Hi-tech Chinese company Livall came to the world’s attention in 2015 with its pioneering smart safety helmet for cyclists. Now its New Zealand-educated founder and CEO Bryan Zheng and his team has come up with another first, an integrated power pack that turns an ordinary pushbike into an electric bike.
It’s called the Livall PikaBoost, which is mounted on the seat post of a bike and provides drive via a wheel that runs on the rear tyre. The device wowed crowdfunding platform Kickstarter by achieving 2600% of its funding goal in a matter of weeks.
PikaBoost has a 234Wh battery, 250W motor and controller and weighs 3kg. Features of the 33cm-long unit include a self-charging battery, integrated USB port, regenerative braking, and three smart riding modes. Maximum speed is 32km/h. PikaBoost has a range of up to 30km, although this can be doubled with an optional spare battery pack.
In a statement, Livall said its team has put a lot of effort into making the PikaBoost function on all sorts of terrain. “This includes integrating a self-locking mechanism to avoid loosening due to vibration, and an elastic mechanism to avoid minor laxity that could cause the product to fall off.
“With the built-in two-axis linear Hall sensor, gyroscope, accelerometer and PikaBoost’s exclusive attitude algorithm, under the control of MCU [microcontroller unit], PikaBoost can detect the speed and attitude of the bicycle in real time, judge whether it is cycling uphill, downhill or on the flat road, and whether there is a trend of acceleration or deceleration, and dynamically adjust the output power of the motor for speed matching, so as to provide a smooth transition when the speed changes or keep the bike at a constant riding speed.”
Zheng graduated from China’s Wuhan University in Information Technology and Management in 1993, before going on to achieve an MBA degree from NZ’s Massey University in 2006.
He established Livall in 2014 and released the world’s first smart cycling helmet in February 2015. Features included safety lighting, turn-signals, Bluetooth hands-free phone calls, Walkie-Talkie, music playback through a smartphone connection and SOS alert function.
PikaBoost is expected to retail for around $NZ940, although it is available for the next week or so through Kickstarter for around $NZ470.