New C5

[Rohloffboy]

That's interesting flecc, they could be onto something with the iris in that case.

 

[grldtnr]

Feck the law! I WANT one! ,tho I might have an issue with its weight ,I keep my bikes in the house,can't see me getting the bike thru' the front door,would have to get rid of my classic Pete Ross Trice recumbent

 

[D8ve]

is it?
It has a direct drive motor and 48V 20AH battery.
I reckon a tricycle with 1,000W Bafang CD motor and 48V 20AH can be built for about £1,500 without the canopy.

Here's a business opertunity for you.
Velomobiles cost a fortune as D8veh said.
A £3000 canopied trike would sell here and in Europe. It's a nice market but could open up widely. My thoughts have ran between home build and converting one myself. The body is a pain but makes helps the speed immensely.

 

[AndyTyson]

I love the idea of this but not sure how it will fit in with UK law, I've just been having a look at MOT requirements for quadricycles and it doesnt really fit into any catagory.

Tyres for example:
Tricycles with an unladen weight not exceeding 410kg and an engine capacity greater than 50cc.
Obviously engine doesnt exceed that, but the top speed is higher than a 50cc moped is allowed to do and count as a moped. 750W I believe is around 1hp, whereas a moped can be up to 3hp, so, does it need 1mm of tread or just visible tread (looks like MOT hasn't caught up with electric vehicles?)

Add to that the issues with parking, getting through traffic (or rather sitting in it), lack of being able to use cycle lanes (either due to width restrictions or classification) and I wonder if it might take a change in the law to give this sort of vehicle a fair chance? Would like to be proven wrong and part of me would love to buy one if only for the fact I've liked this concept for a long time but there has never been one which makes financial sense compared to a small car.

 

[the_killjoy]

The 30 mph version is a Light Quadricycle in both EU and UK law. It is a motor vehicle class with all the usual conditions.

The 30 mph restricted version of the Renault Twizy also fits into this class, but its 50 mph version fits in the Heavy Quadricycle class.

The origin of quadricycle law in the UK was in the Cyclecars of the 1920s.
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However the minimum age is not 14.for a quadricycle it is 16.

 

[flecc]

However the minimum age is not 14.for a quadricycle it is 16.

Yes, as I posted the 30 mph version of the Iris is a motor vehicle, it comes under Moped laws.

It's the lower speed version that the 14 years applies to, since its a pedelec trike.
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[craiggor]

There is a out of scope section in the EU regulation on approval of L category vehicles.In that section is EAPC's,self balancing vehicles, vehicles intended exclusively for physically handicapped and vehicles equipped with any seating position of the driver or rider having a reference point height of less than 540 mm in case of L1e,L3eand L4e or 400mm in case of L2e,L5e,L6e and L7e.I think this reg was brought in to stop mini motos been registered for road use through the M.S.V.A. but it also sounds like you can't M.S.V.A a low seat height trike ?

 

[anotherkiwi]

The secret of the price is "Extra safe, ski crash helmet body tech" which translates to vacuum formed ABS in a lot of cases. They do seem to love their ABS the Sinclairs! And you can buy an AZUB rolling trike chassis for 1890€. Mate the two, add a 750 W BBS02 and Bob's your uncle. Is that his name, Bob Sinclair?

If the guy has a bit of money to make molds then he can run a series of these for very little cost per unit, all the money is in the tooling.

 

[flecc]

I love the idea of this but not sure how it will fit in with UK law, I've just been having a look at MOT requirements for quadricycles and it doesnt really fit into any catagory.

There isn't any problem. The Renault Twizy is a Heavy Quadriped and they've been sold in the UK and used on our roads for a couple of years now.

From January 2013 the UK fell into line with the EU in permitting the 45 kph Light Quadricycle class for 16 year olds, so that looks after the faster mph Iris model.

The restricted Iris model is just a pedelec trike so can be ridden from 14 years old and needs no MOT etc since it isn't a motor vehicle.
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[Deleted member 4366]

The "250w" one is 48v. It's going to go pretty well, I should imagine.

 

[Woosh]

The Iris has a direct drive motor.
I'd like to see the Iris going up Park Street in Bristol.

