I need one of these now, this could save the environment and our freeways. Some corporation needs to buy this guy out and produce this thing for $3,000 a pop. Everyone will buy one of these things.

As long as it doesn't shove a metal shaft up your ass, it'll be useful.

Seriously though, I find it hard to believe it can reach 50-80 kph just from pedaling. Are they saying there's no charge at all involved?

These have been around for decades. This is nothing new except that he's tied the accelerator to the pedaling. There isn't some sort of uber-efficient tranference of kinetic energy from the pedaling to the wheels. All that is happening is that the motor is doing the work, and the 'pedaling' is the accelerator. If electric bikes were going to revolutionize travel then they'd have done it already. They've been around for a long time. But the fact is that 99 times out of 100 when you are traveling you don't want a bike. You want a car. Cargo, adverse weather, long distances, passengers, comfort, personal safety... These are what make cars preferrable to bikes.

The only places where 'bikes' are of any value at all are very large urban centers. And even then they are only useful (really) for transportation to and from work. They're no good for general purpose transportation. If this was the zhizzle then there'd be a million electric bikes on the streets of every major city right now.

So he invented an electric moped?

On the plus side, if it ever caught on in the US, it might lower obesity rates =P If slightly.

You can already buy an electric scooter for less than $400 at www.kizbitscooters.com, but it doesn't go 50mph, only 20.

Oh man, this is awesome; I love that you have to pedal @ a good rate to get it to go fast....

>> ^demon_ix:
> As long as it doesn't shove a metal shaft up your ass, it'll be useful.

and even if it did, it still beats flying


> Seriously though, I find it hard to believe it can reach 50-80 kph just from pedaling. Are they saying there's no charge at all involved?

pedals work more like an accelerator pedal of how fast you want to go, not the actual source of power.
it's kinda "bike-by-wire" system.