Ford (F) isn’t just a car company anymore.
It’s now increasingly trying to get people on bikes, too.
As part of its Smart Mobility program, Ford has just announced its third eBike — a foldable version of Ford’s motored bike, designed for people who may want to drive one portion of their journey and bike the rest.
This version of the eBike is called the MoDe:Flex, and its two-part, easy-to-assemble design targets car owners who can simply store the bike in their trunk during the driving leg of their journey.
But Ford isn’t stopping there.
Ford also designed a smartwatch and smartphone app to accompany the MoDe:Flex. The app, called MoDe:Link, helps riders plan out the logistics of their trips, taking into consideration “real-time information regarding weather, congestion, parking costs, time, traffic and public transportation.”
The MoDe:Flex is designed for storage in any Ford vehicle, where the eBike can be charged during the driving “mode” of your trip. When it’s time for the biking portion of the trip, users can take to their smartwatch app to enter the “no sweat” mode, causing the electric motor to kick in when the rider’s heart rate gets too high.
The app can also activate a vibrating-handlebars feature that tells the rider about upcoming road hazards such as potholes. An ultrasonic sensor allows the eBike to tell when a car is coming up behind the rider, and alerts the rider accordingly.
Bruce Williams, Senior Creative Designer at Ford, touted the virtues of his company’s newest eBike in a promotional video accompanying the MoDe:Flex press release. While the integration with smartphones and smartwatches is cool, Ford didn’t stop there. Says Williams:
“You can actually have custom front- and rear-ends; in other words, you can take a bike that starts out as a city bike and convert it into a mountain bike or a road bike, and there’s really never been any bike like this before.”
While the MoDe:Flex might seem like quite the departure from Ford’s core business, in some ways it’s actually an appropriate homage to the company’s roots. Henry Ford’s first vehicle was actually called the Quadricycle — it rode on four bike wheels and was powered by a four-horsepower engine.
The specs for the MoDe:Flex aren’t available yet, but one of the company’s two previous eBikes, the MoDe:Pro, features a 200-watt motor and boasts a top pedal-aided speed of 16 miles per hour.
As of this writing, John Divine did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. You can follow him on Twitter at @divinebizkid or email him at editor@investorplace.com.
