MitchJi
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Hi,
http://www.cleanbreak.ca/2009/08/08/autoparts-giant-magna-quietly-enters-e-bike-market/#more-1774
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/678181
http://www.cleanbreak.ca/2009/08/08/autoparts-giant-magna-quietly-enters-e-bike-market/#more-1774
Autoparts giant Magna quietly enters e-bike market
Nearly two years ago Magna Marque, a subsidiary of Magna International, quietly acquired a small company in Quebec called EPS Energy Propulsion Systems Inc., maker of the BionX e-bike kit. Manfred Gingl, founder and president of Magna Marque and former CEO of parent company Magna International, had a personal interest in bicycle technology and realized the market for e-bikes would be huge. Today, I have a story in the Toronto Star (sidebar here) that for the first time gives readers an inside look at what Magna is up to and how it plans to be a leading supplier of electric propulsion systems for bicycles and other mobile products, from paddle boats to three-wheeled urban vehicles. The company, quite simply, wants to be the Shimano of e-bikes. It already has supply agreements with Trek and is in serious talks with other bicycle manufacturers.
Aurora, Ont.-based Magna, of course, isn’t doing very well with its traditional business. It saw sales plummet 45 per cent in its most recent quarter, reported yesterday, and swung to a $205 million loss. The company, however, is gradually positioning itself as a leading supplier of drive trains and other components for the emerging electric car market, and has a partnership with Ford and other players to follow through with that vision. But Gingl’s view is that the e-bike opportunity will come faster than the electric car market, and the two nicely complement each other. Magna Marque can leverage battery and motor development taking place for the electric-car side of Magna’s business, giving it an edge over other competitors in the e-bike market.
The BionX system itself is, in my own view, quite impressive. I currently have a demo bike at home and enjoy the ride immensely. It takes some getting used to  i.e. the electric boost it sometimes provides, depending on your speed, can cause a mild jolt like a car going into passing gear. It might bother some people, but I actually like it. I rode 30 minutes home from work yesterday in jeans and in dress shoes, carrying a shopping bag in one hand, and easily tackled a head wind and hills averaging 30 kilometres an hour. Though I should emphasize this is no free ride  you have to peddle to trigger the electric-assist. It’s just that you do it more evenly and consistently than you might otherwise have to when approaching hills and wind. There’s an override that can put it into all-electric mode temporarily, but generally the idea around this kind of e-bike is that you still get the exercise but without the bursts of effort needed to tackle uneven terrain and forces of nature. I can see this being a hit with boomers, but younger folks will also see it as a way to make urban commuting by bicycle less intimidating.
I should also add that when you use the back brake it immediately goes into regenerative mode, charging the lithium-ion battery pack by capturing braking energy. You can also set the control so that it captures energy when you’re going downhill or riding with a tail wind or simply want the added resistance for the purpose of exercising.
Now, these things aren’t cheap. They range from $1,200 to $1,700 depending on battery power. And that’s without the bike. This is a kit, remember  a system than can either be retrofitted onto your existing bike or purchased as part of a package from a company such as Trek (in that case, you’ll likely pay more).
All in all, it’s encouraging to see a Canadian manufacturing gem like Magna taking this high-growth market seriously. It’s not going to replace lost auto-sector jobs and revenues, but when the auto sector rebounds the e-bike side of the business will certainly be a nice complement. Already, it has created 90 or so new jobs in the last year. And with Magna’s brand behind it, it will certainly raise awareness of e-bikes and their importance as we transition our transportation infrastructure away from congestion and pollution and toward free-flowing and emission-free.
By the way, as you’ll read in the story, Magna is developing an e-bike racking system that can be rolled out as part of a package to cities, resorts, gated communities, etc… that want to expand the bike-share concept seen in Paris and Montreal to electric bikes.
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/678181
He's an avid collector of fast and fancy cars, a hobby that comes naturally after four decades of rising through the ranks of auto-parts giant Magna International Inc. These days, however, Manfred Gingl has shifted gears from four- to two-wheelers.
As Magna founder and chairman Frank Stronach positions his company as a leading manufacturer of propulsion systems for electric vehicles, Gingl, a former chief executive of Magna and one of Stronach's closest confidants, is thinking beyond the automobile. The electrification of transportation, in his view, must include electric bicycles if communities are to deal with problems such as highway and urban congestion.
"Most people from the bicycle industry go into the auto industry," says Gingl, 60, president of Magna's aftermarket-products subsidiary Magna Marque. "I've made a complete circle, and have gone from car industry to bicycle."
In early 2008, Magna Marque quietly purchased EPS Energy Propulsion Systems Inc., a Quebec-based maker of e-bike retrofit kits that include a battery, electric motor and handlebar control panel, all tied together with sophisticated energy-management software. The system, branded BionX, is already popular among cycling enthusiasts. Magna Marque plans to leverage the in-house engineering clout of its parent company to grow BionX into the world's most advanced – and most desired – e-bike propulsion system.
