It's taken a while and a few failed attempts, and many people have already made the conversion themselves, but now Brompton have announced that they're going to be producing an electric pedal-assist version of their iconic folding bike.

Why now? Will Butler-Adams, the CEO of Brompton, told the International Business Times,  "The e-bike is not a fad; the shift to e-bikes in Europe has been monumental. The bike industry has historically been selling to cyclists. That’s 6 percent of the population. We want to speak to the other 94 percent who don’t even see themselves as cyclists but have the same problems as anyone else living in a city."

Exactly how the power system will function we don't yet know, but we do know that Brompton have been working with Formula 1 team Williams on the power delivery and the system is at least in part derived from the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) used in Formula 1 race cars.

The other thing that's certain is that the battery will be in the front bag, meaning that it's easily removeable for charging on the go. Since Brompton have made it a priority to make a lightweight electric bike we imagine that the capacity of the battery will be fairly small; that will also ensure that it doesn't affect the bike's handling too much. A big battery high up on the steering part of the bike doesn't sound ideal.

The bike will be manufactured in the UK at Brompton's new Greenford facility where they aim to produce nearly 50,000 bikes this year. The vast majority – around 80% – are exported, with South Korea being the biggest overseas market. Germany and The Netherlands are also big buyers of the Brompton, and those two markets are also seeing high volumes of electric bike sales.