E-Wheel Design Project - Looking for ADVICE

Hi Core77 Community,

My name is Phuoc Nguyen. I am a Mechanical Design Engineering student at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam.

I have my first pedal electric cycle (pedelec) concept for over a year and a half, it is called E-Wheel (abbreviation of Integrated Electric Wheel).

Please refer my project portfolio for more information: Free CAD Designs, Files & 3D Models | The GrabCAD Community Library

Come with the new cutting edge of design pedal electric cycle (pedelec) - E-Wheel will give the rider new experiments when they pedal. You can integrate E-Wheel into conventional or folding bicycle; it also has the wireless technology for remote control and battery charge.
E-Wheel are suited for a wide variety of people who are not able or not willing to ride a conventional bicycle or who simply need faster transportation and most efficient means of transport in town.

E-Wheel has won two precious prizes like Autodesk Design Challenge (http://aseanpreneurs.org/autodesk_ap_design/) and international Lexus Design Award 2014 (Lexus / Discover the Global World of Lexus) with the panel display in Milan Design Week 2014. And the E-Wheel received so many praises from all over the world.

I think my design is unique and has lot of outstanding features so I really want to make this prototype and appear in real life. Furthermore, I am also looking for any company to make the commercial of the E-Wheel. But I only have approximate $USD1000 from my saving money and my parents. It is almost impossible to find any sponsors for my project in Vietnam. May be the project must be cancelled. :frowning:

There will be my special honor if Core77 Community can give me the best ADVICE for my issues.

Thank you so much!

Congratulations on winning the awards.

The Copenhagen Wheel is a similar concept. I would advise learning how they brought their concept to market as a starting point. Where did they find success, where did they find failure and use that information for your advantage. Good luck.

Well done on winning these awards!

What makes it unique? I cannot gather much from the link you provided. It seems very much like SRAM’s e-matic: https://www.sram.com/sram/urban/products/sram-e-matic or, as IAB mentioned, the Copenhagen Wheel: https://www.superpedestrian.com/

Have you investigated crowdsourcing funding? You might have luck getting funding enough to get through the several years of development required to bring to market.

Thank you iab and sprockets,

Oh I saw it, they are came with same ideas, but the design was different.

That was very difficult to find any partners for my project, so I was self-working to design E-Wheel.

After a year of project development, to make my design come true, I intended to fund pleading on “Kickstarter” but I was quickly disappointed because they only accepted projects from resident of the United States or Canada. On the other hand, it’s almost impossible to call for fund in my country for “e-bike project”, the people (in Vietnam) don’t like riding the bike, they think that it isn’t convenient for their daily activities.

I sent a lot of proposal e-mail for related companies to looking for sponsorship. Until now, I have received no reply.

May be my design does not fit in their strategy or current manufacturing processes.