safe
Active Member
- Local time
- 4:25 PM
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2009
- Messages
- 1,319
A Million Dollars In The "Shark Tank"
There is a new show on ABC called the "Shark Tank" where people with good inventions or business ideas get a chance to make deals with investment bankers.
When it comes to ebikes I'm of the thinking that it's an "all or nothing" proposition. I ask myself one simple question:
"Could the ebike product I have in mind make a million dollars?"
...if it fails on that question then the idea gets scrapped. Things that can derail the million dollar quest are things like whether the product can be sold legally. (the issue relating to Recumpences business) Other issues involve the price of the product and the complexity and reliability.
The "bottom line" is that (for me) if the idea is "weak" and does not have the chance of ever making a million dollars, then I'm not going to bother with it. My goal in life is not to make a small business making a few thousand dollars here and there... I would want to be able to make some serious cash and the only way to do that is to have a good idea and some room to run with it.
Product Progress
At present I'm very pleased with the aerodynamic charactoristics of the bikes I'm making and the handling is excellent. The bike is a joy to ride and it looks good and could be practical in a suburban setting. The problems revolve around things like motors, geardowns and multispeed gearing. I'm seriously hoping that a satisfactory solution can be found with an AC Induction motor becuase it pretty much wipes all those problems away. (pushing all the compexity and problems into the inverter) From what I've read the maximum efficiency of an AC Induction motor of about 1KW is equal to a typical permanent magnet motors peak, however, the AC Induction motors peak efficiency is broadly spread across it's powerband when using VFD (variable frequency drives) so you actually would get better efficiency at full load with the AC motor. AC Induction motors get their best efficiency when you want it... at full load. A lot of people look at AC Induction motors running off of a fixed frequency power supply and try to make assumptions based on that but those are way off of what you can do with VFDs.
If an AC Induction motor could be designed so as to perform well within a 1000 watt input (750 watt average output) performance powerband and you don't need a geardown (because the chain can deliver a 5:1 reduction on it's own) then all of a sudden the prospect of a low priced, high performance ebike becomes possible. The AC Induction motor might weigh slightly more than the permanent motor counterpart, but the DELIVERED power is going to be better because it's wider and not rpm specific. Weight (in this case) is of slightly less importance than other issues.
"All or nothing" ...when not "all in" then it's a hobby...
There is a new show on ABC called the "Shark Tank" where people with good inventions or business ideas get a chance to make deals with investment bankers.
When it comes to ebikes I'm of the thinking that it's an "all or nothing" proposition. I ask myself one simple question:
"Could the ebike product I have in mind make a million dollars?"
...if it fails on that question then the idea gets scrapped. Things that can derail the million dollar quest are things like whether the product can be sold legally. (the issue relating to Recumpences business) Other issues involve the price of the product and the complexity and reliability.
The "bottom line" is that (for me) if the idea is "weak" and does not have the chance of ever making a million dollars, then I'm not going to bother with it. My goal in life is not to make a small business making a few thousand dollars here and there... I would want to be able to make some serious cash and the only way to do that is to have a good idea and some room to run with it.
Product Progress
At present I'm very pleased with the aerodynamic charactoristics of the bikes I'm making and the handling is excellent. The bike is a joy to ride and it looks good and could be practical in a suburban setting. The problems revolve around things like motors, geardowns and multispeed gearing. I'm seriously hoping that a satisfactory solution can be found with an AC Induction motor becuase it pretty much wipes all those problems away. (pushing all the compexity and problems into the inverter) From what I've read the maximum efficiency of an AC Induction motor of about 1KW is equal to a typical permanent magnet motors peak, however, the AC Induction motors peak efficiency is broadly spread across it's powerband when using VFD (variable frequency drives) so you actually would get better efficiency at full load with the AC motor. AC Induction motors get their best efficiency when you want it... at full load. A lot of people look at AC Induction motors running off of a fixed frequency power supply and try to make assumptions based on that but those are way off of what you can do with VFDs.
If an AC Induction motor could be designed so as to perform well within a 1000 watt input (750 watt average output) performance powerband and you don't need a geardown (because the chain can deliver a 5:1 reduction on it's own) then all of a sudden the prospect of a low priced, high performance ebike becomes possible. The AC Induction motor might weigh slightly more than the permanent motor counterpart, but the DELIVERED power is going to be better because it's wider and not rpm specific. Weight (in this case) is of slightly less importance than other issues.
"All or nothing" ...when not "all in" then it's a hobby...
Last edited:
