A team of 23 students from TU/e and Fontys have been working together since September 2015, on what eventually became STORM Wave: The world’s first electric tourbike. The bike will leave for an eighty-day expedition around the world in August.
The team was inspired by Jules Verne, who wanted to show the world that it was in fact possible to cross the globe in eighty days. The team behind STORM Wave now wants to show the world that it is possible to do the same on an electric bike. The bike was revealed on Thursday outside on High Tech Campus Eindhoven.
Range
Electric bikes that came before STORM Wave generally had a range of about 100 KM and they were citybikes. According to Bram van Diggelen (23), on of the students that worked on the project, their bike has a range of about 500 KM. Depending on variables such as terrain and the quality of the road.
The main difference between existing bikes and the student-project is that the STORM Wave works on a modular battery pack. Not all batteries have to be charged at the same time and they can be taken out seperately. Which lets the driver decide on how much of the batteries they should take with them on a trip. “When driving in tough terrains, less weight means more maneuverability, also, when lighter, the bike will demand less of its power”, van Diggelen says.
According to van Diggelen the students designed the bike around the batteries. “That’s different from most existing bikes, where the bike is designed first, and later, an electric engine is put in.”
Expedition
The team’s bike will leave for the eighty-day expedition on the 14th of August. The tour will start in Eindhoven, after that countries such as Turkey, China and the US will be crossed. Eventually, the bike will go from Paris to Eindhoven. The team plans to aim for a world record in that stage. Calling on everyone who owns an electric vehicle to take the drive with them, aiming for the biggest ride-along with only electric vehicles, ever.
According to van Diggelen, the bike will not be brought to market. “That would be nice, but it’s not our goal. We only wanted to show the world that it was possible to build this type of durable bike. Hopefully, the industry will pick up on this and take it from there.”
Watch the revealing of the bike here.
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