A team of 14 students at the Faculty of Engineering in the University of Zurich, Switzerland has designed an electric motorbike named Ethec with a battery range of up to 400km, powered by a huge lithium-ion battery of 15 kWh, as part of a university project about a year ago.
Ethec comes with a very futuristic design, but it tries to keep the classic motorcycle identity, in dark grey colour with black tubes and wheels, a lightweight tubular frame, and a trapezoidal fork in the front, all of which give it an unassailable look as it is an electric bicycle at the end.
The team faced several problems with the design, including the front wheel wasting 75% of the bike’s energy, so the group put an engine on the front wheel to compensate for energy, and converted the energy back to the bike. The team designers installed a 7-inch touch screen equipped with a navigation system and a key-less power button.
The team or the university administration has yet to announce the future projects of the bike, but we will certainly see it on the production line of a major company, and if not, it will of course be the prototype of an electric bicycle that will achieve unparalleled success.
Motorcycle companies are now trying to keep up with the new era by producing electric bikes, but they are facing the short-range battery problem. Most bikes come with a very short range, which is certainly a drawback for consumers.
The main reason for this is that the range depends on a large battery that can store more energy, which means increasing the size of the bike, but the team has tried to solve this equation, which has been a dilemma for years.
