The cost of electric bikes can be quite prohibitive but luckily this Kickstarter project can turn your existing bike electric in a matter of seconds.

Rubbee is a waterproof, electric drive unit for bicycles which is attached onto your bike seat with a quick release lever and is kept in place over the rear wheel with an arm similar to a shock absorber. It is able to maintain good grip between it’s roller and the tire of your bike thanks to a “special polyurethane compound mix” which does not cause any significant wear on the tire. It is controlled via a throttle control which is permanently mounted on the bike’s handlebar. If it was ever necessary to ride with the Rubbee attached — like in the case of a drained battery — it can be flipped over so that the roller doesn’t make contact with the tire.

An overview of the technical specifications of Rubbee is as follows:

• 14.4 volt, 280Wh battery pack
• full charge from empty in 2 hours
• top speed = 25km/h(16mph)
• average range = 25km
• 800W peak power
• weight = 6.5kg(14lb)

A pledge of $1227 on Kickstarter can get you a Rubbee if the team which operates out of London does indeed manage to get production of Rubbee up and running. A good sign is that the Rubbee team has already opened a distribution center in London and have a steady supply of components. They are basically almost ready to begin supplying the market but require significant funding to scale up production — hence the Kickstarter pledging.

See the video below for an overview of the Rubbee project.

[via Gizmag]