Police boot [electric] scooters - AUS

[neuraxon77]

I'm new to electric bikes and have been enjoying reading all the knowledge in this forum, so thanks everyone!

I've been considering making my own electric bicycle and am making a tube roller at the moment to build a custom bicycle frame inspired by the Basman 346, but have been considering making a Downhill electric sleeper bike with a custom RC motor in the bottom bracket geared down and all nicely hidden with batteries in the frame.

Today my father brought to my attention the cover of the local Heidelberg paper that has an article on the Police fining three disabled residents $1000 for riding electric scooters. The scooter pictured in the article is the E-Cat 100 and appears to be similar to this E-Cat Pro 100 which was marketed here as legal, no license. It's 195W (200W is the unregistered motorised legal limit here) and has a top speed of 25 km/h (15.5 mph), and it has pedals - likely for starting and hills (the picture in the paper shows pedals more clearly). The legal difference between a scooter and an "assisted" bicycle here appears to be whether the vehicle has a foot board and whether the motor is primary or auxiliary, even if the scooter has pedals operated. If it's primary your legally limited to 10 km/h, auxiliary 25 km/h assist.

Interestingly the woman's fine was quashed because of the false marketing.

Pedaling my hard tail MTB around to the flatter parts of my area and back I tend to average 25-35 km/h and top out at 48 km/h (run out of gears). The legal road speeds here are 50 km/h in suburbia now.

Personally I believe 200W for electric bikes is ridiculously low for large adults like me; 198cm (6'5") 240 lbs (110kg), but I can understand it for young kids and 25 km/h for limiting the top speed of absent minded cyclists. According to the Bicycle power calculator, at best 200W will get me going 6.1 km/h (3.8 mph) up my long 4 degree (7% grade) hill at home here. Many of the hills from Heidelberg to Viewbank where I live are twice that, I can walk faster! And often do get off my bike and walk the last part when I'm worn out and dripping of sweat. To go up my hill at 25 km/h the calculator says I need about 850W.

The Australian legislators must all live in flatland in their squaricles.
[youtube]C8oiwnNlyE4[/youtube]

I understand the American market allows 750W, but is that really enough for hills? I'm curious as to what experienced electric bikers on here think is a minimum speed or wattage they feel is acceptable for climbing most hill grades they encounter for "commuting around" for sweatless pedaling, and not the 5+ kW for fun I'd really like to build!

 

[dogman dan]

I get up hills up to about 7% grade on 750 watts OK. But upping it to 48v, where I have up to 1200 watts works much better, and performs fine up to 10% grades with some moderately brisk pedaling.

So the typical 750 watt american kit, when used with 48v instead of 36 (48v with 25 amp controller) works pretty good on most highway grades. Residential streets can be much steeper of course, but in the US, they try pretty hard to keep highways less than 10% grades.

If you are stuck with 200 w though, 200w assist still beats the pants off of the mere 100w most of us can put out for much distance. Putting that mere 200w into the chain instead of a hubmotor is said to work a lot better. The hubmotors common in the US work fine for us because we can overvolt em till we are happy without worrying too much about the cops. It doesn't matter if we waste half the power if we still have 500 watts or so actually hitting the pavement.

 

[neuraxon77]

Thanks dogman,

Your experience sounds similar to what I had assumed.

Initially I was looking at DD hub motors but are being swayed toward low KV non-hub motors and putting a motor at or near the bottom bracket with gear reduction and freewheel in order to reduce unsprung mass and have better weight distribution and cooling potential if I do a high power downhill bike setup. I'm still considering a 200W geared hub motor for my custom Basman-like cruiser though I have waned a bit on that idea toward the non-hub.

Low power geared hub motors look okay for climbing with high torque at low speeds, but after listening to the noise and reading about peoples reliability experiences with some geared hub motors - both plastic and composite geared - that has turned me off them, so that really leaves me with a non-hub motor with gear reduction again. Preferably using quiet helical gears to the sprocket or a belt. I think I've convinced myself, I think. :lol: I might do some experiments with the 35A (190A burst) controller and RC motor I have if I can find the correct gear reduction for it. I think it might be a 3000 KV motor though. I have a 7.4 V(8.3 V hot) 25C 4500 mAh Lipo (112A continuous). 35A x 7.4 = 259 W. Assuming 85% efficient motor, I need 235 W in for 200 W out (excluding driveline loss). I just need to check the KV and what the motor is capable of producing. 4500 mAh won't get me far, but should be enough for experimenting on my hills I would think.

Thanks for your input.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

The police here have similarly clamped down on the electric scooters that have vestigial pedals, for the same reason. The stupid thing is that the law here allows the unscrupulous sellers to advertise and sell these things, it just illegal to use them on any public highway here (which includes cycle tracks, byeways etc).

If your police are anything like ours, then as long as the bike looks like a bike, and you don't ride around at crazy speeds without pedalling when they are around, then they pretty much just turn a blind eye to the power limit thing. They don't have an easy way of checking it, anyway.

Jeremy

 

[dingoEsride]

great video clip, is that a new movie? another Aussie to the forum,
those people who buy those scooters thinking that they fall into bicycle category I feel sorry for especially that disabled pensioner, the laws have to change

 

[neuraxon77]

Thanks Jeremy,

I'll make sure mine look like bikes and pedal most of the time. I've seen others mention this as well.

It's easy for them for test top speed if your not pedaling but as you say, power output with pedaling is much harder without a dyno.

I have considered a legal mode with a 'hill mode' with extra power activated by a tilt sensor, such that if it were ever tested on flat it'd come out legal but I'd still look like superman going up hills. 8)

There is supposed to be an electric bike in the following superman video, but I can't see one (unless it's the third one that disappears at the beginning).

[youtube]z3NFeVTMkvk[/youtube]

dingotookmybaby,

There are supposedly two Flatland movies made in 2007, and if you read the IMDB review it goes into detail about them. I've not seen either, but it sounds like if you enjoy math and geometry you'd like the concepts in the Movies and book. Another free and excellent series on dimensions is this series.