Artificial intelligence: AI and pedelec development: "You need the right input!"

MYBIKE: Mr Neupert, how much artificial intelligence is there in a current pedelec?

Hannes Neupert: At the moment, this is limited. That's the difficulty if you want innovation but the system only has the past as a basis. The output is determined by the input.

But don't we only ever have the past as a basis?

No. It's about what we want to achieve: Artificial intelligence (AI), which we feed with customer wishes and technical possibilities, produces completely different results. In this way, we could get closer to the perfect pedelec for certain groups of buyers.

What could these factors be?

For example, how big does the battery have to be for this or that customer group, what does it have to be able to do, under what conditions does it have to work? We can easily come up with 40 criteria when developing a battery.

Do you need AI for this?

If you have three parameters, developers can still do something with them. But with so many, it becomes far too complex, so AI would definitely be required. It could be combined with the methodology of quality function deployment, a very efficient method of quality assurance. Based on what the end user really wants. So far, however, the development of bikes has been determined by other factors.

What are they?

Most developers have to ask themselves these questions in particular: What does the competition do, and what do our suppliers offer? This is a very fine line of what is possible. Of course, you could give the AI 200 parameters instead, for example under the big question "What does the better product look like? Family pedelec out?". For example, with the partial result that it is not the battery capacity that matters, but the Loading speed and charging infrastructure. You simply need AI with smart input. With powerful computers, it would be possible to enter a huge number of parameters and the AI would spit out exactly the ideal product you want: the vehicle with the best number of wheels, performance, range, space and space requirements ... Today, it's often simply: "The boss said we need a new car. Touring pedelec ..." We have to give the right input, then we get the right answers - and exactly the wheels we want.

Hannes Neupert is an industrial designer and, among other things, a lecturer in micro-mobility at the Private University of Göttingen. With his organisation Extra Energy, he began testing pedelecs back in 1992 using methods he developed himself and is now also a mobility consultant for various companies.