The growing interest in electronic bicycles worldwide will bring opportunities for designers, while the biggest challenges are integration with batteries and “smart” devices, and enhancement of user-centric services, iF International Forum Design (iF) chief executive officer Ralph Wiegmann said.
Sharing his ideas with the Central News Agency on bike-related design on the opening day of the Taipei International Cycle Show, Wiegmann said focus is increasingly being placed on e-bikes.
However, many technical challenges need to be solved before designers can create more appealing bikes, he said.
For instance, because the German carmaker Porsche is the main e-bike battery provider, design is currently constrained by the firm’s bulky batteries, Wiegmann said
“From a design point of view, the battery issue is making it difficult to create very beautiful e-bikes,” Wiegmann said.
In addition to batteries, designers must create e-bikes with built-in “smart” features, such as the ability to record distance traveled without using a cellphone.
In addition, there will be growing need for a network connecting personnel, infrastructure, communication and material components to better serve customers, he said.
“I can imagine that in five to 10 years, there will be cooperation between industries that never co-worked before,” Wiegmann said, adding that the trend could be found in all sectors.
Wiegmann said that car companies would work more closely with e-bike manufacturers to keep themselves competitive by offering e-bike cyclists more mobility options, especially amid a shrinking global auto market.
Wiegmann said he is looking forward to continuing e-bike development in Taiwan.
“Taiwanese are always so quick, luckily, in adopting new technology and new opportunities. That’s one of the big advantages of Taiwanese,” he said.
According to the Taiwan Bicycle Association, although exports of complete bicycles slipped 26.18 percent to 2.949 million units last year, exports of e-bikes reached 132,000 units, surging 58.6 percent year-on-year.
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