoric.

Allen

Apples and oranges.

Hub motors don't use gears. Tesla does, one (they used to have two).
Tesla's battery packs also weigh about 100x that of an ebike's.

FMB42

Prehistoric techknowledgy(?) driven E bikes will be around a lot longer than Tesla Motors. This company, IIRC, can't even sell their current production vehicles in the US at this time (I'm not sure that Tesla is even producing vehicles at moment). This is not to mention that Tesla sales are in the thousands, while E bikes, and E bike kits are sold in the millions.

Allen

Tesla has no restrictions on selling their vehicles.
They are currently producing three models: the roadster, the Model S, and the Model X. The X is not yet on sale but is expected to be released in 2013 or 2014.

FMB42

The 2012 Tesla Roadster will be sold in limited numbers only in Europe, Asia and Australia.

Allen

Yes, that is because it based on a Lotus chassis. They have moved to all in house production and are winding down the model. They are bringing out a new sports car after the Model X is on sale.

Kevin Harvey

Tesla is probably geared as geared hub motor & 1 gear ,but 100times bike range 100x the weight 100x the battery than bike = same but hub motors still not with it or mid drive would not be rated as best. Or tesla would be use gears as mid drive e bikes. A lot less mechanical bits if hubs performed like the Tesla cars.

Scaliboy62

I believe there's still knowledgeable E-Bike Folk who prefer geared hub motors over non geared for these reasons- Geared motors dont need hall sensors which = simplified controllers, the motor is smaller more compact looks like less of an E-bike & more like a regular bicycle, longer spokes can be installed on smaller hub motor = less breakage & stronger wheel. One of the drawbacks of the geared motors from my understanding is they make a little noise some worse then others. I'm leaning towards a geared hub motor my next build. But as someone mentioned the comparison between a Tesla's & an E-Bike is truly apples to Oranges IMHO.

dougmc

Typical E-bike range, 20 miles? (Without pedalling.) Tesla range, 220 miles? Not quite 100 times the range ...

You could add a bunch more battery packs to the electric bike -- it would make it unwieldy to ride, but could get the range into the neighborhood of the Tesla. Not that anybody would want to ride it.

Consider that a E-bike carries something (a person) that weighs 3-5 times as much as the bike, but a Tesla weighs 10-30 times as much as what it carries. It's not really an apples to oranges comparison.

And "prehistoric" does have a well defined meaning. "The wheel" may very well be "prehistoric" -- but Tesla, not so much. At best, you could call E-bikes "old technology", though even that's a moving target as the technologies used vary wildly -- "E-bike" is a mighty wide brush.

unterhausen

electric motor tech and battery tech is somewhat stalled atm, but the better ebikes are essentially using the state of the art of both

chvid

I've got nine ebikes...2 trikes, 2 folders, a hybrid, and 4 recumbents (Revives, SunEZ Sport, Rebike) and to call ebikes "prehistoric" is pretty silly, whether geared or ungeared. They are all AWESOME - Lithium is AWESOME. I can go eighty miles fully loaded up with camping gear and a Bob and be totallly comfortable. Calling them prehistoric when we are on the cusp of a major ebike phenom is so wrong. I don't recall any nanophosphate batteries around in the Cretaceous.

rscamp

It would be more accurate to say geared motors have a bit less need for hall sensors due to higher rpm...

Kevin Harvey

Ive' had one hub motor ,not geared & made sure when i sold it ,it went to a guy living in a city without hills (500W )I know geared hub would be better than that but I then went to midrive cyclone 500w ,now have 4, sold 4 made up most with liFepo4 (I make up pack so fits snug round bot. front of bikes even with rear suspention), living on a Small mountain in our city if it were not for the gears they'd be useless for me getting home , for myself I use 960w cyclone with nuvinci as I was always having derailer problems with the 36v probably too much thrust on gears , even now nuvinci slips a bit----If a hub motor was as efficient as that Tesla the derailers would not be thrashed the same. Show me a hub motor that can shoot up a staircase as midrives do on their adds.Hall sensors whats that -have seen the wording in parts but wouldnt know what use it would be for. On a cyclone motor the greatest power is in one particular rev range, I beleive geared hub the same ,Electric trains don't have gears with their power all the way up the rev-range.Give me that Tesla motor but a bit smaller.

dougmc

Everybody. Except that it'll be in the form of an electric car rather than an electric bike for most of them.

