Audi Electric Bike Revealed

Audi Electric Bike Revealed

Last week German automaker Audi made its first big splash into the E-bike world, releasing photos and videos of an exciting lightweight prototype electric stunt bike that may be among the most ambitious projects introduced in this space to date. No specific names or dates have been announced yet by the Germans, so for now it is still technically a concept bike–but from the looks of it a radically groundbreaking one.

 

Audi is making some other fast moves in the 2-wheel motor sport category with the announcement last month of their purchase of Italian motorcycle-maker Ducati for $1.2 billion in a rare move for an auto manufacturer. Ducati’s dealership network may well provide Audi with an instant world-wide distribution channel for upscale high-performance E-bikes.

And separately, VW, also owned by Audi, has been working on something they call “last mile transportation,” which focuses on the use of short-distance urban transportation.

Audi’s concept E-bike is what you would expect when some of Europe’s most skilled auto engineers and modernist designers get together and decide they are going to create a flagship E-bike with no expenses spared.

 

 

 

The Audi E-bike is based on custom carbon fiber wheels and a full-suspension carbon fiber frame; even the front suspension forks are custom designed for this bike. The rims look very similar in design to those on the $80K Blacktrail, leading to speculation by some in the E-bike community that this bike was partially designed by PG Bikes, the company behind the Blacktrail. Certainly at least the Audi ebike designers had the obscenely priced Blacktrail in mind when they designed their bike. The Audi E-bike also uses the same “Harmonic Drive System” as the Blacktrail, a highly regarded German design developed by Clean Mobile. Clean Mobile builds custom bottom-bracket drive systems for exclusive high end bikes made by innovative European companies such as KTM  Ironically Clean Mobile also went through an ownership change recently, first filing insolvency, and then being acquired by TQ-Systems GmbH and switching most of its staff just last month.