The Two-Wheeled Commuter Car?

Already massive in China and popular in Europe, electric bikes are making inroads in the US. An MIT engineer thinks his throwback design will win over city dwellers.

- Shelby Carpenter & Susan Adams

It’s 75 degrees, a warm day in San Francisco, but Adam Vollmer isn’t sweating as he mounts a steady grade toward Mission Dolores Park.

“I used to hate biking to work,” he says as he pedals along. “There’s this hill by my house that just pitches straight up a wall. Now it’s not so bad.” That’s because Vollmer, 36, a mechanical engineer with the trim build of an endurance athlete, can always get a boost from his bike’s hidden motor.

As the CEO and founder of Faraday, a four-year-old electric-bike company, he believes he can carve out a profitable slice of the nascent US market for e-bikes. The target customer for his $2,500 machines: People who want to get from point A to point B in a dense urban environment where driving and parking can be a nightmare. Many commuters favour e-bikes over manual models because they allow you to zip to work at speeds of up to 20 mph without breaking a sweat. Others simply think they’re fun. And ageing boomers, who may have given up riding because of arthritic knees or poor fitness, find that e-bikes are getting them back on the road.

Faraday riders have options. If they don’t push the blue power button on the back of the controller, a rectangular box the size of a large wallet that sits below the seat, the Faraday works like a regular bike. Once the motor, which is embedded in the bike’s front hub, is turned on, the head- and tail-lights illuminate and a thumb switch on the left handlebar can select medium or high power. Start pedalling and a sensor in the crank activates the motor. The harder the rider pumps, the greater the motorised help, making San Francisco’s hills feel like flats.