573 Bike & Battery

Welcome back to Bike & Battery, where we take a look at new developments in the exciting world of micromobility and EV battery news.

Trek has a new series of cargo ebikes aimed at car replacement. For $6 or $9k. About the same as a beater car, or a very nice used motorcycle, or even quite a few brand new motorcycles.

These have the euro-spec 250watt mid-drive motor set up that's popular in the highest-end ebikes. You can see from the photos that they're great for one happy mom and two smiling kids.

This demo cargo bike shows off a new drive train, pedal by wire. Your pedaling goes into a generator, which provides power to the batteries. You can keep spinning while at a stop light. One big benefit is you're not going to wear out the drivetrain (chain and various cogs) which is an issue for powerful mid-drive motors, which is part of why so many mid-drives are only 250watts. (The other part is Euro law.)

As you can see from the picture above, this bike is perfect for smiling but maybe clenching a bit guys who can't decide if they want to deliver ice cream or medicines.

Now here's some exciting news. Lectric, the fierce Gen Z meets Boomer retiree cheapo ebike maker, has come out with a dual battery, longish-tail Tern GSD competitor... for $1699. Or $1399 with only one battery. 

With a capacity of 450lbs, this is truly big news. The components are no doubt cheap-ish, but you can get three of these for the price of a Tern. 

And with two 48v batteries powering the  standard Lectric 750w rear hub motor, they claim you can go up to 150 miles. There's no suspension, so your butt's going to be hurting after riding 75 miles into the bush for your campout, but still, if you're looking for a cargo-or-kid capable bike, the game just changed.

Personally, I think it looks pretty decent, too. It's taken the basic cheapo Lectric and added a cargo-ish back end, and the overall result says ready for action! Plus it has that big center stand, fenders and lights. This is definitely a competitor in my maybe-shopping-list.

Not quite solid-state, semi-solid batteries are the next mid-step. They're like those 48volt cars that turn on and off at stop lights and claim to be "PZEVs." (Partial zero emissions vehicles.)

Apparently they carry less charge than the current tech, but also weigh less and don't burn as easily.

Here's an electric motorcycle called the Calibri.

Sorry, Colibri. It has a single 1700wh battery that goes 40miles, but it can have up to three batteries total and still weigh under 200lbs. I think what's missing from all of this battery talk is how much fun it might be to ride one of these things. They're super light weight, decently powerful motorcycles. It's really kind of a whole new category, where the electric motorcycle isn't trying to look like or be an old-ICE derivative. 

Try doing that with your gas bike.

And at $2800 it's pretty reasonable. How do these emotos do all this for prices comparable to ebikes? The answer: no pedals. Eliminating that drive train saves a bunch of money. Up front, at least. Because you're going to be paying to register this, and probably get insurance, too. And get a motorcycle license. And a helmet and leathers.

Here comes more geeky battery talk. The used/renewed/recycled battery business is going to be huge.

But it's not exactly huge yet. Redwood, one of the early big silicon valley players recycled...1300 car batteries last year. 

They did it with 95% efficiency. (Is that what it's called? Anyway, they got 95% of the precious metals back.)

And their biggest issue was getting the batteries to recycle. 

While the headline is true, this subhead sort of ate itself.

Let's follow the curve. 2018-2021, USA has 56GWh battery manufacturing capacity. Mostly from the Tesla/Panasonic factory in Reno.

Then in 2022, our capacity nearly doubled, to 90GWh. Then again this year, they're expecting it to nearly double again, to 177GWh. 

By my math, if we keep at this pace, we should be more like 20000GWh by 2030. That's 400x the capacity of 2021. I guess we'll see.

And here's where they're going to be. The Ohio River is somehow playing an important factor in future EV growth.

As long as we figure out how to play nice with the industry leader, aka, vs China.

We're learning to eat our humble pie to get ahold of the latest tech.

Or really, the cheapest tech.

Coming soon to a pickup near you.

My brother recently spotted one of these down in Colombia. It's made in China, of course.

The Super Soco TC. Pretty decent looking.

But what can it do?

It's got a 3kw motor, that's about 4x more powerful than most class 3 ebikes. 

Not sure the capacity of the batteries, but they are claimed to be good for 100 miles. And curiously, only 30mph. Is there an app to unlock the rest?

Well kids, that's what we've got for this edition of Bike & Battery. The big question is, did I just talk about my first ebike? Which of these manufacturers wants to step out on a limb and send me a demo? I promise I'll make a nice YouTube video. ;)