 

[AndyTyson]

Didn't realise they did a version of the twizy with 4 legs. The legality of the trike isn't an issue, it was more about how a cycle wheeled vehicle faster than a moped fits into mot regs which don't currently have a defined class for it. For example, the twizy is much easier as it's got car like wheels and tires so tread depth etc is easy to pass, depending on which class the trike falls into though it could either need just visible tread if counted as moped class, or 1mm tread if class above.

 

[D8ve]

The Iris has a direct drive motor.
I'd like to see the Iris going up Park Street in Bristol.

No it's a geared hub motor. At 50 kg it would be slower up park street but on the flat It would leave most bikes for dead. And down hil

 

[Live_Steam_Mad]

The Iris has a direct drive motor.
I'd like to see the Iris going up Park Street in Bristol.

Yeah that just ocurred to me too. I live 1/2 way up Moss Bank hill, St.Helens, and I'd swear that in places it is steeper than the official "10 per cent" gradient street sign that is outside #113 Moss Bank Road on the side of the road that faces down the hill that can be seen easily in Google Streetview.

My 250W geared brushless motor on my Decathlon Elops 500E really growls away loudly trying to get up this hill and the voltage seems to sag judging by the way my headlight dims a little and I have to put in a decent amount of effort in order to sustain even 10 MPH or so on the medium assist setting, though admittedly I don't have to stand on the pedals and come off the saddle to keep peddling, but my bike is 25Kg in weight.

I wonder how I would fare getting up the same hill in this 250W version e-trike with my legs in the air and it weighing 50Kg, even though I only weigh 55Kg or so myself so not a huge total weight. Also mind you, the system voltage of the etrike is 48V instead of 24V like on my bike. And this etrike has a 250W geared hub motor. I'd love to see a Youtube video of someone tacking various test grades of steep-ish hills in this etrike, would be fascinating.

BTW how is this 25MPH etrike legally an EAPC EU Pedelec? EU and UK law states only 25 KMH is allowed (15.5MPH).

Regards,

Alistair G.

 

[D8ve]

Yeah that just ocurred to me too. I live 1/2 way up Moss Bank hill, St.Helens, and I'd swear that in places it is steeper than the official "10 per cent" gradient street sign that is outside #113 Moss Bank Road on the side of the road that faces down the hill that can be seen easily in Google Streetview.

My 250W geared brushless motor on my Decathlon Elops 500E really growls away loudly trying to get up this hill and the voltage seems to sag judging by the way my headlight dims a little and I have to put in a decent amount of effort in order to sustain even 10 MPH or so on the medium assist setting, though admittedly I don't have to stand on the pedals and come off the saddle to keep peddling, but my bike is 25Kg in weight.

I wonder how I would fare getting up the same hill in this 250W version e-trike with my legs in the air and it weighing 50Kg, even though I only weigh 55Kg or so myself so not a huge total weight. Also mind you, the system voltage of the etrike is 48V instead of 24V like on my bike. And this etrike has a 250W geared hub motor. I'd love to see a Youtube video of someone tacking various test grades of steep-ish hills in this etrike, would be fascinating.

BTW how is this 25MPH etrike legally an EAPC EU Pedelec? EU and UK law states only 25 KMH is allowed (15.5MPH).

Regards,

Alistair G.

I suspect it's because unassisted it's easy enough to do 25mph on the flat.
The assist should still cut out at 15.5 ish.
Sales people don't you just believe everything they say.

 

[Live_Steam_Mad]

I suspect it's because unassisted it's easy enough to do 25mph on the flat.
The assist should still cut out at 15.5 ish.
Sales people don't you just believe everything they say.

Ahh that's a good point actually, since the etrike says "potential up to 25 MPH". I tested my Elops 500E 2 nights ago cycling to the end of Moss Bank Road then up the cycle path along the A580 East Lancs Road towards the traffic lights at Carr Mill dam, then along Martindale Road to Main Street Billinge then back home again to test the climbing capabilities of the motor (which was awesome, 5.5 miles covered in 31 mins with average 10 MPH and one heck of a climb up the killer that is the long hill climb going up to Billinge) and on the flat along Martindale Road I was getting up to 18MPH in the lowest (ECO) (!!) mode before I could just about detect and hear the motor cut out, I was pedalling very fast, because it runs out of gears too quickly IMHO, i.e. I needed a lower gear ratio in fastest speed for my pedalling input, and 18MPH was fearesomely fast to me, quite scarey.

