Earliest hub motor and earliest peddle assist e-bike

[DBye]

By day I'm a trainee patent attorney and trade mark attorney. Rummaging through the patent databases I think I've found the earliest patent for a hub motor (6 coil, brushed, 100A, 10V) on a bike -US552271A, attached, from 1895.

There are no cranks though, so it appears to be more akin to a motorcycle.

The earliest reference I can find to a peddle assist electric bike is US656323A (also attached) from 1900. It shows both a belt/chain drive and friction drive and states that it has a battery and motor that can be actuated when hill climbing via a rider operated clutch to readily cut in the assistance when required.

Anyone know of anything earlier?

 

[Deleted member 4366]

There are no cranks though, so it appears to be more akin to a motorcycle.

Sorry, that doesn't count then, though it could still be used as a peddle assist

 

[Zlatan]

By day I'm a trainee patent attorney and trade mark attorney. Rummaging through the patent databases I think I've found the earliest patent for a hub motor (6 coil, brushed, 100A, 10V) on a bike -US552271A, attached, from 1895.

There are no cranks though, so it appears to be more akin to a motorcycle.

The earliest reference I can find to a peddle assist electric bike is US656323A (also attached) from 1900. It shows both a belt/chain drive and friction drive and states that it has a battery and motor that can be actuated when hill climbing via a rider operated clutch to readily cut in the assistance when required.

Anyone know of anything earlier?

OG uses one of the latter...seen him on it weaving through traffic near Humber Bridge..going like feck, in a rush to cut and waste some more nonsense on here.

 

[flecc]

Ogden Bolton's 1895 motor is the earliest hub motor design I've ever come across, but as you post it was more a motorcycle design than a practical bicycle one..

My interest has been more in machines actually produced. In 1898 Humber produced a stretched tandem with an electric motor in the chainline between the two riders, so a form of crank drive. It was used as the pace bike for the Bol d'Or paced cycling track race held in Paris in 1899. Following that it was soon superceded by petrol powered machines for that purpose. Here is that first electric version:

The first instance of a production electric motor bicycle that I know of was in Germany from Heinzmann in 1922, I've never seen any illustrations of it. Apparently it was fitted to a tandem. Heinzmann have been producers of industrial electric drives for some 115 years, but returned to producing bicycle hub motors in 1994 and produce them to this day.
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