critical design & art
Ein Herzstück von circular.bike ist die Software. Warum eigentlich? Ist die überhaupt wichtig? Die fahren doch quasi von selbst – so einfach per Knopfdruck… Spaß beiseite.
Artwork: yuyun // click to see more CC BY-NC-SA
Angepeilt ist ein offenes Betriebssystem – wie Linux für PC’s. Klingt simpel. Als wär es schon vorhanden. Aber das ist es nicht. Und weshalb nicht? More…
Jetzt kommt wieder eines meiner Lieblingsthemen: E-Bike, Pedelec, Elektrorad. Es geht um die Variante, die gerad überwiegend die Straßen „unsicher“ macht. Die, bei der sich, ohne in die Pedale zu treten, nichts bewegt – eben das Pedelec. In Berlin sind die Gefährte noch nicht wirklich angekommen.
Konzeption & Rendering: CerYo* CC BY-NC-SA
Das mag daran liegen, dass sie nicht gerade günstig sind. Ein geklautes Bike ist ein schmerzlicher Verlust. Zudem macht es keinen Spaß, sich ein ø 20-25kg schweres unhandliches Ding über die Schulter zu werfen und in die Wohnung zu schleppen. Das ist auch schmerzlich…für den Rücken. More…
Artwork: yuyun CC BY-NC-SA
Berlin 2023
Cornelia K. ist in Hektik. Sie schmeißt Smartpad und alles, was sie sonst noch braucht in ihren Rucksack und schwingt sich auf`s neue E-Bike – mal wieder eine kurzfristige Deadline – Termin von ihrer Chefin. Da lässt sich nur hoffen, dass der Verkehr mitspielt. Sie düst mit 45km/h los. Ab und zu kommen ihr E-Fahrzeuge entgegen. Cornelia freut sich, dass in den letzten Jahren doch Positives passiert ist und die Stadt ein bisschen leiser geworden ist. More…
Artwork: yuyun CC BY-NC-SA
Gerad war die Velo Berlin. Für mein Projekt digital.bike.23 war sie Pflicht. Sie ist natürlich auch ein willkommener Anlass mal zu gucken, wo KI bezüglich (E-)Bikes gerade steht. Kurz resümiert: im Bike-Alltag ist wenig KI angekommen. Im Hintergrund laufen jedoch die Entwicklungen auf Hochtouren. More…
Das E-Bike etabliert sich. Die Marktzahlen sind auch 2017 beeindruckend und da ist weiterhin Luft nach oben. So weit so gut.
Die wendigen Fahrzeuge sind sogar auf dem Weg zum festen Bestandteil der Alltagsmobilität zu werden. Und wie alle neuen Mobilitätsoptionen sind sie ganz selbstverständlich kommunikativ. More…
„If we look into the future it is not evident today in which direction things will go. We are near to a so called tipping point. The ball can fall left or right. The future of humankind can be somehow or other….and it is not the traffic, that determines which…(future) option will arise, but the options will determine, how traffic and mobility behaviour will look like.“ (free quote, 
Prof. Dr. Dr. Radermacher, 9.Friedrich-List-Symposium)
Having this in mind I checked various factors: the mobility behavior of the nowerdays young generation, the expected demografic change, the development of urban structures, the development of work structures and the upcoming nature events. (slides language: German). More…
Who will be the main target group(s) for e-bikes and pedelecs in ten years? To answer this question profoundly I checked out developments of environment, society and mobility. Scenarios of various organizations offer a wide spread range of future options. They ask all the same questions: How will humankind respond to the challenges, which are waiting? Are we capable to see a responsibility for our future on this planet? More…
October, 18th and 19th I had the pleasure to participate at the congress „Future Project Earth“ organized by GeoUnion. Scientists of various fields of earth sciences talked about the situation of our planet. For me as an interested but ordinary person it was a great overview regarding the actual state of earth, the challenges we face and the oppurtunities we have – to cope with an earth, which is changing rapidly.
Reports were monitoring changes concerning athmosphere, water and land, population growth, limits of resources and as result: the increasing vulnerability of humankind. More…
It is great to get comments on my posts. Lately I got one via mail, which was very interesting, since it concerned one of the most intrigering drive systems: the NexxtDrive drive. I got a link to the Zemo-project from ZEG (pdf / language: german). Already in 2008 ZEG thought about checking out the NexxtDrive system. In the end they decided against it in favour for the Bosch system. The decision was based on a study, which claimed that the NexxtDrive system will never work properly. During my latest research I checked out a patent from F. Moeller for NexxtDrive from 2010 . The resulting drive system seems to be a very comfortable drive which integrates electric and muscle power – perfect for citybikes. It provides a variable transmission ratio and electric braking.
