[sustran] Power-assisted bicycles

[Institute for Global Futures Research (IGFR)]

Dear Sustran readers,
I am passing along an article from Alan Parker.  Hope it is of use and has 
not already been disseminated.

Regards,
Geoff Holland
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Institute for Global Futures Research (IGFR).
P.O. Box 263E, Earlville, QLD 4870, Australia.
E-mail: <igfr at igfr.org>.
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The 70 or so designs of power assisted bicycle (PAB) to come out of Japan
and Taiwan will extremely  useful in reducing polluion and greenhouse in
cities. Around I million electric PABS have been produced so far and in a
few years new models could use PV roof tiles to charge their batterys. PV
roof tiles that are an integral part of the  roof of new dwellings or put
in when roofs need replacement could power domestic appliances and PABs. As
the Dutch have demonstrated the humble bicycle can be used for 28% of all
trips (mostly the short trips in their cities) in cities that are flat and
of medium density. The PAB could do much the same for moderately hilly
cities of lower density where trip lengths are longer.

Below is part of a paper of mine. Note the references.

Bye Alan.

Parker,A.A. May 1999  "Green products to help move the world beyond oil:
power assisted bicycles", Proceedings of Solar 99, 37th annual conference
of the Australia and new Zealand Solar Energy Society, Deakin Univ ersity
Geelong Dec 1-4 1999.12 page 5 figures. 

THE POWER ASSISTED BICYCLE (PAB)
 The PAB is basically a bicycle, weighs only a few kilograms more and
provides power assistance only and can be mass produced to run on sources
of renewable energy.

The ³state of the art² PAB has the potential for making transport systems
far more energy efficient, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing
air pollution. The next generation of PABs will be powered from renewable
energy resources and will be the most energy efficient form of motorised
transport ever invented. For all practical purposes the PAB is destined to
join the bicycle and ³Shanks pony² as the only forms of transport that emit
no greenhouse gases.

Both the petrol and electric powered PAB, when they are legally classed as
bicycles, are very economical for consumers because there are no compulsory
registration and insurance fees.The ³state of the art² PAB is basically a
bicycle that needs to be pedalled, the power assist as a general rule is
designed to half the effort required to get from A to B and cannot be used
to wind the PAB up to higher speeds. Note that the more powerfull electric
bicycles that do not need to be pedalled are referred to herein as
³electric mopeds² 

The PAB is not a moped. The petrol powered moped is a very light motorcycle
that has to be registered and insured and does not need to be pedalled.
Today¹s mopeds are far too fast to use safely on shared footways with
bicyclists and pedestrians in OECD countries and are very polluting in
third world cities. For example mopeds, which were previously allowed to
use separate bicycle tracks in the Netherlands, are now required to use the
roads in some cities, but PABs are still allowed use the bike tracks. In
less developed countries petrol fumes from mopeds and scooters with two
stroke engines are a major health hazard because 70% of the petrol used
ends up as exhaust fumes.This is why moped use is banned in Singapore (New
Scientist 1998) and many Chinese cities.

PABs on the world market.

There is now a growing range of electric PABs on the world market with
sophisticated electronic controls and there are around 90 companies
producing PABs world wide. Over 125 models of electric PABs dominate the
market today. In Taiwan at the end of the 1990s they they copied the best
PAB ideas from Japan just as they did in the 1980s with Japanese bicycles
innovations. In 1998 there were 17 Taiwanese companies producing electric
bicycles designed for both the Chinese and European market. 

The most important innovation to this time came in 1989 when Yamaha
introduced the second generation of electric bicycles for the Japanese
market. The Yamaha electric ŒPAS Prototype¹ was a major design breakthrough
with torque sensors in the cranks linked to the motor controls for
automatic power assistance when it is actually needed. The basic design
concept was that only half the normal pedalling effort would be necessary
for most trips and that hills and strong head and cross winds would be far
less of a constraint.

According to Yamaha designers the most difficult problem was using the new
technology for designing the control system that integrated human pedal
power and the power available from the motor in the safest way possible
(Cycle Press 1997) One safety concern was the problem of aggressive young
males using the power assist to go faster and terrorising other cyclists on
shared footways and narrow side streets with lots of pedestrians walking on
the road. The smart computer chip developed by Yahmaha does not allow that
to happen and if young males want to wind their PAB up to more than 28 kph
they have to do it on muscle power alone.

Another advantage was the precision power unit connected to the chain
without any wheels running on tyres to get clogged up with mud in wet
weather  In 1995 after six years of further development the Yamaha PAB was
sold nationwide. From then on many companies in both Europe and Japan
became involved in electric PAB design and production many built their own
PAB designs around the imported Yamaha ŒPAS power unit¹.
  
