Bike maker heads for electric bicycle avenue

Ultra Motor, a start-up based in the United Kingdom, will launch a new type of electric motor later this year that the company hopes will help jump-start the theoretically lucrative but highly elusive market for personal transportation and clean vehicles.

In September, two of India’s largest bike manufacturers will come out with bikes equipped with the company’s AH300 motor, which will run for 35 kilometers (21.75 miles) on a single charge and run at a top speed of 25kph (16 mph). Billionaire Sir Richard Branson auctioned off the first two prototype electric bicycles at a charity event in 2004.

Ultra Motor is additionally alive on added able versions of the motor that could arise in rickshaws (still a above anatomy of busline in India, Vietnam and elsewhere), wheelchairs, motorcycles, baby cars and amalgam vehicles. In tests, the company has cranked the speed of vehicles using its engines up to 56mph.

Ultimately, cartage powered by the company’s motors could able-bodied be targeted at environmentally conscious, bike-happy regions such as the Netherlands.

“We looked at the Segway experience. They tried to change the behavior of the customer,” said Joseph Bowman, senior investment manager at venture firm Russian Technologies and formerly the interim CEO of Ultra Motor. “We’re positioning the company in the niche between a electric bike and a scooter.”

For several years, personal vehicles like the Segway Human Transporter and the Zap PowerBike have been waylaid by potholes. This time around, however, the circumstances favor the growth of the market.

For one thing, the amount is lower, Bowman said. Complete Ultra Motor-powered bikes will sell for about $150 to $175, far less than the Segway, which runs a few thousand dollars, or many electric bikes, which can cost about $1,000. Recharging the motor costs about 6 cents, he added.

The attitude of governments has also become brighter. In 2001, New Delhi swapped agent buses for natural-gas ones, and several added Indian cities are demography accomplish to accept nonpolluting accessible vehicles. Indian cities are also looking at offering subsidies to buyers of electric cars such as the Reva, an e-car developed by an Indo-American joint venture.

In the United States and Europe, motorized two-wheelers that top out at about 16mph are typically classified as bikes under pending and recent regulations, meaning that the company can skirt driver’s license and registration laws. Because the cartage are bikes, the sidewalk-driving altercation that saddled Segway can additionally be avoided. Rising activity prices, abuse and fears of all-around abating are growing in accent as factors, too.

Chinese consumers accept already apparent that the abstraction has some legs. In the past four years, about 3 million motorized bikes have hit the road in China, starting from a base of zero, Bowman said.