In the Go Pedelec Reader H. Neupert talked about upcoming drive systems. Like him I´m convinced one future option for the drives is to integrate muscle and electric power. The pedelec from Dolphin E-Bikes is still one of the best bikes on the market concerning performance. It reacts direct and powerful. Why? It works with a drive system which integrates both kind of power.
Known and unknown manufacturers presented their announced news. New Companies like Momentum from Great Briten joined the old bulls. A lot of the news is already pubblished in the relevant media, missing themes will follow in the forthcoming days. My question of interest was:Does the market explode in reality? My personal impression is: no, not yet.
Impressions from the fair:
The range of applications diversifies and technical developments are coming and great visions were shown. More…
The speed of the drive-developments is amazing. On my actual list are ten companies, which present new drive-systems. As far as I know all can be tested at Eurobike. Some of them are revolutionary. Höganäs and MotorExellence will show their transverse flux motors, Protanium will present a kadern-motor and – if true – the most advanced motor will be shown by nexxtdrive, a step-less drive.
Specially these projects catched my attention. But they are far away of being all. Winora developed a new motor together with TranzX, Panasonic shows a rear hub motor together with KTM, AEG will present interesting kits and add pressure on Bosch, who also presents a more powerful motor. Kalkhoff cooperated with Alber for a new rear hub motor and Brose will take the next steps with their middle motor. Last but not least: Giant presents new bikes with Yamaha motor. How many others will present new drive concepts at Eurobike 2012? And which products are really reliable?
After my talk at the bike conference in Munich in two days (July, 26th), I´ll post more details…and look forwards to comments and input.
Beside the fact, that it´s not clear if and when Yamaha plans to realize its prototype shown at the Tokyo Show 2011, it is an fascinating stylish vehicle for me. Yahama produced the first mass production pedelec in 1993 and they are still an important player in the Japanese market with their PAS-pedelecs. Now they start to cooperate with Toyota – a big player in the electric and hybrid four wheeler market. That sounds promising.
Both enterprices want to underline their infrastructure concepts for commuters with the presented vehicles. Even if they might change their vehicle design again, it´s worth to keep their jointly projects in mind.
Since 2009 the e-bike boom already accelerated, automotive manufacturers like Volkswagen, Ford, or latest Audi and Opel created eye-catching e-bike studies. A question was always: Will the vehicle reach production? Nearly as often as the question the answer was: „We do not know, but we analyze the possibility.“ Having seen quite a lot fascinating prototypes, I am more interested in concrete vehicles than in studies. Up to today I found two.
In 2010 Volkswagen presented an outstanding prototype of an e-bike. It was foldable by an intelligent mechanism and fitted into the space for the spare tire in the boot. Two years later they start to sell a pedelec with a battery on the rack and a motor in the front wheel – an average pedelec. Do they want to create the bike of the people?
Smart took another direction. In 2010 they showed a stylish pedelec with a rear motor and smart phone integration. 2011 realistic prototypes were published and now the company is on the way to conquer the market with a pedelec, which matches the style and the market segment of their car.
/post is available in ENGLISH via email hidden; JavaScript is required/ Auch in den anderen europäischen Ländern entwickeln sich die Märkte – langsamer zwar als in den drei Hauptabsatzländern, aber sie wachsen stetig. Verkauft werden anscheinend am ehesten sehr günstige Pedelecs. Deren Qualität fällt oft entsprechend gering aus. Es ist fraglich, ob diese „Billig-Bikes“ sich eher positiv oder negativ auf den jeweiligen Markt auswirken.
Dass es neben den günstigen auch qualitativ hochwertige und sehr ansprechende Pedelecs gibt, zeigen einige Funde. More…
/post is also available inENGlISH via mail/Dass sich eigenwillige Pedelecs auch mit dem Bosch-Antrieb konzipieren lassen, zeigt das Downhill-Bike von Grace aus Brandenburg. Ob Downhiller dieses Fahrzeug wirklich annehmen, wird sich herausstellen. Andere High-End-Gefährte haben eine weniger spezielle Zielgruppe. Viele warten stattdessen mit anspruchsvoller Technik auf, die sich in manchen Fällen sicherlich erst beweisen muss.
Auch für Lastenräder und andere Nischen-Fahrzeuge wurden die Elektro-Antriebe entdeckt und geschickt integriert. More…
