Upgrade Your Electric Bike, Convert Your Gas Bike

Looking to soup up your Sur-Ron or recently announced Segway electric bike? Our custom-calibrated motor controller will increase your bike’s range and speed by one third, and hugely increase its torque.

Motorbike owners: do you still want a zippy ride that’s environmentally sound? The same motor controller is at the center of our kit for converting the world’s most popular (and highly polluting) gas motorbike - the iconic Honda Cub - into a super-efficient and much quieter electric bike.

Sur-Ron/Segway Upgrade Kit

Yes, we know - Sur-Ron is the Tesla of motorbikes and Segway (the majority stakeholder in Sur-Ron) just announced their own version of the same bike. They’re great bikes - unfortunately their electric motor controllers are… meh. Enter our Nitro ASI 4000 Controller, which delivers way more range, speed, and torque than the stock Segway / Sur-Ron X controller. Upgrade today and ride longer, faster, and harder.

A stock Sur-Ron X, without our upgraded motor controller, outperforms gas bikes of all sizes - here’s a Sur-Ron X rider winning an open-class, off-road competition against gas motorcycles. Even so, in popular e-bike forums, it seems everyone wants to throw away the existing controller and upgrade to a better controller or battery. Look no further. Our upgrade kit takes the Sur-Ron (and Segway) bike to the next level. If you want a fully pre-assembled and upgraded bike, we have them available from our website.

Showing off a jump taken with a Sur-Ron upgraded with the ASI BAC8000
motor controller. In this campaign we’re offering a customized version
of the BAC4000 controller.

Honda Cub Electric Conversion Kit

The Honda Cub is the most manufactured motor vehicle in the world, with production exceeding 100 million units (and counting). That’s a lot of air pollution, landfill, and… spare parts to make your own awesome electric bike! With our electric bike conversion kit, you can turn your Honda Cub into a ride that outperforms gas bikes, costs much less in fuel and maintenance, and doesn’t emit noxious exhaust.

Our conversion kit for the Honda Cub is the same as our upgrade kit for the Sur-Ron and Segway bikes, with the addition of a Sur-Ron electric motor, a Sur-Ron wire harness, and custom mounting brackets to attach the motor the Honda Cub. Batteries available separately.

We’ll cover the entire upgrade process in detail as published project updates. If you already have a motor and motor controller you want to put to good use, and you know your motor will fit the same bolt pattern (four M8 A2-70 bolts, 170 mm radius mounting points, on both rear and back with 130 mm separation between front and back), we’re happy to guide you through how to use our custom metal brackets to do your own conversion.

A test drive of one of our early Honda Cub conversions.

By converting your gas-fueled Honda Cub to electric, you are doing yourself and the world a favour. Become an everyday hero by saving on fuel, contributing to cleaner air, and being a much-appreciated QUIETER neighbour.

But, wait. Surely, Honda must have their own electric version of the Cub, right? Indeed, there is plenty of marketing material about the Honda EV Cub, but it’s never been made available for sale.

A Better Motor Controller: Range, Speed, Torque

Accelerated Systems Inc. (ASI) makes the best electric motor controllers on the market, and they’ve been doing so for years. We at Teznic worked directly with Martin Kunze, at ASI, to custom-calibrate their BAC4000 controller specifically for the Sur-Ron drivetrain. With our Nitro ASI 4000 Controller, your Sur-Ron or Segway electric bike will get one third more range and speed, and hugely increase the torque compared to the stock Sur-Ron "X" controller.

Upgrading to the Nitro ASI 4000 Controller feels like adding a nitrous bottle to your ride!

The stock Sur-Ron is clocked at 50 mph (80 km/h). The Segway X260 at 46.6 mph (76 km/h). With our Nitro ASI 4000 Controller, you can upgrade your Sur-Ron or Segway to get up to 90 mph (145 km/h).

Advanced Regenerative Braking

Why is this motor controller so much better? One reason is that it has much larger MOSFETs, meaning the controller can not only deliver more power to get the bike moving, it can also recoup up to 30% of the bike’s kinetic energy via regenerative braking. Better regenerative braking means more energy going to recharge your battery, which means better range and significantly reduced wear and tear on brake pads, which is a major cost of running an e-bike, especially if you use it every day.

Custom Firmware & Calibration

Another reason our controller outperforms others is that we’ve managed, with the help and guidance of ASI engineer Martin Kunze, reprogrammed and calibrated the ASI controller specifically for the Sur-Ron electric motor and battery packs we’re using.

Controller Comparisons

Sur-Ron’s 3-5 kW Electric Motor

We decided to go with the Sur-Ron motor, and to use the same low mid-mount point on the Honda Cub Conversion Kit, for very good reasons. Brushless DC axial motors are low weight, high power, extremely high torque, and can be placed low and at centre to give excellent weight distribution and handling.

This is why there is so much fuss over the Sur-Ron in the e-bike off-road community. There’s also some serious hot-rodding going on, as it turns out that this "3 kW" motor can actually handle up to 180 amps, at 72 volts.

Hub motors (used in the Shanghai Customs - eCub Kit) are much less efficent, can overheat on hills, and adversely affect the weight distribution, unsprung weight, and handling of the bike.

