The best design effortlessly merges function and form—and that’s the premise behind Eeyo, the first electric bike from the e-scooter pioneers at Gogoro. Built for agility, this ultralight e-bike can be thrown over your shoulder, charged on the go, and ridden like a sport bike—so you can really hug those curves.
Featuring carbon fiber rims, fork, and frame, and a forward-leaning geometry, the Eeyo 1s is a sporty e-bike designed like a car.
E-bikes are having a moment in the COVID-19 era, as they offer a reliable form of transportation that’s both environmentally sound and socially distanced. Eschewing the traditional cargo hauler reputation of electric bikes, Gogoro is betting big on the fact that biking is fun—and that most e-bikes, well, aren’t.
Launching in the US, Europe, and Taiwan this summer, the Eeyo 1s is a carbon fiber e-bike that weighs in at an incredibly light 26.4 pounds. The pedal-assist bike has a range of 40-55 miles and a top speed of 19 mph, and Gogoro is positioning it as the sports car of the e-bike world.
“We used an automotive-grade clay model computer system to design the bike’s curvature and form,” says Gogoro CEO Horace Luke.
The Eeyo 1s (left) is made completely from carbon fiber, costs $4,599, and comes in warm white. The Eeyo 1, which features alloy wheels, seat posts, and handlebars, is $3,899 and comes in cloud blue and lobster orange.
“You have people that buy SUVs, and you have people that buy four-door sedans—and that’s fine, that’s what people should do if they want to carry a bunch of stuff and be comfortable getting there,” explains Gogoro founder and CEO Horace Luke.
“What we wanted to focus on was the sports car crowd. Maybe not the Ferrari or Lamborghini sports car, but the Miata and Porsche Boxster crowd—the really quick, zippy cars. It’s the kind of vehicle that when you get off and look back you say ‘Wow, that was fun. I can’t wait to get back on.’”
Clocking in at just over 26 pounds, the Eeyo 1s is “shoulderable”—a first among e-bikes. Getting rid of the seat tube also helped make it easy to hold—but it was a significant engineering challenge, says Luke.
Unlike most e-bikes, the secret ingredient isn’t in the frame. This is a true bike frame—there are no wires, no electronics, and no motor to be found. The Eeyo 1s (and its less-expensive, slightly heavier sibling the Eeyo 1) are powered entirely by the Eeyo SmartWheel. Sitting on the rear hub, the wheel contains all the bike’s electronics: the technology, the motor, the battery, the connectivity, and the computer. It also packs a sophisticated torque sensor that measures how much power you put into pedaling and multiplies it at a rate that makes your ride feel natural.
“I call it a human/electric hybrid,” says Luke, whose work at Nike, Microsoft, and smartphone manufacture HTC puts him in a unique position to understand the synergy between man and machine. “Eeyo just takes all the power that you put into it amplifies it in the most direct and the most natural way you can imagine—it’s hard to use words to describe it.”
The Eeyo smart wheel packs all the power and smarts into a tiny hub. The bikes come with a packable charger for fueling up on the go, as well as a wireless charging stand.
Luke realizes that the Eeyo 1s and 1 likely have a niche market, “We know it’s not for everyone,” he says. But its technology is. In the same way that Gogoro’s industry-leading Smartscooter established a platform for companies (such as Yamaha, Suzuki, and others) to build battery-swapping motorbikes, Luke sees the Eeyo SmartWheel changing the e-bike industry and driving it forward.
“We wanted to create a bike that really inspired not only the consumer but the industry. Inspired them to build different types of vehicles and innovate on its usability,” says Luke. “Everybody needs to get around a little more healthily, right? We can’t all sit in a four-wheeled car in traffic, pumping things out of the tailpipe. But not everybody can afford a Tesla. Not everybody can afford a brand-new electric vehicle—but a new bike is a great in-between product.”
Thanks to a smartphone mount, users can connect to the Eeyo app wirelessly over Bluetooth to monitor power and battery levels while riding.