Sure, in many cases electric bikes are much more eco-friendly than cars, but even e-bikes need to be charged in some way or the other – most of the time, the power doesn’t come from eco-friendly sources. Kyocera, however, yesterday announced [JP] an alternative: the so-called “Solar Cycle Station”, which is essentially some kind of a bike stand that allows owners to charge their e-bikes through solar power.
In its standard version, the bike stand comes with a total of three solar modules and reaches a maximum output of 79.8V (operating current: 7.84A). Kyocera estimates that facing south, each station can produce up to 1.14kWh per day. The stand is designed for use with six e-bikes simultaneously.
Kyocera says that e-bike sales in Japan grew by over 50% in the last 5 years and that demand will grow even faster in the future, especially driven by e-bike rental services. But costing $23,000, their bike stand isn’t exactly cheap (it became available in Japan yesterday).
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