Browse Topic: Micromobility
There's a well-known video from San Francisco in 1906 that comes up repeatedly in mobility discussions here in the 21st Century. If you haven't seen A Trip Down Market Street, it depicts the absolute bonkers variety of transportation methods used on Market Street back then: cable cars, horsecars, streetcars, pedestrians, automobiles and more. Past is prologue in a world that is adding scooters, delivery robots and other last-minute delivery vehicles to our streets. At the 2026 New York International Auto Show in April, Honda displayed its latest option in the form of the Fastport eQuad Prototype. The eQuad was originally unveiled at Eurobike 2025 and technically comes from Fastport, a micromobility venture from the Honda New Business Innovation Lab that was established to work on projects with global logistics companies. Jamie Davies, chief of operations for Fastport, called the group a kind of startup within Honda. “Three years ago,” Davies told SAE Media in New York, “a small group of Honda associates [came] together and [said], Okay, how can we create a new value for the company, a new business vertical? And so we've run the project in an agile way, working with customers all along the way to understand what their needs are, what the requirements are, and to bring to market something that fits.”
The path toward carbon-neutral mobility represents one of the greatest cultural transformations in recent human history. Positioned between industrial heritage, emerging mobility technologies, and the energy supply sector are the users of 1.5 billion motor vehicles worldwide. Conflicting publications on raw material availability, energy efficiency, and the climate neutrality of propulsion systems have led to widespread uncertainty. This Illustrated Energy Primer provides a new foundation for orientation. It begins with a visual explanation of the basic concepts of energy and power, followed by illustrative comparisons of typical energy demands in vehicles and households. The focus then shifts to common types of energy generation systems. Using regional examples—from coal-fired power plants to wind farms, solar installations, and balcony solar panels—the guide provides clear and accessible performance benchmarks for energy production. Next, nine individual experience profiles highlight how people across different life stages manage their vehicles responsibly and resource-efficiently. These range from a 16-year-old driver of a light electric vehicle, to a 55-year-old electric sport utility vehicle (SUV) user, to a 91-year-old woman using an electric mobility aid limited to walking speed. A broad range of drive technologies is covered in the Energy Primer, including comparisons with alternatives such as electric microcars, pedal-assist electric bicycles (pedelecs), and walking. Each user narrative outlines annual personal financial savings as well as the potential reduction in CO₂ emissions. These individual results are also scaled up to reflect the commuter mobility patterns of the Federal Republic of Germany (BRD). In this way, the Energy Primer builds a bridge between technical experts and everyday users. It aims to strengthen awareness of the value of energy in mobility and to encourage deeper engagement with the sometimes complex calculations behind energy balances. This is the first time such a compact and illustrated educational resource on energy and mobility is made freely available.
When riding an e-bike, riders are faced with the question of whether there is enough energy left in the battery to reach the destination with the desired level of support. Therefore, e-bike riders have range anxiety. Specifically, this describes the fear that the battery charge will be exhausted before there is an opportunity to recharge it and that it will no longer be possible to use the electric support. However, e-bike riders have so far had to decide for themselves whether the available battery charge is sufficient for riding the planned route or whether the desired destination can be reached. In this context, the challenge is to decide how much electric propulsion support can be used so that an appropriate amount of effort can be achieved for the entire ride. In order to assist e-bike riders with this problem, the objective of this paper is to present an approach towards a system that provides rider-adaptive support over the entire ride of a defined route. This involves using the propulsion support in such a way that the rider requires an appropriate level of effort. The rider-adaptive support is to be implemented via an automatic mode of the e-bike propulsion system, which automatically sets the corresponding support intensity. The assistance system is designed to ensure that a planned destination can be reached using the rider-adaptive support. To achieve this, the use of the propulsion support is optimized and automatically adjusted according to the available energy and the route to be cycled. The implementation will be carried out as a predictive energy management system. This calculates an optimized support strategy based on an energy demand prediction for the route to be cycled and the available energy of the e-bike battery.
Micromobility is often discussed in the context of minimizing traffic congestion and transportation pollution by encouraging people to travel shorter (i.e., typically urban) distances using bicycle or scooters instead of single-occupancy vehicles. It is also frequently championed as a solution to the “first-mile/last-mile” problem. If the demographics and intended users of micromobility vary largely by community, surely that means we must identify different reasons for using micromobility. Micromobility, User Input, and Standardization considers potential options for standardization in engineering and public policy, how real people are using micromobility, and the relevant barriers that come with that usage. It examines the history of existing technologies, compares various traffic laws, and highlights barriers to micromobility standardization—particularly in low-income communities of color. Lastly, it considers how engineers and legislators can use this information to effectively innovate micromobility devices and regulatory frameworks that meet the needs of communities while effectively outlining guidelines for providers. These are processes must happen concurrently and inform one another. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio.
