Ford launches e-bikes

[Kudoscycles]

Ford aggressively defend the blue oval,to the extent that anyone using it on key fobs or any product sold at shows must have an official Ford licence to sell using that logo.
At the Canton Fair I spied Ford selling power tools under the blue oval logo,if you google 'Ford power tools' you can see the range. I was offered the UK distributor but wasn't sue that the Ford logo was a strong selling feature on power tools,it was clearly badge engineering.
If they sell e-bikes it will be a similar deal not their own engineered product.
KudosDave

 

[neptune]

Dyson sucks!

 

[Croxden]

r but wasn't sue that the Ford logo was a strong selling feature on power tools,it was clearly badge engineering.
If they sell e-bikes it will be a similar deal not their own engineered product.
KudosDave

Didn't stop JCB.

 

[mike killay]

I don't suppose that there is the slightest chance that Ford really mean to enter the ebike market.
This just a publicity stunt.
Cycle engineering is so well established, every attempt to move away from the diamond or step through style never succeeds for long. The only progress is in lighter materials and unless someone invents rigid cotton wool, there are ever diminishing returns to be found down that route.
Batteries seem to be entering their final phase of development. Perhaps a newer method of storing electrical energy will be found, but I don't see Ford doing that.
Electric motors are well understood. True there have been advances such as the Lynch motor, but as far as bikes are concerned 250 is the limit and there are no end of motors that will achieve that. Research to find motors that use less electricity to produce the 250 watts will continue, but that also suffers diminishing returns.
Move on Ford, nothing to see here.

 

[jonathan75]

I as far as bikes are concerned 250 is the limit and there are no end of motors that will achieve that. Research to find motors that use less electricity to produce the 250 watts will continue, but that also suffers diminishing returns.
Move on Ford, nothing to see here.

That's interesting, do you mean there's an efficiency plateau at 250w? What confuses me however is what that refers to - a 250w motor will often be using 500w or considerably more, and I gather the 250w label (where authentically measured) reflects a minimum rather than maximum continuous capacity, which doesn't necessarily point to efficiency but instead durability. I am not trying to deny your point but to understand it as I thought it was an interesting one.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

The 250w rating doesn't mean much. First of all, it's the rated ouput power, not the power consumed. To be rated at 250w, it has to be able to maintain that output power for a long time without overheating. Unfortunately, life isn't so simple. When we see 500w input power for our 250w motors on our wattmeters, it's often at low speed, where efficiency can be lower than 50%, so output power is less than 250w and the motor starts to heat up. There's so many variables that it's almost impossible to pin down what 250w means, even when we say a maximum continuous rated power.

 

[mike killay]

That's interesting, do you mean there's an efficiency plateau at 250w? What confuses me however is what that refers to - a 250w motor will often be using 500w or considerably more, and I gather the 250w label (where authentically measured) reflects a minimum rather than maximum continuous capacity, which doesn't necessarily point to efficiency but instead durability. I am not trying to deny your point but to understand it as I thought it was an interesting one.

What I am contrasting it to is the development of the 50cc petrol motor in my lifetime. 60 years ago, 50cc was feeble, then Honda and others made 50cc racing motorcycles and the power developed by 50cc increased over the years.
This will not happen with our ebike motors because existing motors are small and light enough and are limited by law. So, nothing for Ford here.

 

[jonathan75]

What I am contrasting it to is the development of the 50cc petrol motor in my lifetime. 60 years ago, 50cc was feeble, then Honda and others made 50cc racing motorcycles and the power developed by 50cc increased over the years.
This will not happen with our ebike motors because existing motors are small and light enough and are limited by law. So, nothing for Ford here.

That's interesting about the Honda. I think it's a good comparison with electric. Because as d8veh says the meaning of 250w is so difficult to pin down (compared with 50cc which has a clear meaning), the only parameter is the (vague) minimum durability (i.e. 'will tend not to melt if run at 250w output'). There is no input restriction on input watts, so there's a lot of room for inefficiency. Not sure I've understood that right. So the goalposts aren't fixed like they are with something like the limit of "50cc".

I wonder if pricing is the issue: electricity is so dirt cheap compared with petrol that once you've sunk money into an ok battery, the extra cost for each journey feels tiny. Whereas with the petrol scooter, there was always that appeal if you could develop a motor more efficient at producing more energy output for less energy input, than the market competition, with the racing as you say, and in the consumer market too.

 

[flecc]

I wonder if pricing is the issue

It's more one of design constraint Jonathan. There is far less intrinsic flexibility in electric motor design, and this is illustrated by history.

In the earliest days of motor vehicles, it was the electric car which was the superior one, their motors already very good, and electric vans were in use for decades. Vehicles like trolley buses and electric trains were also very good very many decades ago.

Basically the possibilities for electric motor improvement were far more restricted from their fundamentally good start point, while the possibilities for internal combustion engines were considerable from their very poor start point. The electric motors we use have had just one very large step forward, the much stronger alnico magnets developed. Petrol and diesel engines in comparison have had many major steps forward.
.

 

[Yev]

Yet another concept… Pretty much every car company out there has one but they never seem to make it to production..