eVALeBike: Universal E-bike test bench to support diagnosis and quality/valuation testing of (2nd hand) electric bicycles and speed pedelecs

The Research Centre Sustainable Industries of KdG is developing a licentiemodel to support companies in testing new, 2nd-hand and remanufactured mechatronic parts or complete mechatronic applications. In the POC-DEVELOP "eVALeBike", a roller test bench is being developed for testing electric bicycles under simulated, real-world loads. During the first phase (IOF-POC CREATE "CremAN") in the run-up to the licensing model, clear needs were detected in various sectors in the Belgian and international bicycle market: - Professional bicycle mechanics indicate that the most difficult and time-consuming diagnoses are for defects that occur only occasionally and under certain circumstances. In many of these defects, the employees have to cycle the e-bike themselves until the fault occurs. Sometimes employees even have to cycle for a few days before the mistake occurs. - Private individuals who have already bought or sold a second-hand e-bike, professional bicycle mechanics, buyers of leasing e-bikes for remanufacturing and/or sale 2nd hand, indicate how difficult it is to carry out the condition of the various subsystems in a structured and technically substantiated manner without a long test ride with the e-bike. This makes it very difficult for both individuals and professionals to put a price on a second-hand e-bike. - TRAXIO-Velo TRAXIO-Velo (professional representation for the retail & wholesale trade in the bicycle and related sectors) indicates that there are many cheap foreign e-bikes on the market whose quality and energy efficiency are totally unknown and a test procedure with a universal score for new bicycles coming onto the market would be very interesting. eVALeBike responds to these needs by integrating certain features and specific test protocolsinto the bicycle test bench, making it possible to generate a report with universal score for 2nd hand and new e-bikes as well as running certain diagnostic tests in order to do targeted troubleshooting without the bicycle mechanic having to leave the workshop with the bicycle.