Mando Footloose is the conjunction between the car, which continues to lose market share worldwide, and the bike, slowly spreading over urban centers. It is not a coincidence that, after Audi recently presented its electric bike concept, Mando Corporation and Meister Inc, both of which are automotive suppliers in South KoreaKorean, cooperated to produce this masterpiece. To design and develop a new kind of electric bike “featuring automotive know-how”, they brought on board award winning British designer Mark Sanders and Dutch e-bike expert Han Goes. Presented at the recent Eurobike in Germany, the most important exhibition dedicated to the bicycle, Footloose is the first chainless folding electric bike in the world. By combining a throttle drive with pedal-assisted technology, cyclists are able to power the bike up to 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) with the motor alone or pedal for more range.
By directly transforming electricity via an alternator connected to the crank, power is generated directly from the user. Footloose can be folded in less than 10 seconds pressing two levers, rolled on its wheels to easy transport and weighs just over 21 kgs, as Sanders himself explains in the Mando Footloose catalog. Just like an automobile, the bike has a electronic control unit with sensors, and an artificial intelligence system, which manages the automatic transmission according to the profile of the road traveled, ensuring the ascent of slopes up to 21%. The parameters are displayed on the detachable HMI Display (Human Machine Interface) placed on the handle bar that supplies the rider with important information such as riding mode, distance covered, speed, battery status and amount of electricity produced. Footloose will be available for sale in Korea very soon and should be on the European market next year.