The concept of a campus commuter, comprising a fleet
of E-bikes, has been presented. This paper focuses on the
specification and design of such a power-on-demand E-bike. A
prototype E-bike that satisfied the 1100m range and 20 km/h
top speed was developed and tested. The E-bike comprises
a super-cap bank of 58, 350 F capacitors, capable of storing
74 kJ of energy, and a 500W permanent magnet DC motor
driving the front wheel. A bi-directional motor controller
allows for motoring and regenerative braking. In addition, a
3 kW rapid charger was also designed allowing the super-cap
bank to be fully charged within 30 seconds; the benefit of
using super-capacitors as the primary energy storage medium
clearly being exploited. Despite under-estimating the system
inefficiencies, the results from the prototype E-bike appear
promising, making the campus commuter concept technically
feasible.