Empowering the battery cycle

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Empowering the battery cycle Otago Daily Times

Dunedin, New Zealand - Dunedin auto engineer Steve Ward is contributing to a "quiet revolution" and a surge in the number of electric bicycles being ridden in city streets.

Born near Christchurch, Mr Ward (57) has lived in Dunedin for the past 10 years.

He rides an electric bike and helps convert other bicycles with the addition of batteries and electric motors.

And this year, he has been based at the Valley Community Workspace complex in Northeast Valley. The University of Otago’s Otago Energy Research Centre has marked its 10th anniversary by staging, with the Transport Support Network, a two-day, energy-related a symposium, which ends today at the Otago Museum.

During the lunch break at that event yesterday, innovative electrically powered vehicles of various kinds were displayed in a parking area outside the museum.

Mr Ward displayed a recumbent bicycle which ...


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Showing faith in conversions Otago Daily Times

From Nissan to Jaguar, Volkswagen to Hyundai, the big car manufacturers around the world are gearing up to satisfy the demand for electric vehicles and meet new regulations around tailpipe pollution and carbon emissions. But for all the high-tech gadgetry of their offerings, sometimes they don't quite fit the bill. In other cases, they've been too slow. In those instances, clever locals have taken on the Challenge themselves, converting their conventionally powered vehicles to battery power. Or in the case of Northeast Valley engineer Steve Ward, upgrading bicycles to lithium-battery power. Here's a selection of a few made-in-Dunedin examples.

It's electrifying work, adding electric motors to bikes, says engineer Steve Ward. Among many memorable projects, he says, is his Yuba cargo bike. It's his "ute", and gets used to cart kids, tools, dogs, shopping, and his partner (and her mum), occasionally all at the same time! It is even used as a mobile puppet theatre. Using an Ezee rear-hub motor in a 20in wheel, running off a 22amp/hr battery, it has lots of grunt to carry up to 200kg. At 20c per 100km, Steve says it's the best ute he's ever owned. Another favourite is the first bike he electrified, a three-wheeled Performer recumbent. Years old, but still going strong, a deckchair on wheels. As they say in the business, you can recognise a happy cyclist by the flies on his teeth.

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Saw a lot of these (though not electric) when we were in Amsterdam last month.