Potential benefit of regenerative braking on electric bicycles

Abstract

Electric Bicycles (EBs) provide a promising sustainable mobility solution. Despite the huge number of research and development activities, the battery pack is still the Achilles' heel of electric vehicles. The dilemma arises between energy content, weight and cost of the batteries. A potential remedy is Regenerative Braking (RB). The main idea of RB is to recover the highest possible amount of kinetic and potential energy during braking and convert this energy into a storable form. This paper presents a study on the potential benefit of RB on EBs. The study is based on two redundant calculation methods for determining recoverable energy. Input data is measured with an experimental test bike during a typical EB trip. Results show a potential RB rate of 35% without taking efficiency losses of energy conversion into account. The subsequent discussion of the results points out possible weaknesses of the study and defines future work.