A generator can have efficiency up to the mid 90%. Of course I am sure the cheap Chinesium components that most ebikes are made of are lower, but still it shouldn’t be horrible. Then yiu have to store that power, and then feed it back into the motor, so every time you convert the power you lose more efficiency, but again, it might be worth it.
A chain isn’t 100% efficient either, of course. It is in the mid 90% range as well if it is a single speed, but every gear is going to lose efficiency.
I could imagine some wild ebike designs with a chainless design. You don’t need any physical connection to your feet to the driven wheels (except for a pair of wires). For over 100 years that hasn’t been the case. The wheels and crank have always needed to be in-line in one form or another because they mechanically needed to be linked. Removing that link really opens up a lot of things.
From what I read chains were still a bit more efficient but I would imagine as the tech improves that efficiency will go up. That said, maintenance is probably also way easier/almost non-existent for the wired setup compared to the traditional chain setup.
You might be surprised.
A generator can have efficiency up to the mid 90%. Of course I am sure the cheap Chinesium components that most ebikes are made of are lower, but still it shouldn’t be horrible. Then yiu have to store that power, and then feed it back into the motor, so every time you convert the power you lose more efficiency, but again, it might be worth it.
A chain isn’t 100% efficient either, of course. It is in the mid 90% range as well if it is a single speed, but every gear is going to lose efficiency.
I could imagine some wild ebike designs with a chainless design. You don’t need any physical connection to your feet to the driven wheels (except for a pair of wires). For over 100 years that hasn’t been the case. The wheels and crank have always needed to be in-line in one form or another because they mechanically needed to be linked. Removing that link really opens up a lot of things.
From what I read chains were still a bit more efficient but I would imagine as the tech improves that efficiency will go up. That said, maintenance is probably also way easier/almost non-existent for the wired setup compared to the traditional chain setup.