eRockit-a "new" category of 2 wheeled transport

[bamabikeguy]

From:
http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pa...ID/4932/lang/1

Here's some snippets from an interview with :

Stefan Gulas: I have invented a new category of two-wheel vehicles, I call it human hybrid. What it is, is something in between a bicycle and a motorcycle: it is a motorized vehicle combined with a muscle-powered vehicle. So, for the first time in history, in order to get a motorized vehicle working and running you have to do exercise: if you don’t do anything on it actively, it doesn’t work, It doesn't drive

AfN: You call your builds "machine human hybrid". Why?

Stefan Gulas: It’s a technical description of the drive train. Hybrid means that you have two different sources of power in the vehicle. In cars this would normally be gasoline and electricity, but for us, and that's why we call it “human”, is the person and the electric engine. So you are contributing to the propulsion and the drive of the vehicle, to a lesser degree but anyway you are contributing as a human, as well as the electric motor.

Stefan Gulas: Yes of course, that was one of the major things that I had in mind: to change the concept of a motorized vehicle. The concept of the motorized vehicle was developed in the outgoing 19th century, and the most important aspect back then was to rule over nature. I think now, 130 years later, dominating the nature is not the idea: we know that we have damaged it a lot and we need to go one step back. Ultimate domination in transport is going 100-150km/h and don’t move. Before you had to move to get somewhere, and let alone the speed. But now you can get beyond that speed without doing anything. People don’t want to change once they have accepted something, it took then quite a long time before they accepted the car over the carriage, it didn't came overnight. Because it established itself so well and worked so well, and the automotive and motorcycle industries are one of the biggest, nobody thought whether it was still adequate to have today, in 2009, something that comes from 1886. I think we have found a solution that is much more adequate for us today because it’s a much more intense kind of travelling and going around, compared to a normal vehicle where you only passively steer but you don’t actively do anything. If you compare the ebikes, electric bikes or motorcycles, to what we do, my best analogy would be back in 1886: it was a basically a motorized carriage, it wasn't a car yet, because that was the only four-wheel concept they knew then; so they replaced the horses by the engine and had a motorized carriage that eventually became a car. For me, this electric motorcycles only replace the gasoline engine by an electric engine and are a kind of motorized carriages. What we do is more like a car, because it's much more appropriate for the electric drive train: it is so different to the gasoline drive train that you have to develop a new concept; otherwise it is not working because it's developed for the gasoline engine, not for the electric engine.

[safe]

In America we have the "Federal Ebike Law" that declares an ebike as:

750 watts maximum power output.

Must have pedals.

Cannot exceed 20 mph by motor power alone.

...so if you want your ebike "protected" by this law (at least at the point of sale) you have to build to fit into it. Once you exceed 750 watts your ebike becomes an emotorcycle and that forces you up into another group of vehicles.

This thing is going to need a motorcycle license, insurance, etc...

[MattyA]

and it looks ugly and i would rather my current setup

[HoughMade]

$44,000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34r1x...layer_embedded

[sangesf]

Actually. Go to optibike dot com. They came out with the "hybrid" first and the TOP model of their line is only 16k

this is nothing new

[SimpleSimon]

This guy is another Dean Kamen. Make hugely overblown claims of originality whilst, at most making very minor technical applications/combinations of existing technologies.

I wouldn't buy because I don't like boastful liars, whether the product is any good or not.

[sangesf]

In America we have the "Federal Ebike Law" that declares an ebike as:

750 watts maximum power output.

Must have pedals.

Cannot exceed 20 mph by motor power alone.

...so if you want your ebike "protected" by this law (at least at the point of sale) you have to build to fit into it. Once you exceed 750 watts your ebike becomes an emotorcycle and that forces you up into another group of vehicles.

This thing is going to need a motorcycle license, insurance, etc...

There is no such thing. This "Federal ebike law" as you call it has NOTHING to deal with the legal definition of bicycles in terms of whether a state calls it a bicycle or moped for registration, tags or license purposes.

The federal law you are stating has to deal with safety equipment and NOTHING else.

Don't make statements that are totally untrue and are based on opinion and not fact.

[safe]

If you try to sell an ebike that does not conform to the law then you are not protected from lawsuits.

This means that if someone crashes and injures themselves on an ebike you sell that they can sue you and have a very strong case that you sold them a dangerous vehicle.

From a business standpoint it's pretty much insane to not comply... but it's not illegal to be out of compliance... just not very wise.

The law protects the manufacturer and also is acting as a general guideline for the states to also conform to one single ebike law.

My opinion is not to fight the federal government, it's laws or the courts and just go along... it's actually a good law in my opinion because it unifies everyone under one configuration.

It's my goal on my ebikes to build something that will marginally pass the laws at the point of sale in order to get protection.

-----------------------

The law was passed before Obama, so it's not part of any evil government takeover or anything... everyone seems so touchy about the government grabbing too much power these days, but this was passed back a few years ago when things were pretty quiet politically. It's intent was to provide a legal framework for ebikes so that everyone could be compliant with one set of rules. The goal was to unify the states so that one ebike could be sold in all 50 states and that (eventually) the states would recognize this configuration as something acceptable. The intent of the law was very pure and innocent... again... I think it's a good law.

[johnrobholmes]

It's a motorcycle. The ebike laws are irrelevant to this conversation.

[Pablo]

Can someone post a link to this law?????