A non profit European organisation recently tested 17 electric PABs and
eight electric mopeds most of which where made in Europe. This company,
Extra Energy, has been around since the 1980s and exists to promote the
benefits of electric/human power hybrid vehicles through publications,
product testing, and raising concerns about the environmental problems of
battery use and disposal. Hannnes Neupert of Extra Energy is concerned that
electric PAB technology is still far from perfect and states:-

³We are very aware of the the issues of battery recycling, solar recharging
and the need for Œsmart or smarter chargers¹, and have published
considerable information on these subjects, but unfortunately, so far only
in German. The full test results, and lots more general information can be
found at Extra Energys web site www.extraenergy.org.²(Kerslake 1999) 

There is now a resurgence of electric PAB sales in Europe with 11
manufacturers already involved including five German companies. According
to some reviews in the trade journals the most important of these for
furthering PAB product development is likely to be Mercedes Benz  (Cycle
Press 1998) however that is only speculation at this stage.

THE NEED FOR PABS POWERED BY RENEWABLE ENERGY

World wide there is a need to slowly decouple the growth in fuel
consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from the economic growth. Around
2002/3 there will be a shortfall in world oil production of several billion
barrels a year that will increase year by year to tens of billions of
barrels.(Fleay 1998) (Campbell &Laherrere 1998) This will probably happen
even though oil is still being produced at twice the level that it was in
1960, when the price of oil greatly increases to a price that reflects its
value as a scarce resource.

In comparison to the PAB the electric car is not the universal oil
conserving solution for passenger transport. It weighs in at around one
tonne and mostly will carry only one occupant who could far more
efficiently use a 25 kg PAB to make many trips of less than 10 km. The
electric car would require huge amounts of electricity from coal fired
power stations to make it and drive it. This will be an environmental
disaster because coal is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, releasing
29 percent more carbon per unit of energy than oil and 80 percent more than
natural gas. It accounts for 43 percent of annual global carbon emissions.
Brown coal is even more greenhouse intensive and its use has been
increasing every year in Australia.

While environmental and economic trends show a global phase out of coal's
share of world energy  from a peak of 62 percent in 1910 to 23 percent in
1998 despite coal's market price being at an historic low. Hastening coal's
further decline is necessary because its environmental and health costs
have never been higher. and it is imperative to do so if climate change is
to be slowed in the next century.The way to do that is to use less
electricity or to use electricity from renewable sources such as the wind,
the sun and biofuels such as ethanol and vehicles such as PABs and buses
that have the potential to make good use of renewable resources.

The dark side of free trade for oil is that when the crunch comes military
power will ensure that petrol will still be available for the cars of the
wealthiest one billion people in the world and will not be available for
the essential subsistence needs of the poorest two billion. The inevitable
consequence of ³oil age² globalisation will be a free trade driven mass
starvation. What will happen to the other 4 billion humans beings that are
neither rich or poor is not known at this time. (Parker 1998 A)

After 2005 hybrid petrol/electric engines and fuel cells will both be
powering hyper cars. Even so hypercars are only a partial solution to the
oil depletion problem because they do not exist as tested production
prototypes and will need billion dollar commitments for their mass yearly
production of 20 million by the year 2000. Also there are large indirect
energy costs in their manufacture and infrastructure requirements. It is
more likely that the world production of cars will be cut back as a result
economic depression in the wake of increasing oil prices sometime after
2002 and the PAB will replace many of the Œgas guzzlers¹ produced in the
1990s as they wear out.
 
 
A TECHNICALLY EXCITING FUTURE FOR THE ELECTRIC PAB

Hopefully by 2002 all countries with the resources to do it will be
integrating their electricity from coal, gas, wind and solar sources.
³Least cost planning² as practised by a few companies in the electric power
industry today could be being applied world wide.

Whatever happens the key to being able to efficiently utilise Solar PV on
the supply side is to greatly reduce demand for electricity on the demand
side. A cautionary approach to Solar PV is necessary because while the use
of solar PV can be economically justified to power a 25 kg PAB that
replaces a car trip, it could never be justified for powering electric cars
in countries with abundant coal supplies, because it is currently the most
expensive form of renewable electricity. According to Diesendorf:- 

Its generation cost (solar PV) is over 30 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh),
that is, at least 4 times the cost of large-scale wind power at excellent
sites and at least 5 times the cost of generating electricity by burning
biomass (e.g.bagasse) at appropriate sites. There is no doubt that
increasing the market size and hence the volume of production would bring
the price of PVs down, but existing, commercial PV technology is still too
inefficient and expensive to reduce the cost by a factor of four...
Assuming the commercialisation of technological improvements that have
already been made in the lab; an increased volume of production and a 5c
per kWh carbon tax solar PV at 15 cents per kWh is possible in 5 to 8
years. This would still be too expensive to compete with coal-fired
electricity in eastern Australia with a price delivered to the consumer of
about 10 cents per kWh.(Diesendorf 1999)
The prospect for powering electric cars from solar PV is very bad, and
little better for large electric motorcycles. Indeed even with significant
carbon taxes (10c per KWH) it will be at least 5 years before arrays of
solar electric roof tiles fitted on offices factories and homes, will start
to reduce the demand for electricity from power stations by feeding back
electricity into the grid and increasing the overall efficiency of the
entire grid connected electricity supply system.

