Forget Home Furnishings, IKEA Enters The E-Bike Market

IKEA has certainly surprised us with many clever home-furnishing solutions. Most importantly, IKEA, with its roots in the super “green” country of Sweden, could not leave its homecountry’s highly socially conscious citizens disappointed. When it comes to act environmetally friendly, IKEA comes right up in the top list worldwide as leader of clean technology. In fact, IKEA has big goals for 2020 that includes a plan to obtain 100% of the energy it consumes in its stores and buildings from clean energy and to grow more wood than it uses.

Plastic bags were far gone six years ago, CFLs and LEDs were introduced as replacement for high-energy consuming incandescent light bulbs back in 2010, affordable home solar panels were recently made available in the UK, a number of electric car stations were installed at stores across the world and now IKEA has entered the electric bike market.

Yes, e-bike FOLKVÄNLIG can be found in two IKEA’s retail stores located in Vienna, Austria. Still in its inception phase, the e-bike is expected to become viral and shortly reach out to many different stores. The electric bike’s design has already received various awards at the Taipei Cycle Show, Eurobike and the IF Design Award.

FOLKVÄNLIG in Swedish means ‘user- friendly’, which is probably what IKEA is trying to address here with its sleek e-bike that could take you anywhere within a distance of 60 to 70km, aided by a powerful electric motor of 250Watt that could get you a total pedal-assisted range up to 45mi/72km per charge.

The e-bike also features an easy rechargeable system to its removable in-frame lithium-ion battery pack that takes about five hours to recharge, as well as a Shimano transmission that provides six different driving modes.

Should it prove successful, IKEA’s FOLKVÄNLIG e-bike must also come in a foldable variant, which gives the market even more room for growth.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide range of metals such as aluminum, widely used in beer can manufacturing. To find out more, please visit our Website or send your inquiry here. Our English speaking personnel will be more than pleased to help you. Follow us on  LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code.

Source and photo credit: technologicvehicles.com, treehugger.com, greenoptimistic.com, ubergizmo.com, cleantechnica.com, flickr.com

Camilla G.//SMC Editor

Read more articles by this author here.

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

广告

Turn on the Lights!

In 2004, a woman was driving a car in Pennsylvania. She was also followed by a police car that asked her to pull over. The woman was driving in a dark lit area, so for her own safety, she decided to drive a bit further and pull over in a well lit area. She kindly explained the officer why she did not pull over immediately, but she still got arrested and had to spend a night in jail.

There seems to be an ethical dilemma between the woman’s rationale and the law. On one hand it is just common sense to ensure one’s safety, but on the other hand the law enforcement officers have their duties as well.

The law of Pennsylvania is really simple, stating one needs to pull over immediately when asked. If one refuses, the officers might also think the driver is, say, smuggling drugs or hiding guns. Therefore, regardless of their safety, people have to pull over, even when common sense tells otherwise.

Nevertheless, there is a way to solve this dilemma without changing the law more complex simply by installing more street lights. Besides, LED lights are energy savers, highly efficient, environmentally friendly and have a long life span.

So the next question: where to get these LED Street Lights. Of course from Shanghai Metal Corporation. We sell LED lights that are five times more efficient than incandescent bulbs and that last for 50, 000 hours. That’s nearly six years.

 

To get a detailed description of our LED Street Lights, please visit our website. Please also follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Original story: realpolice.net

Pictures: Huffington Post, lighting-ledlighting.com, businesswire.com, Shanghai Metal Corporation (The pictures are not related to the incident.)