This study was conducted to establish a reliable thermal analysis methodology for the battery module designed for micro-mobility. Analysis and experiments were performed first with a single cell and subsequently with a battery module consisting of 80 cells. The heat generation calculated from a single-cell experiment and realistic thermophysical properties were used in the module analysis to predict the temperature rise and distribution at various discharge rates. A prototype battery module was then built and ten thermocouples were used to measure temperatures at various locations in the module. Good correlation was achieved between the analytical results and experimental data. In particular, the model is accurate in predicting temperature distribution and the locations of peak temperatures. As a next step, the analytical methods developed in this study will be used to optimize the battery pack design and enhance its thermal performance.
While riding cycles, cyclists usually experience an aerodynamic drag force. Over the years, there has been a global effort to reduce the aerodynamic drag of a cycle. Fenders affect the aerodynamic drag of a cycle to a large extent, and fender coverage has a pronounced effect on the same. In this article, various fender coverage angles, varying from 60° to 270°, were studied to predict the aerodynamic drag with the help of a validated CFD model in SolidWorks Flow Simulation. The model was based on the Favre-Averaged Navier-Stokes (FANS) equations solved using the k-ɛ model. It was predicted that aerodynamic drag coefficient reduced fender coverage angle up to 135°, and thereafter started increasing. Analyses were carried out at velocities of 6 m/s, 8 m/s and 10 m/s and the results were found to be similar, with a minimum aerodynamic drag coefficient at 135° occurring in all the cases under study. There was an observed optimum decrease in drag coefficient to the extent of 4.6%, 4.5% and 4.6% as compared to the bicycle without fenders for the 6 m/s, 8 m/s and 10 m/s cases, respectively.
As 2019 gets under way, SAE's Global Ground Vehicle Standards staff and committee members are engaged on multiple fronts to establish new task forces and committees focused on new standards activities. The fast-emerging automated/connected vehicle sector, including “micromobility” devices, are of particular focus. Highlights of some of the recent projects include:
Lower extremities are easily injured in traffic accidents. During pedestrian-vehicle crashes, pedestrian lower extremities are subjected to the influence of combined shear force and bending force, which could bring about ligament tear and bone fracture. According to 2018 China New Car Assessment Program (C-NCAP) pedestrian testing protocol, where the flexible pedestrian legform impactor (FLEX-PLI) is struck from the right lateral by vehicle, the injuries of the ipsilateral side leg are taken into account for assessing the performance of lower extremities. However, the contralateral leg injuries and deformation are neglected in the current testing protocol and the pedestrian walking gaits and the e-bike riding scenario have been little consideration. The purpose of this study is to investigate the injury characteristics of the contralateral lower extremities in pedestrian-vehicle and bicyclist-vehicle crashes. Impact simulations were conducted by the Total Human Model for Safety (THUMS) biomechanical dummy, which the testing vehicle struck the pedestrian of the standing and walking postures as well as the bicyclist at the speed of 40 km/h. The femur, fibula, tibia stress, the stretching ratio of ligaments, and the bending angle of the knee joints for the contralateral side legs were measured. Meanwhile, a comparison of the injuries and motions between the two legs was analyzed. The results show that the walking gait increased the injury risk of long bone fracture and ligation rupture, and the e-bike riding posture enlarged the injury risk of long bone fracture and reduced the ligation stretching ratio compared the standing case. Moreover, the stretching ratio of the contralateral LCL was larger than that of the ipsilateral MCL for all scenarios.
Vibrations have become an increasingly important attribute for determining the quality of automotive products. Particularly, this becomes more acute in the case of tactile vibrations of powered two-wheelers - motorcycles and scooters. This paper deals with vibrations of a scooter vehicle. Scooters are normally a two-wheeler with a four stroke single cylinder spark ignited engine. Vibrations of a scooter are mainly caused by the inertial imbalance forces of the engine, combustion forces and road undulations. Vibrations due to road undulations are mostly reduced by toggle link mechanism, resilient mounts of the engine and the shock absorbing suspension of the frame. The power train assembly is designed in such a way that the inertial imbalance forces in the power train assembly are distributed at a required angle called the ellipse angle. This configuration ensures that the engine forces which are spread unequally in different directions are made to align and contribute only to the vertical and pitch modes of the engine. In spite of the achieving the above mentioned configuration, there are vibrations due to force transfer through the toggle link mechanism to the vehicle frame. This paper explains ways of reducing of tactile vibration of a scooter by addressing these issues by using the theory of center of percussion. It also explains ways of determining the optimum mounting position of a scooter engine based on engine layout, engine geometry, inertial balancing of engine forces, isolation and the center of percussion for reduced vibration. Theoretical analysis with calculations about the angle of engine mounting, length of the swing arm, aligning engine forces by distributing the imbalance mass are discussed. Analytical models are then validated using experiments on design optimized configuration resulting in increased vibration comfort of the vehicle.
