Is there anyway to like, siphon off the energy though? Like say, you pedaling produces 600kJ/hr. You have 400kJ/hr going into the bike to produce motion, but then 200kJ/hr goes into a battery. You’d move slower but generate stored potential energy.
I’m not really sure why you would want this, other than the concept of a self-charging electric bike, but on paper it sounds possible?
Yeah, it’s called a dynamo, used for decades for powering headlamps on bikes before small batteries and LED lights. Still, the energy generated is pretty small.
You would need to output far more than twice the energy that you would get out of it and the effort to pedal would be significantly increased as you would have additional weight to the bike on top of whatever it was drawing.
Taking 1/3 if your pedal power would be like trying to bike through deep mud just to have a small boost later.
A normal bike drivetrain is around 95% efficient, which is more efficient than the Regen circuitry you could get in such a form factor. Therefore it makes more sense to use pedal power for direct propulsion since that will directly reduce battery more efficiently than using it for charging.
This is different than a series hybrid because car drivetrains are very inefficient compared to a bicycle.
so, obvious reasons why this cannot work.
Is there anyway to like, siphon off the energy though? Like say, you pedaling produces 600kJ/hr. You have 400kJ/hr going into the bike to produce motion, but then 200kJ/hr goes into a battery. You’d move slower but generate stored potential energy.
I’m not really sure why you would want this, other than the concept of a self-charging electric bike, but on paper it sounds possible?
Yeah, it’s called a dynamo, used for decades for powering headlamps on bikes before small batteries and LED lights. Still, the energy generated is pretty small.
You would need to output far more than twice the energy that you would get out of it and the effort to pedal would be significantly increased as you would have additional weight to the bike on top of whatever it was drawing.
Taking 1/3 if your pedal power would be like trying to bike through deep mud just to have a small boost later.
A normal bike drivetrain is around 95% efficient, which is more efficient than the Regen circuitry you could get in such a form factor. Therefore it makes more sense to use pedal power for direct propulsion since that will directly reduce battery more efficiently than using it for charging.
This is different than a series hybrid because car drivetrains are very inefficient compared to a bicycle.
It would only make the bike slower and have less range.