You might be doing your bit for the air quality of your city by riding to and from work on your e-bike, but come charging time you're probably still plugging it into the mains. But maybe not any more.
KVAERN, which means "cool ride" in Danish apparently, is a startup dedicated to taking your e-bike off grid. Their offering is a 20"-wheeled city bike and a solar-powered wall charger that will allow you to ride on 100% solar energy.
The bike itself looks pretty neat, even if it's not doing anything ground-breaking. The battery is nicely integrated into the frame and the bike uses a rear hub motor and has a smart LCD display built into the stem. There aren't any gears, so it might not be the perfect bike for the hillier parts of the UK, but it looks like it'd be just the ticket for flatter urban journeys.
What's probably more interesting is the charging solution KVAERN is offering with the bike. It's effectively a slimmed-down powerwall, with a single solar panel and a smaller battery unit with a mains output on the bottom. Bikes don't require as much electricity as houses, so a single panel and a compact battery should be enough to run your e-bike basically for ever. You'll need somewhere to put the panel, of course; KVAERN shows the panel and charger on a rack that also holds the bike, which is neat if not particularly secure.
Anyway it's an interesting idea and we'll keep an eye on it. There's no indication of cost as yet, although if you sign up to be an early adopter on KVAERN's website you can get €850 off the launch price, suggesting it won't be cheap.
