I’ve dipped my toes into the world of e-bikes at various tech shows, but at IFA I got to experience one of the safest models so far. I rode around on the Volkswagen and n+ collaboration e-bike, which borrows from car tech to spot dangers and alert road users to your presence.
According to VW, this is the “world’s safest e-bike” — and it might be right.
To call it an e-bike is to oversimplify the setup, because the Volkswagen comes in three parts: the bike, the glasses, and the helmet.
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Beyond typical assistive riding and plenty of lights, the two big things this bike boasts are an integrated rear-view camera and a dashboard display. The camera provides a view of what’s going on behind you without you needing to turn your head, with it also warns you when another vehicle is approaching in your blind spot via a radar sensor.
This, and stats such as your speed, can be viewed on the display and on the glasses’ monocular display.
The see-through screen appears in front of your right eye and will display your speed, a basic map and directions if you’ve planned a route, and warnings about blind spots. The glasses themselves are very lightweight at 47g, and offer an excellent eight-hour battery life.
Admittedly, the helmet is a bit big and goofy-looking, but it both protects your head in a fall and features built-in lights — white on the front; red in the back to make you more visible to drivers and signal if you’re braking or turning, just like a car — as well as other electronics. It comes with an IP67 dust- and waterproof rating, and built-in crash detection. Battery life is decent at three hours (commuters should be fine, although avid riders may have welcomed more), although I wish it matched the eight hours of the glasses.
My test ride
Safety is very much the focus of this e-bike, and I can see it becoming the ultimate vehicle for commuting across cities such as London, where cars can come at you from all angles. Making myself more visible, and getting a heads up when a driver is close behind me, are major wins.
I got a taste of this during my demo. While this year’s IFA test track was larger than last year’s, it’s still a bit compact for putting an e-bike through its paces. Nevertheless, I got a great feel for how well VW’s bike handles corners, and was able to get a little speed on the short straightaways.
It was also possible to get a sense of how distracting — or not distracting, as the case proved — the HUD of the glasses might be. It sits just in the corner of your vision, so you have to actively look at it to view your speed. As such, your eyes are still facing ahead and will easily see a turn or oncoming vehicle.
The display also simplifies to become less obstructing, reverting to a simple VW logo when your eyes are focused on the road. Directing your sight back at the HUD will reactivate it.
The only thing I’m not sold on is the helmet. The safety credentials seem great but the relatively low battery life and goofy design left me wishing I’d stuck with the regular helmet I was offered on the test track.
We’ll still need to review the e-bike to gauge how well Volkswagen’s design stacks up against the competition, but my first impression is a very positive one.
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