Ford unveils smart e-bikes MoDe:Flex, MoDe:Me and MoDe:Pro

Upon the invitation of Ford Motors, we visited their Palo Alto Research and Innovation Center of Ford in San Francisco last week where they showed us their new line of smart e-bikes.

These e-bikes are part of Ford’s multi-modal urban mobility solution — an approach to solve the problem of city traffic and transport congestion.

These bikes are customizable, collapsible to fit t the back of the car and connected to a network with a companion app (called MoDe:Link) for navigation, weather condition, parking costs and road congestion. The MoDe:Me e-bike is the smallest of the pack.

The MoDe:Flex and MoDe:Pro are the more versatile version as it can be converted to road, mountain or city mode bikes by merely replacing the front and rear end of the modular bikes. The MoDe:Pro also comes with a “No Sweat Mode” by utilizing a 200-watt motor to help speed up travel up to 24kmph and a 9A battery that could last about 1.5 hours of use without pedaling.

The bikes are collapsible so it fits snugly at the back of a car (around 3 of them MoDe:Flex units when we tried) so drivers can just park their cars and use the e-bikes whenever there’s traffic congestion or their trip requires a different and more conventional mode of transportation.

The bikes are also equipped with sensors so the driver can track potholes and there’s an avoidance system at the back to detect other vehicles from the rear end.

Ford is still doing additional research and development on their e-bikes and the ones that were shown to us are still prototypes.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

4 Comments

Justin says:

9 years ago

Bike = bicycle = a TWO-WHEELED vehicle. End of discussion.
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dvancleef says:

9 years ago

Those are not ebikes, since they have a pedalless mode. They’re essentially electric mopeds/scooters.
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dvancleef says:

9 years ago

This is a case of the general industry definition of the term. To be called an ebike, it requires pedaling to operate.
berebekwa says:

9 years ago

well, technically mopeds and scooters are bike as well. bike is short for bicycle. why would they call superbikes superbikes? not supermotorcycle.

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