LiGo Packs: Upgradeable & Swappable Batteries

LiGo battery packs have been designed by Grin Technologies from the ground up to be easily and flexibly stacked, to be taken on an airplane safely, to meet UN3481 certification, and to provide safe, reliable, long-lasting power.

Bundle of Eight Batteries + Wiring Harness

We’re offering bundles of eight 98 Wh, 36 V LiGo battery packs that come with a parallel "octopus" wiring harness. Altogether, a single 8-pack bundle has 784 Wh of power. Each 98 Wh battery pack itself contains ten LG 18650 MG1 cells and a charge-balancing battery management system (BMS) that looks after every cell. If you are familiar with BMS technology, you know that makes a huge difference.

Many large (monolithic) batteries come with a BMS "per row" of the pack. If one cell in each row begins to wear out, the rest of the cells in that row struggle to keep up, and a cascade-failure occurs over time.

With the cells being literally soldered, welded and then hot-glued into a monolithic pack, if one row of cells fails the entire pack has to be thrown out. Instead, with LiGos, if one pack wears out over time, you can always get just the one replacement pack, adding it to the rest of the packs in the bundle when it arrives.

1 kW, 2 kW, or even 3 kW

Multiple bundles of eight may be connected in parallel for greater capacity, or in series to yield 72 V. You can always upgrade later: no need to throw out an existing battery. Just add on enough LiGo packs to get the range you need to get you to the hills and back. Not only that, because every cell is looked after individually during charging, the entire battery will last longer. Now you are saving money and being environmentally responsible at the same time.

Batteries for Both Conversion & Upgrade

The bundles of eight LiGo battery packs offered here are compatible with both the Honda Cub Conversion Kit and the Sur-Ron/Segway Upgrade Kit. Of course, you can also use the batteries provided with the stock Sur-Ron and Segway e-bikes.

Safe, Fast, Cheap Battery Shipping

Each bundle of eight will be shipped separately (5kg of batteries), with a wiring harness included as part of the "kit", to meet IATA UN3481 PI966 Section II shipping regulations and bypass the need for a Dangerous Goods Certificate and associated fees.

Assembly

• Read all warnings and disclaimers before
  you begin assembly.
• Spanner set, Allen hex-keys, and screwdrivers required to assemble
  of the Honda Cub Conversion Kit and the Sur-Ron/Segway Upgrade
  Kit. No special tools required.
• We recommend applying Loctite to keep bolts secure.
• It takes about 30 minutes to install the Sur-Ron-to-ASI Wiring
  Harness Adapter.
• Assembly videos and tutorials will be provided as the campaign
  progresses.

Warnings & Disclaimers

• The currents and voltages involved with e-bikes can be dangerous or
  even lethal.
• By modifying a motorbike, you may void its warranty.
• Motorbike riding carries inherent risks that can lead to serious
  injury or death. You can mitigate, but not completely eliminate, these
  risks with appropriate training and appropriate use of protective
  gear.
• You could easily blow up your motor or make your bike so fast that
  it won't stop. As with any vehicle, you take full responsibility for
  complying with local laws and regulations, and for anything that you
  do that is completely bonkers.

Fulfillment & Logistics

LiGo battery packs will be shipped directly to backers from Canada, in accordance with IATA UN3481 PI966 Section II shipping requirements. All other products will be shipped in bulk to Crowd Supply’s distribution center in the United States and then shipped to backers worldwide. See the Crowd Supply Guide section on ordering and shipping for more details.

Note to Canadian Customers

The LiGo battery packs will be shipped directly from Canada. Due to limitations of the Crowd Supply checkout system, Canadian customers buying the LiGo Battery Bundle will still be charged the $120 international shipping fee for that particular pledge level. However, Crowd Supply will refund the $120 one to two days after your order is placed and send you a revised order confirmation email showing as much. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Risks & Challenges

• Shipping batteries is tricky. We will be keeping strictly to IATA UN3481
  PI966 Section II shipping requirements.
• The Suronda Cub Motor Bracket needs to be manufactured. If the
  bracket supplier is too busy, we will use one of our alternate suppliers.
• As with all manufactured goods, any problems that arise in the
  supply chain can adversely affect product delivery schedules. We
  have experience with each of our suppliers and are confident in our
  delivery dates. If the delivery dates change for any reason, we will
  transparently communicate those changes via public project updates.

Future Work

This campaign lays the foundation for a lot of future work we at Teznic are excited for. Here’s a peek at some of the ideas we’re most excited about:

• Partner with Georgina Trades Training Inc.
  (GTTI) to create an gas-to-electric bike
  conversion training program. GTTI is a nonprofit that provides
  skills training to people so they can find meaningful work and
  become self-sufficient. One of our colleagues, Tom Ross, is a
  director at GTTI.
• Develop a rapid charger optimized for the Nitro ASI 4000 Controller
  and LiGo battery packs to reduce the total charge time to 20
  minutes.
• Develop a mobile app that communicates with all the LiGo battery
  packs and the Nitro ASI 4000 Controller to enable easy battery
  monitoring and optimization.

Thank you for your support!