Gadgetory

I'm here with the newly announced ford mode flex this is actually a bicycle not a car and it follows on a couple of bicycles that Ford announced earlier this year the mode pro and the mode me now what Ford is looking at here is it different ways we'll get around in the future in an urban environment including buses and trains and cars as well the mode flex has a lot of cool features that make it a very technological bike make it sort of the future of cycling we have a rear light here we see that as on a lot of bikes today but this one actually gives you a brake light when you pull the brake lever we also have turn signals up on the ends of the handlebars here if I just push this little toggle switch on the handlebar that actually lights up that turn signal lets people know that I'm turnings I don't do hand signals any more up front here we also have a headlight that's a nice bright light and that actually uses lighting technology out of the Ford f-150 up on the handlebars I have a mount for a smartphone and they actually have a special a smartphone app for this that controls a lot of the lights and a lot of the aspects of the bicycle but this also ties into the electric assist system this bicycle has a mid drive electric motor mounted near the crankshaft here and it's got a look theum ion battery in the middle so that powers that it gives you electric assist for getting up hills or if you're getting a little tired on the ride but the Ford mode bikes including the Flex have one really important feature that makes them part of the whole Ford transportation ecosystem you can break them down and stow them into any Ford vehicle this one is designed for the front piece to come off the center section the rear piece can even come off of here and the idea is you can break it apart put it in the back of your Fiesta or in the back of your f-150 and that feature also makes it modular so you can put different pieces on the central core you can actually have a mountain bike front end or a road bike front end and sort of change the type of bicycle you have based on the center core and the components you add to it now the mode flex is strictly a concept at this point but it's one way Ford's looking at the way we can get around in the future in our urban areas I'm Wayne cutting m4 CNET