Gadgetory

the number one selling electric vehicle in the world might come as a surprise to you it's a bike electric bikes are a hot new cycling trend you get the benefit of a little motor helping you up hills but all the traffic free health benefits of riding a bike this is amazing I can try to keep up with us but we have a little extra power not all ebikes are created equal but they all share similar tech each has a motor a battery and a control system the two main types of ebikes are pedal assist which provides an electric boost to your own pedaling and power on demand which operates via a twist throttle kind of like a moped most are designed to go about 20 miles per hour and a good one can last 60 to 70 miles on a single charge at San francisco-based Faraday they've created the Porter which is a pedal assist bike the Faraday porteur cost $3500 it has a 250 watt motor and a 195 watt hour battery it has a range of 15 to 20 miles with full pedal assist riding and it weighs 39 pounds it's effortless right it just feels like you're riding a bike but if you decide you want that assist right you can switch it on into kind of a normal mode right there and without ado basic is measure how are you working and match that and that's pretty awesome go cruise along kind of a flat street like this at 17 18 miles one of the really cool things you can turn it off completely and ride it like a regular bike wow I feel like I can't ship fast enough to keep up with it almost wow I feel like that girl I feel like Mary Tyler Moore on this bike it's totally noticeable when it kicks on Oh like there's that one two pedals where you think oh I'm riding a bike and then it's there and then the cool thing is it just it just goes faster the faster you go yeah the faster it wants to go I know Oh full power full power boost mode this bikes so fun there are dozens of e bike manufacturers making bikes for millions of riders all over the world from grace to biruni to hero eco and the bikes range from elegant cruisers to this all-terrain monster called the stealth bomber the stealth bomber costs ten to fourteen thousand dollars depending on the options the motor is 4500 watts the battery is a whopping 1500 watt hours and the range is 40 miles on a single charge it weighs a surprising 116 pounds tell me about the stealth bomber what is this in a nutshell the self bomber is a kind of a hybrid between a motorcycle and our traditional bicycle what makes it more bicycle like because it has a nine speed sequential gearbox and what that does it basically gives you the ability to pedal it like a normal bike in Gears 1 & 2 we're in the gear 9 the top highest gear the hardest gear to pedal you can still pedal faster than the motor can go so in all the way from 0 to 45 55 miles an hour you as a rider are still pedaling the bike unlike a motorcycle where you're just basically along for the ride alright but I want to see you tear it up on this ok I'll do my best of course most people are not going to be riding the stealth-bomber if you're like me you just want to know if ebikes can handle the hills we visited the new wheel which is an e-bike only shop in one of San Francisco's Hill iasts neighborhoods they told me they have the perfect bike for going up one of the steepest hills around the german-made kalkhoff the kalkhoff tasman tour c8 premium costs thirty three hundred ninety nine dollars the motor is 250 watts and the battery is 396 watt hours its range is forty to seventy miles and it weighs 55 pounds so it senses how hard you're pedaling which i've heard before but it doesn't more than that it does more it also takes into account the cadence of your pedaling and the speed of the bike so that it has a more complete picture of how you're riding and so you turn it on there and then you set a power level from low to high but you can set it all the way to no assist with no light Iko which is very very low and then power which is gonna take you up absolutely anything quickly I can't lie I really like the sound of absolutely anything so I'm gonna start by attempting to ride a little way up this hill on a regular bike with no assistance just for you know purposes in comparison in pain see how far I get okay I'm on the lowest gear okay okay here I go this is gonna be no problem I can do it I can do it I can do it I can do it I just oh my god oh ah yep that hurt okay I'm ready for electric now that we've painfully determined that is not a good idea to try that hill on a regular bike let's try it on an electric bike you'll pardon me if I'm slightly skeptical but I'm willing to give it a go because I have assurances that this bike can handle any Hill even this one go oh it's helping it's helping already oh I feel it helping you know what they say when you fall off you're right back on oh my god it's totally helping this is amazing whoa you guys I owned this hill this bike is awesome seeing this is how you sell electric bikes in San Francisco oh-ee bikes are a technology that Europe has enthusiastically adopted as an eco-friendly alternative to cars I can only hope the US will catch up in the future