Gingl may be on to something. One in seven bicycles sold today are battery-assisted. Sales of electric bicycles reached 23 million in 2008, more than 90 per cent made and sold in China, according to Electric Bikes Worldwide Reports. It predicts the market will more than double by 2012.
About 730,000 e-bikes were sold in North America and Europe last year, and sales are expected to quadruple by 2011. "The idea is to not use highways as much, to not fill underground parking lots. It's good for you as exercise, it's good for the environment, and it doesn't need much space, " says Gingl. "It's just an all-around great idea."
That's what Lee Iacocca thought in 1997 when, a few years after retiring as chairman of Chrysler Corp., he founded e-bike company EV Global Motors. Iacocca told his shareholders e-bikes would lead the "electric revolution" and pave the way for electric cars. He predicted U.S. sales of a million a year.
Twelve years later, e-bike sales in the United States only recently surpassed 200,000 annually. EV Global eventually faded away.
Frank Jamerson, an e-bike industry consultant who was once assistant manager for General Motors Corp.'s EV1 electric car program, says Iacocca was simply ahead of his time. "His idea was to sell electric bikes through car dealers, but dealers aren't interested in selling a $1,500 item when they're used to selling a $30,000 item."
Jamerson says Magna, on the other hand, is entering the market at the right moment. Gasoline prices are high and destined to keep rising, concerns over climate change and smog have gone mainstream and there's growing interest in the potential of electric transportation and advancements in battery technology.
Magna Marque has already started to benefit from these trends. Fewer than 8,000 units of the BionX systems were sold in 2008, but this year the company expects to sell more than 40,000 and "well over" 100,000 systems in 2010, says Gingl. He predicts the business will generate a "few hundred million" in sales in two or three years.
Over the past 18 months Magna Marque has been able to create more than 90 new jobs – not much for a company whose parent boasts 70,000 employees worldwide, but it's still early days.
"The awareness is starting to come," says Jamerson. "They're doing what I proposed at General Motors 15 years ago."
In his view, countries that can get people comfortable with e-bikes will have an easier time transitioning to electric cars. "The Chinese now have 100 million folks who are ready to buy electric cars because they're already plugging in their bikes at night."
Gingl, a tinkerer by nature, first started "playing" with bicycles about seven years ago out of a workshop on his private estate. At the time he wasn't thinking about electric propulsion. Instead, his focus was on designing an ultralight bike made out of injection-moulded magnesium that could also be folded for easy storage.
Borrowing from a high-tech process developed by Magna for making automotive parts, Gingl paid $1.5 million out of his own pocket to have four prototype magnesium bikes produced. It would be a good test of the new moulding process. The process worked; the bikes looked fabulous. But for Gingl it wasn't enough. Something was missing. "There's got to be more to a bicycle," he thought, later realizing that the missing link was the need for motor assistance.
At first he designed a small, self-contained motor packaged with a gas tank that could be snapped onto the bottom of a bike. It worked fine, but the exhaust smelled when it was running. That put Gingl on the path to electric propulsion and sparked a worldwide hunt for the right technology.
After three years of searching the globe he ended up finding what he needed in his own backyard. EPS of Asbestos, Que., was a tiny operation but had proven itself a leader in e-bike propulsion, power storage and energy management. It was also only an eight-hour drive from Magna's Aurora headquarters.
Since becoming part of Magna, EPS has flourished. Virtually every major bicycle maker, including big names such as Cannondale, Giant and Hercules, is now in talks about integrating the BionX system with their bikes. EPS is already producing units for Trek in Germany, and later this month Trek USA is to launch a BionX-based e-bike.
Gord Hall, senior vice-president of operations, says Magna Marque wants to become the e-bike industry's Shimano, the world's leading bicycle components manufacturer. E-bikes would be "Powered by BionX" in the same way that personal computers have "Intel Inside."
The company is also developing an intelligent e-bike rack – potentially powered by solar panels – that could be sold along with several BionX-powered cycles and placed within resorts, gated communities, university and corporate campuses, and at tourist sites such as the Toronto Islands. The vision is to replicate the bicycle-sharing scheme recently introduced in Montreal and pioneered in Paris, but using electric bikes instead, potentially piggybacking the car-share networks developed by companies such as Zipcar.
"I really think we're on to something here," says Gingl, beaming as he talks about the road ahead. He wants to expand the concept to watercraft such as paddleboats.
"If you would have asked me two years ago I don't know if there was anybody serious about it except myself and a few people around me. Now it's almost to the point of, like, `Wow!' We've got 300 to 400 per cent growth."
And what does Frank think? "Frank likes it a lot," says Gingl, who says he's proud of how the business is blossoming. "Especially in this worst of times in the auto industry."