Butanol is deemed as a potential alternative fuel for vehicle, but there are few studies about applying butanol in engine combustion. This paper focuses on application of butanol-gasoline blend fuel on scooter engine. In this research, different volume percentage of butanol-gasoline blend fuel, B10, B20, B40, B60, B80 and B100 are applied on 125cc scooter engine to conduct engine experiment, and higher than B60 blend fuel is declared as high butanol concentration blend fuel. The test conditions are set at 4000 and 6000rpm under partial load and full load. After executing engine experiment, engine performance, brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC), emissions and combustion analysis are discussed. Furthermore, viscosity and fuel spray are tested with high butanol concentration blend fuel. The engine experimental result shows that B100 fuels can increase engine performance under engine 4000 and 6000rpm. In addition, B10 and B20 fuels can improve not only BSFC but also emissions under stoichiometric air-fuel ratio. However, engine runs unsteadily due to high butanol concentration blend fuel, which might be caused by bad spray atomization due to high viscosity under ambient temperature. Under LBT (Leanest mixture for Best Torque) condition, engine operates more steadily with smaller coefficient of variation of indicated mean effective pressure (COV of IMEP) than gasoline. Especially for high butanol concentration blend fuel, lower COV of IMEP, shorter ignition delay, and shorter burn duration can be realized.
A variable cooling system has been developed for scooters equipped with an air cooled, four-stroke, single cylinder gasoline engine. This system opens or closes louver located at the cooling air inlet using an oil-temperature sensitive actuator. When the engine is cold or the engine load is low, the louver shut off the cooling air for a quick warm-up and for maintaining the engine oil temperature high to reduce the friction losses that occur with low oil temperature while eliminating the loss from driving the cooling fan as well. The quick warm-up also decreases supplementary fuel injections necessary when the engine is cold. Consequently, fuel economy improvement by 3.3% was realized in running condition of the Urban Driving Cycle.
Indian two wheeler market is one of the largest and highly competitive in the world. Indian scooter segment grows at a pace of around 30% YOY. The stiff competition among OEM’s to increase the market share with fuel efficient and high performance products pushes development and calibration engineers to burn the midnight oil to concoct innovative methods to design technology boosted product. Customer expectations are always high in terms of fuel economy, drivability and NVH. Due to higher level of complexity involved in CVT (Continuously Varying Transmission) engine, it is difficult to optimize for achieving best of NVH characteristics along with Fuel Economy, drivability and reduced exhaust emission. This paper describes the experiment conducted during the development of 110cc CVT four stroke scooter engine. The development and calibration of this scooter was mainly based on real world usage pattern (RWUP). In order to obtain best performance from engine, ignition timing, fuel metering and CVT were optimized to achieve Maximum Brake Torque. With the ignition timing which can provide maximum braking torque the performance characteristics of the engine was meeting the PALS/FI target but severe combustion noise was observed which restricted the use of MBT ignition Timing. This technical paper describes the optimization methodology of this four stroke scooter engine on which the combustion noise (Noise generated due to rapid combustion of charge) is substantially reduced within acceptable noise levels without compromise in engine performance. The experiment comprise of noise source identification, analyzing the factors which affects combustion noise and optimization of these parameters to reduce engine combustion noise. Engine combustion parameters like peak cylinder pressure, pressure rise rate, and mass fraction burned along with heat release rate were analyzed by varying ignition timing and carburetion. The Engine ignition timing being dual curve, ignition timing varies with engine speed and operating condition (namely Partially Open Throttle, POT and Wide Open Throttle, WOT). Combustion noise was observed to be higher at both POT and WOT condition. Ignition timing was optimized at specific operating zones where combustion noise was observed to be predominantly higher, the loss in engine performance due to change in ignition timing was substantiated with optimization of carburetor venturi size, air filter connecting tube effective diameter and CVT ratio. Experimental results shows significant reduction in combustion noise up to 5dB(A), without any compromise in engine performance, Fuel economy and drivability.
