PiCycle brings high style to the eco-commute

Electric bicycles occupy a strange vehicular netherland. Outfitted with pedals and other low-speed components, they’re more bicycle than motorcycle. But their motors prompt scorn among cycling purists, and their relatively high cost makes them a hard sell for the masses. Powered but not especially powerful, these bicycles-that-aren’t-really-bicycles occupy a niche within a niche, appealing to an already small minority within the country’s huge bicycling population – those who use their two wheels to commute rather than recreate.

The very word "commuting" is as unsexy as sanitation work, which makes something like the new PiCycle that much more intriguing. It’s a commuter-oriented electric bicycle that values style as much as substance. An exceptional art piece that is both practical and affordable, it almost requires its own category.

The PiCycle is the second iteration of an electric bicycle called the Pi, which was introduced two years ago with a price tag as highfalutin as its name. The Pi costs $7,500, which helps explain why just 40 of these arched, Ayn Randian anomalies have been sold. The new PiCycle costs one-third as much.

That’s right. It’s now $2,500.

Volkswagen brings the fun: Giant piano stairs and other ‘Fun Theory’ marketing

If stairs played musical notes when you walked on them, would you be more likely to take them?

The video of people skipping the escalator in favor of composing music on the piano stairs of Odenplan subway station in Stockholm, Sweden, has been viewed more than 2.5 million times on YouTube. (Watch it above in the embedded player.)

The video is part of a new viral marketing campaign called “The Fun Theory.” The concept, created by Volkswagen Sweden and ad agency DDB Stockholm, is based on the idea that “fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better.”

Another campaign video shows people picking up trash off the ground in a park just to hear “The World’s Deepest Bin,” a regular trash can wired with motion-activated depth sound effects.

The goal with these fun, do-good videos is to promote VW’s new environmentally friendly BlueMotionTechnologies brand in an increasingly more competitive eco-car market.

“As traditional advertising is becoming less effective, and the competition in the market for environmentally sound cars is becoming more fierce, we believed we needed a more innovative approach to draw attention to BlueMotion,” DDB Stockholm deputy manager Lars Axelsson said in an e-mail.

With few new cars, Ford sells green image

In the auto business, there are few challenges tougher than marketing a brand that has few new cars to promote. No matter how good the current product, consumers like to see the latest stuff.

That's the conundrum at Ford Motor Co., which after a solid run of product launches now faces a roughly six month gap without a significant new rollout.

The last 12 months at the Blue Oval have been an advertiser's dream, with introductions of the Taurus full-size sedan, the Transit Connect van, the new Fusion and Mercury Milan mid-size sedans, the 2010 Mustang and the redesigned F-150 pickup.

The product barrage has helped Ford's sales fare far better than most other automakers in a tough economy, and its share of the U.S. market has grown to 14.7%, compared with 12.1% a year ago, according to Autodata Corp.

But with the exception of the commercially oriented Super Duty truck coming in March, Ford won't have a new car to crow about until the second quarter of next year, when the subcompact Fiesta arrives in the U.S., followed by Explorer and Focus launches later in the year.

For now, with competitors like Toyota Motor Corp. and General Motors Co. ramping up their advertising efforts with major campaigns in coming months, that means Ford has to get pretty creative when it comes to marketing in this dry season.

"We definitely have some space to fill," said Matt VanDyke, Ford's director of marketing communications.

He's overseeing the automaker's new advertising campaign, which begins Monday. An extension of the "Drive One" campaign, it will attempt to attract buyers without being able to rely on tried and true pictures of brand-new vehicles.

Instead, the automaker will focus its campaign on customers, with advertising that features real Ford drivers as well as digital forays into Facebook and the like. It will also strive to appeal to what could be the auto industry's most important stakeholder: the federal government.

Future Tech: ‘Smart’ road studs coming to L.A. freeways

 

Imagine a future where you can charge your electric car by driving in a special freeway lane. Or where a driver can stick to the speed limit by following lights that pulse in sequence along the roadside. Or even one where traffic jams are a distant memory.