(Not that sugar is a very good power source -- pound for pound, it costs more than gasoline and only has 1700 kcal of energy vs. 4900 kcal for gasoline. A fuel cell that gets well over the 20% or so that a car engine gets in efficiency from gasoline would be considerably better.)

We don't really need superconductors for that, as that pretty much already exists.

For example, this motor is rated at about 9 hp and is pretty close to the size of a hair dryer as it is. Or if you need a little less, this motor does 4 hp for only $100 and only 2 lbs.

There isn't too much room for improvement in motors left -- room temperature superconductor could certainly help make things smaller and even more efficient, but they're already pretty small and pretty efficient. The biggest issue keeping electric cars from taking off is the battery -- the motors are already ready. Once there's more of them, the electrical grid will become more of an issue, but that can be worked out when the time comes.

As for electric bikes, batteries are the big limitation there too, though there's also the drag caused by the motor when it's not being used (when the person is pedalling instead.) That's no an issue for a car, since the motor is always being used.

rscamp

Yes, Doug's got it right. In this comparison we don't need any improvement to the electric motor at all. Any further improvements are quite marginal. It is already hands down capable of much greater efficiency with many fewer parts than an IC engine. It also requires much less maintenance, has excellent power, requires many fewer expensive external support components and a much simpler drive system by virtue of its far superior torque characteristic. It also starts easier, runs smoother and is virtually unaffacted by weather and altitude. In short, it is already far superior than an IC engine by just about every metric.

Now the batteries. Oops. Here's where it falls down. But as time goes on they just keep getting better. I remember flying electric aircraft on NiCds. Now, with brushless motors and LiPos the performance of electric power often exceeds glow or gas. This trend isn't going to stop.

No argument regarding the relative comfort, speed and utility of the automobile, however. It does come at a price mind you...

fietsbob

There are alternatives.. Clever Cycle's .. Todd's Stoke Monkey, relocated the typical hub motor outside the wheel
and its driving a left chainring on a crossover crank.. the rest of the gears are available to use.

But it needs the extra space of a Big/Dummy, or Xtracycle added longtail conversion.

Allen

We are not even close to producing a room temperature super conductor however.
The highest temp a super conductor will work is around -200F.

dougmc

I thought it through just fine, and even explained.

Motors that can put out 9 hp and are the size of a hair dryer exist today. I gave pretty close examples of consumer level motors, and that's way more power than an electric bicycle needs, and while a car needs a lot more power, it won't mind a motor that's twenty times larger much.

Yes, room temperature superconductors could make these even smaller, more efficient. But they're already good enough now -- the thing keeping electric cars and bikes from taking off is not the motor -- it's the power supply. Batteries. In the future, that could be fuel cells or ultracapacitators, but for now, it's batteries.

Side note: if we could actually invent/discover them, room temperature superconductors could make ultra-inductors a much better power storage device than ultra-capacitators. That might solve the entire energy storage problem right there if they can handle a sufficiently large magnetic field before being made non super-conductive.

Yes, but the fact that you mentioned sugar was the smallest part of my argument. The more significant part is that motors are good enough already -- it's the power source that's holding electric vehicles back.

Crispus

Yup. See the thread I just started about my experience with BionX.

rscamp

This is a misunderstanding. No one is trying to start a pissing contest. Some posts were not clear on their intent. 'Nuff said.

ChrisRider

Your right, in the past e bike technology has been really ugly tacky looking chunky batteries, who would want to ride them. Although, coming next year i have seen some huge improvements in the look and performance of e bikes, so im sure they will be better and more popular very soon!

unterhausen

an ebike that used state of the art tech and was built to the same standards as a Tesla would probably cost $10k or more. Looking in this forum I see that the market for that bike is not here among the enthusiasts. There are various companies that have tried to go with a really high end ebike and it doesn't seem to have caught on at all. Companies are selling what they think they can actually move out the door.

ChrisRider

You guys should check out the new technology being used by Reef Bikes

Crispus

I was horribly disappointed with the short life of my BionX lithium battery. I hope THAT isn't what the "cutting edge" is going to be.

Kevin Harvey

I did look up Reef bikes & not impressed as i know so far no hub motor can not do the hills as mid drive system & if you want one thats already made go to this its virtualy the same as what i make up with cyclone with 500w but my battery front (around bot bar) 12AH home made fibre glass https://www.electricbike.com/lightest-bike/ this would have less AH=---must get picture of me like that I'm older.