Ooops, my comment wasn't gone. I'm only posting it now on this thread:
Well... according to you, this "revolutionary bike" would still be fake news or not far away!...
A bit like the bicycle with solar panels integrated into the wheels which had also been publicized before dying out like a ray of sunshine
twisted veil !
That said, one of the articles raises an interesting technical detail that questions me :
If, rather than driving the drive wheel via a chain (or a belt), therefore mechanically, pedaling directly rotated a generator that powers a motor in the drive wheel, would this have better performance?
Finally, this question of converting mechanical energy into electrical energy is similar to the many topics on econology in which we compared a wind turbine whose mechanical wind energy is either directly in direct contact with a mechanical pump pump, or converted electricity by a rotor-generator which turns an electric pump....
To come back to the VAE, we can even imagine a simple reduction system, like a classic speed selector, which makes the generator turn more or less quickly in the crankset: the more you force, the faster the generator turns, the more it produces, the more the engine runs fast.
In terms of efficiency, brushless motors have an efficiency greater than 80%...
Human pedaling would only have an efficiency of about 20 to 25%, but that of the chain transmission would be around 98,6%....
It is this efficiency which is to be compared with that of a wiring which transmits electricity to the motor!
In short, a priori, and according to the % of these yields, everything seems to conclude that we are pedaling in sauerkraut to seek a better yield than the traditional pedaling with the chain and the calf ....
But for all that, there is little chance that we will further improve the efficiency by chain (or by transmission belt), which is not the case for everything that is electronic which evolves quickly: generator, motor, etc. .
There is therefore perhaps hope that the overall efficiency of a bicycle can still be greatly improved by mechanical tricks such as an ovalized crankset, or this
revolutionary crankset which erases the dead point of the pedal vertically, and which we hear more about!).
Do you think we will see new bikes without a chain but on which pedaling will generate an electric current to power a wheel motor? The technical aspect is interesting.