The electric PAB, when used to replace short car trips of less than 5 km,
is so clean, greenhouse friendly and energy efficient that, at even 30c
kWh, it is a sound investment. When the know how already exists in the
global economy to produce over a billion solar PV roof tiles each year and
and the latest wind generators can produce electricity for 8c per kWh, the
use of renewables to power all manner of appliances that greatly reduce the
demand for electricity is clearly justified.

BIKEWAY NETWORKS FOR THE USE OF PABS AND BICYCLES IN HILLY URBAN REGIONS 

The economic justification for using bicycles and PABs in OECD countries is
to make more economic use of car fleets. For example the Dutch car fleet is
so much more efficient today than Australia¹s partly because bicycle trips
substitute for around 8 billion kms of short car trips. Indeed 28% of all
trips made by bicycle by those over 11 years of age in the Netherlands.
However that level of bicycle usage is partly because Dutch cities are flat
and partly because all Dutch cities have bikeway networks that make it safe
to cycle.

Most of the world major cities have grown from small settlements on the
coastal plains or flood plains on rivers over the last 200 years. They are
no longer flat and have grown under the pressure of market forces around
motorised transport corridors. First came the roads for horses and horse
drawn vehicles; then tram and trains networks with main roads for bicycles,
buses motorcycles; and finally freeways that have generated low density
urban sprawl. Today in most cities the use of bicycles is limited by the
physical effort required to get from A to B in two ways. Firstly trip
lengths are longer. Secondly most cities have sprawled beyond the plains
and valleys and climbed the hills. 

We know from the Dutch experience in providing new bicycle infrastructure
to maintain high levels of bicycle use since 1975 that, to enable bicycles
to be used in safety and comfort, there is a need for continuous bikeway
networks. We also know that commuter trips lengths are also longer in the
Netherlands and that using bicycles as feeders to rail and express bus
systems will help overcome that problem too. However in hilly cities there
is a need for PABs to give bicyclists a helping hand. Modern multi geared
bicycles are a great in climbing hills but as recent experience in Japan ,
were most cities are not flat the use of PABs demonstrates that there is a
clear need for them.

In cities built on hills like Sydney the PAB could enable people to cycle
nearly as much as the Dutch do in their flat cities, provided there was a
Dutch-style bikeway network to encourage them and secure bicycle parking at
rail stations. If just two million Australians used PABs instead of cars
for trips of less than 8 ems then the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions
would be enormous. (Parker 1999) 

>From a strategic transport planning perspective investing in bikeway
networks would be nearly as cost effective in hilly cities as it is in
Dutch cities if clean PABs were used for a high proportion of the total
number of bicycle/PAB trips.What Dutch and Japanese experience shows is
that Given a supportive infrastructure of bikeway networks that are
integrated with the public transport system. PABs and ordinary bicycles can
together assist in ensuring our survival in the oil scarce world of the
next millennium and in greening our cities.
REFERENCES 
Cycle Press 1997,  ³All about electric power assist bicycles" Published by
Interpress, Tokyo.  
Campbell ,C.J.and Laherrere,J.H. (1998), 
Cycle Press 1998,  ³All about World Electric Bicycles including Japan",
Published by Interpress, Tokyo. 
Johnstone, B 1998  ³Scooters turn green² New Scientist 1998 page 54, 28
November 1998.
Parker,A.A. 1998 B, ³Designing for the Bike; The Dutch experience². Journal
of the Bicycle  Federation of Australia. ³Australian Cyclist²
February-March 1998 p 48 to 52.
Parker,A.A. (1999) ³Power assisted bicycles flatten cities²Journal of the
Bicycle Federation of Australia. ³Australian Cyclist² February March 1999,
p 60 to 63 with three photographs.
Tuckey, W. 1997. ³Orbital company starts to fulfil its promise², Age page
C15, 23-7-97.
Wigan M.R.1975, ³Mopeds: legal and technical requirements for Australia²,
ARR No. 25, Australian Road Research Board, May 1979.
Kerslake, S. (1999) ³Pushing for Pedelecs²p 40 to 43, Bike Culture 18 July
1999, published by Open road, York UK.


Alan A. Parker
50 Stirling Street,
Footscray. Victoria,
Australia, 3011

Email alanpar at ozemail.com.au
Telephone 03 9689 3693
Fax 03 9687 9519