When a scooter is put on main stand, it keeps the vehicle from falling as it rests against the engine crankcase. As the main stand is operated it transmits a large amount of load to the crankcase, thus creating a necessity to check the durability of the later. Practical tests showed that continuous application of the main stand resulted in the failure of its pivot area on the crankcase. This raised questions not just on the feasibility of the crankcase design in terms of durability, but also on the main stand design in terms of a load transmitting member. However, as the project was at its later stage, crankcase design could not be altered; thus it asked for a main stand design optimization. The base main stand model was thus taken for MBD simulation and loads were generated for further FEA analysis. The meshed crankcase model was taken in a commercially available FEA code for checking its durability. Accurate constraints and boundary conditions were applied close to the crankcase’s main stand resting area to replicate real time environment. Loads obtained from MBD simulation were applied in the form of amplitudes to build a quasi-static FEA model. The results showed more stress and less fatigue cycles in the localized main stand support area of the crankcase. It called for a judicial main stand design optimization without largely affecting the styling or cost. The design of the main stand was altered in such a way that now the load on the crankcase was transmitted in a manner which is more evenly distributed. In a similar way as mentioned above, MBD simulation was done to extract the loads for the new main stand design. Using similar boundary conditions and updated loads, the crankcase was simulated. Stress was found to have significantly reduced and fatigue cycles improved significantly. The new design was tested and no crankcase failure was observed.
A number of methods have been presented previously in the literature for determination of the impact speed of a motorcycle or scooter at its point of contact with another, typically larger and heavier, vehicle or object. However, all introduced methods to date have known limitations, especially as there are often significant challenges in gathering the needed data after a collision. Unlike passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles, most motorcycles and scooters carry no onboard electronic data recorders to provide insight into the impact phase of the collision. Recent research into automobile speedometers has shown that certain types of modern stepper motor based speedometers and tachometers can provide useful data for a collision reconstruction analysis if the instrument cluster loses electrical power during the impact, resulting in a “frozen” needle indication. Given the size and weight of motorcycles, and the location of speedometer and tachometer electrical connections in vulnerable areas of two-wheeled vehicles, this methodology appears particularly promising for application to two-wheeled vehicles. There has been little published research or testing specific to speedometer readings in motorcycle / scooter impacts. Because many motorcycle and scooter collisions are immediately preceded by a driver braking input, it is also important to understand the effect on the speedometer readings in cases with evidence of pre-impact braking or locking of the speed-sensing wheel(s). This paper introduces the basic concepts of speedometer design and function, discusses the current literature on the technology’s broader use in accident reconstruction, describes the procedural steps that should be taken by an investigator in order to determine whether a frozen speedometer indication is likely to be reliable, and presents the results of a series of tests conducted on a wide variety of popular motorcycles and scooters regarding their speedometer function in electrical power-loss situations, particularly in the event of pre-impact braking.
The belt clutching CVT drive has been developed for the scooter application. It utilizes the belt as a clutching mechanism instead of the traditional centrifugal clutch that is commonly employed in conjunction with the driven clutch of the drive train. By eliminating the centrifugal clutch, 48% mass reduction of the driven clutch has been achieved as well as cost saving. By placing the belt clutching directly at the engine crankshaft, fast throttle response and better vehicle acceleration/deceleration have been attained. The belt clutching mechanism demands a better performance belt to withstand the additional clutching induced wear and tear. The newly developed carbon cord belt, G Force™ C12, meets the challenge. The common edge cord pull-out failure mode is eliminated, and the overall wear is improved. An analytical program PTWork has been developed and proven to be instrumental in integrating CVT clutch hardware with the CVT belt. According to the Federal Test procedure 75 [1], the belt clutching CVT drive has achieved an overall 7% fuel economy improvement over the conventional centrifugal clutch counterpart.
The world today is moving more towards convenience and luxury. Auto manufacturers are being constantly challenged to provide innovative additions to conventional vehicles in terms of attractive features. This paper describes one such invention proposed to add convenience and novelty to the use of two wheelers. The proposed system is called a “Keyless Scooter”. Derived from the idea of keyless entry in four wheelers, the system aims at extending this luxury to a larger band of population in India, i.e. users of two wheeled vehicles. The system eliminates use of a mechanical lock and key arrangement. All functions carried out by the mechanical arrangement of lock and key are replaced with an equivalent electronic system. A “Keyless Scooter” is one in which a user can just approach it with a key fob on himself/herself and start the vehicle, open the luggage box, etc. without having to insert a key physically into the lock body. The vehicle is designed to communicate with the key fob wirelessly thus retaining the core requirement of a lock and key arrangement-Exclusivity. This paper describes the “Keyless Scooter” in detail, covering design considerations, vehicle interfacing and choice and arrangement of electromechanical sub-systems. Further, it goes on to explain the algorithm employed to intelligently maintain convenience without compromising on safety and security. To conclude, this document describes the prototype built on a scooter platform and also describes the failure modes associated with this design, corresponding counteractions taken for the same and future scope.
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