I was using a cheapo cycle computer off Ebay (Sunding brand) with 2010mm entered for the wheel size callibration (circumference of 26" x 1.50" tyres) and speed readout in MPH altered from KM it came set to.

I'd swear it's rather faster than my Brother's Giant Lafree Comfort ST bike which really does cut out at a slower speed, it feels (not tried a cycle computer on his), and it's very obvious when it cuts out (easy to hear and feel) on his, but on mine it's much harder to tell when the motor cuts out when you are pedalling also. I dared not to use the Full power mode to it's top speed on the Elops as I was getting up to really scarey speeds in full power mode and I began to chicken out!

BTW the bike has a full EAPC certification by the Decathlon, even though I swear it's faster than allowed!

Wow it was fun though climbing up to Billinge on the Elops with the Cadence sensored bike and being able to let the motor do all the work with me spinning the pedals very slowly haha, when I chose to be lazy for short stretches.

Regards,

Alistair G.

 

[Woosh]

No it's a geared hub motor. At 50 kg it would be slower up park street but on the flat It would leave most bikes for dead. And down hil

You are correct, my mistake. Hope it will start a new trend.

 

[anotherkiwi]

I took the time to look and found this page

http://www.grantsinclair.com/en/e-bike/iris-extreme.html

Lots of things wrong with this concept, where to start...

Aerodynamics: too much frontal area, sure it is better than a push bike but much worse than a vélomobile designed for speed.
There is apparently no number plate holder and lighting (that is obligatory)
The windscreen tipping up that way makes it harder to get in, it is also a security risk if it opens accidentally at speed. Don't think that can happen? It is in acrylic and speed can get up to 90 km/h on any major hill...
Steel trike chassis underneath, not a pure monocoque like most vélomobiles. An aluminium trike chassis would shave off a few kilos.

Technical: a 13.5 Ah 48 V battery that charges in an hour. Really? Where can I get one of those please?
750 W mid drive with 120 nm of torque, would that be made by Bafang?
8 speed so I presume either a Nexus or Alfine hub in the rear
55 kilos = 20 kg more than a sporty e-vélomobile and 15 kg more than a utility one.

This is an organic Transit Elf with a sexier body. The design clues look remarkably like some vélomobile concepts that were going around the vélomobile forums https://www.facebook.com/velomobiledesign

 

[anotherkiwi]

Here's a business opertunity for you.
Velomobiles cost a fortune as D8veh said.
A £3000 canopied trike would sell here and in Europe. It's a nice market but could open up widely. My thoughts have ran between home build and converting one myself. The body is a pain but makes helps the speed immensely.

You know this one from endless sphere D8ve?

This is the equivalent body size to the Sinclair. Now this guy is working on a new version. The one above is 341 W @ 40 km/h, the new lower front surface area one is 140 W at 40 km/h. He uses the Norwegian "250 W" stamped 750 W Bafang BBS motor.



Still an easy to build, boxy design but tapered front and rear. I think one of these is in my future if I can find the workshop space. Above is the winter version, I would make a second open head out canopy for summer riding.

 

[flecc]

I'd swear it's rather faster than my Brother's Giant Lafree Comfort ST bike which really does cut out at a slower speed, it feels (not tried a cycle computer on his), and it's very obvious when it cuts out (easy to hear and feel) on his, but on mine it's much harder to tell when the motor cuts out when you are pedalling also.

All models of the Panasonic powered Lafree have a very early power phase down compliant with Japanese law, even the export models. The power starts to reduce from 9.4 mph (15kph) and continuously reduces until zero power at just under 15 mph.

You can read how this works in my article on this link.

This article was written in relationship to the later unit which had a switchable high power mode which the Lafree models didn't have.
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