Mega automotive supplier Valeo has adapted its 48-V motors for the “most high-performance electric assistance system for bikes to date,” combining that performance with efficiency, intelligence, comfort, robustness, and ease of use. The electric bike example is the latest application for the company’s affordable way of electrifying vehicles, from rechargeable hybrids and all-electric cars, to e-trucks, autonomous shuttles, electric three-wheelers, and delivery droids.

The company claims world leadership in vehicle electrification, with major assets including its 48-V technology platform, which enables it to meet a broad range of needs and uses from a single technology base, and its very high-volume production capacity, which delivers significant economies of scale. Valeo produces around 30 million electric machines each year. A major player in all forms of electric mobility, in 2019, 57% of the group’s sales were generated from technologies its says are aimed at reducing CO2 emissions.

“One of Valeo’s key strategic focuses is accelerating its expansion in the emerging markets for new ‘zero-emissions’ mobility, including electric small city vehicles, electric motorcycles and scooters, last-mile autonomous delivery droids, and electric bikes,” said Valeo’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jacques Aschenbroich. “To do this, we are leveraging and adapting the technological platforms that we developed for the automotive industry—both those dedicated to ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) and to low-voltage electrification (48 V).”

The Smart e-Bike System is said to be the first in the world to integrate an electric motor and an adaptive automatic transmission into the pedal assembly. Developed in partnership with Effigear, the solution comprises a 48-V motor and a seven-speed automatic. The electric motor is more efficient than the 24- or 36-V motors currently installed on the vast majority of e-bikes.

The system includes an anti-theft function integrated directly into the pedal assembly that, when activated, blocks the use of the bike. It also boasts a pedestrian push-assist function, which is particularly useful when carrying heavy loads, and a boost function that makes it easier to overtake other cyclists and climb hills.

While bikes have systematically evolved through new-component additions, Valeo started from scratch, developing a system that eliminates many vulnerable bike parts. As a result, electric bike applications can eliminate around 50 parts that are often fragile and require constant maintenance. Those include derailleurs, sprockets, handlebar shifters, and the cables that go with them.

Valeo says a traditional bike, on average, needs to be serviced at least once a month, even if it’s just to tighten the chain, lubricate the chain and/or derailleurs, or put the chain back in place. With its technology, the company has therefore removed the weakest link in the electric bike, the chain, replacing it with a cleaner belt system.

The electric bike market is expected to boom, with a fifteen-fold expansion expected over the next ten years, bringing global sales to €270 million in 2030, according to the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility – 2020. The market for electric cargo bikes is also set to grow substantially as regulations prohibiting access to city centers for more polluting vehicles gradually come into force.

Rather than build bikes, Valeo aims solely to equip them with its electric-assistance system, revolutionizing e-bike drivetrains with a system that already meets the most demanding automotive standards in terms of quality, robustness, durability, and safety. With this in mind, the company developed three prototypes to show how its solution can be adapted to all bike types, showing city, mountain, and cargo applications—the latter for transporting loads and featuring unique reversing and braking energy recovery functions.

The system’s algorithms adapt to the cyclist, changing gears automatically and determining the amount of electric assistance needed from the first pedal stroke. Given the motor’s 130-N·m (96-lb·ft) torque, it can multiply the cyclist’s effort by eight, while other systems on the market offer up to a five-fold boost. Used on a cargo bike, Valeo’s electric assistance allows a cyclist carrying a 150-kg (330-lb) load to climb a 14% gradient (the equivalent of a parking lot ramp) without much effort, whether moving forward or reversing.

To learn more, check out the overview by Geoffrey Bouquot, Valeo’s Chief Technology Officer, at https://youtu.be/NQ6Ht96mYM0.