UltraTRX Unleashes the E-Bike Tech We've All Been Waiting For: Unlimited Range

You may have heard of UltraTRX, as autoevolution has covered their work before, mainly their insanely capable e-bikes. For example, the King E-Cheetah, an e-bike, if we can even consider it as one, with 18,000 watts of peak motor output! That's enough to shoot you around town with speeds upwards of 87 mph (140 kph)! It's also powered by a 60-amp-hour battery, boasting a peak range of 80 miles (129 kilometers). Starting to understand how UltraTRX likes to roll?

From the above paragraph, you can grasp that this manufacturer is a tad different than most, and all that brings us to their newest "patent pending" design for power regeneration. Yes, a little brake-mounted trinket that actually generates electricity to be directed into your battery, and there's nothing you need to do except pedal along. Even if your battery drains completely, the GenerTRX system will recharge it as you pedal along, and it's simply mounted to your brake rotor.

This may be the answer we've been looking for and dreaming of. I like to call it the start of the end of traditional mobility methods; the e-bike is now stepping into a new level of efficiency. Since there's a bit more to it than this, let's explore what's going on here.

Now, I stumbled across this tech through an email from Ultra themselves, and upon seeing what's happening here, I dropped every other subject I was covering to get this news out into the world.

Everything basically revolves around an e-bike's brake rotors. With this system, UltraTRX mounts a Coil/Rotor to your existing brake rotor, one that's tattered with magnets. Take a look at the images to see what I mean. Best of all, it looks like the sort of system that may be adaptable to an array of rotor sizes, but for now, UltraTRX only mentions 203-millimeter (8-inch) rotors.

But magnets alone aren't going to do anything, so to create usable energy, a caliper-like "U-shaped" construction of copper coil is placed on each side of the rotor, generating AC power. Since AC isn't suitable for recharging your battery, a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) converts that power to DC, and it's then stored in multi-capacitors to be released in a controlled manner. There's more to it, but that's my understanding of what UltraTRX is doing here.

According to the information on the manufacturer's website, this system can generate between 30% and 50% more range than your battery would offer on its own. Furthermore, if your battery does drain while riding along, this system will recharge your juice box. Imagine being out in the woods, rocking some singletracks, and eventually, you run out of electrical reserves. Just hit a downhill line and recharge your battery with however much juice can be produced.

According to details released by Ultra, with two rotors in place, one on each wheel, you can generate around 2-amp-hours per hour of riding at a speed of 10 mph (16 kph). If you use one of TRX's cart setups, where four wheels are available, thus four rotors, up to 5 amp-hours can be generated per hour. Think about that for a moment and really let it sink in. Just imagine what it means for people who regularly ride at a pace faster than 10 mph.

Overall, this isn't the first system to ever display "Active Regeneration," but it is one that's simple, easy to understand, even though some details fall under trade secrets and all that. And above all, it's ready to be used in e-bikes today. Well, not all e-bikes, not yet. So far, UltraTRX is only using this system on their own 2023 machines. A smart move, from a business model standpoint, for now anyway. One thing Ultra may need to do in the future, to stay alive against other competitors that are sure to rise up, is to sell their GenerTRX system to as many e-bike manufacturers as possible. That's just my take on this new tech and one that isn't backed by much expertise in the business world. After all, my job title is writer.

What is there to say anymore? It's amazing tech when you really think about what it means for cyclists - potentially unlimited range. With a few days to work out proper pedaling and motor output, you can tweak your e-bike to ride indefinitely. Let's face it, the e-bike industry has just received the upgrade we've all been dreaming of. We'll keep an eye out to see what happens with this tech.