A little bit of the future is coming to L.A.'s freeways later this year in the form of "smart" road studs that gauge road conditions and traffic flow and open and close freeway lanes accordingly. Caltrans has contracted with a New Zealand company to pilot the "dynamic-lane" system on the northbound 110 Freeway where traffic backs up in a tunnel at the single-lane connector to the northbound 5 Freeway. At peak hours, the "smart studs" automatically will open a through lane on the 110 that will also serve as a connector, easing the long lines.

Pretty smart, huh? Caltrans thinks so. So do the tech guys at SmartStud, a unit of 3i Innovations, which is starting to gain serious traction in the U.S. after completing similar projects in tunnels across Europe, Australia and Canada. Despite a couple of delays -- the $3.2-million project had been set to roll out this month -- a Caltrans engineer says it's on target to launch in November and, if successful, could be installed at other L.A. County junctions.     

Getting from A to B on Ultra Motor's A2B Metro electric bicycle

 

When it comes to annual sales, bicycles speed past motorcycles. About 20 million bikes are sold in the U.S. every year compared with a measly mil for motorcycles, though the two categories are, in other ways, similar. The majority of both are sold for recreation. Transportation is a small minority.

But small is a relative term. In the bicycle world, 1 million people use their rides for commuting. That population might be even larger if it weren't for lazy people like me, who live close enough to work to entertain the idea of bicycle commuting but don't because we'll sweat.

Enter the bike for the inactive: An electric, such as the Ultra Motor A2B Metro, which requires absolutely no effort to ride, other than a sense of balance. A power-on-demand electric bicycle, no pedaling is required unless you want some light exercise. Just twist the grip and go.

Just don't expect to go fast. Powered with a 250-watt lithium-ion battery, the bike is capable of only 20 mph, which it can maintain for about 20 miles on a charge. Pedaling like the Wicked Witch of the West, the A2B simply won't go any faster unless you're careening down a mountain or riding with a hurricane at your back (though swapping out the 42-tooth Shimano crank for one that has 46 could eke out another 3 miles per hour).

20 mph. 23 mph. Neither seem at all fast, but the A2B got me from my A -- my driveway -- to B -- my desk -- even faster than a car or motorcycle, mostly due to traffic and parking. I could just wheel the bike up to my computer and plug it into the same power strip, where it took about three hours to fully charge and cost (Sam Zell) mere pennies. The only problem is the charger. It isn't built in to the bike. The two-pound brick needs to be lugged to where you need it.

On the road, the A2B Metro made me feel like a cheat, as I passed regular bicycle commuters without even pedaling and plowed over the manhole covers my fellow bicyclists took pains to avoid. Skinned with three-inch tread tires, the A2B's 20-inch wheels lower the bike's center of gravity, which gave me the option of nimbly steering around a pothole or boldly riding through it. Either way, the bike was happy, and so was my back side, thanks to a cushy seat and inches of travel provided by the front fork and rear swing arm.

All in all, I thought the A2B was an easy and great way to get around. It didn't hurt that everywhere I went, people were complimenting me on the bike's chic and chunky profile. But I have to say, the price is a problem. At $2,700, when gas prices are low and the U.S. Department of Energy projects them to go even lower, that's a lot of money for so little power, especially when a small scooter, motorcycle or used car can be had for only slightly more dough. Unfortunately, many of the federal tax credits available on purchases of larger vehicles through the stimulus bill, such as a sales tax reimbursement on new cars and motorcycles and a 10% purchase price reimbursement on larger, two-wheeled electric vehicles, don't apply to a product such as the A2B Metro. As sensible, fun, cool and high-minded as the A2B is, it takes green to be green and ride one.

Ultra Motor A2B Metro electric bicycle
Base Price: $2,700*
Battery: 500-watt, 36-volt lithium ion
Maximum speed: 20 mph
Maximum range per charge: 20 miles*
Weight: 72 pounds

* additional battery costs an additional $650 and provides up to 20 more miles of range

-- Susan Carpenter

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Photo: Ultra Motor USA

For the record: Battery output of 250-watts and Weight of 82 pounds were incorrect in original publishing of this article. Have been corrected to 500-watt/72 pounds.