The problem of empty batteries on e-bikes should be a thing of the past from this summer. In the next few days, Bosch will be presenting a charger that can be connected to cattle fences.

The idea is as trivial as it is ingenious. There are electric cattle fences almost everywhere in the mountains, which effectively emit their electric shocks to nowhere. Market leader Bosch has taken advantage of this fact to charge the batteries of e-bikes. The battery is attached to the cattle fence with a small clamp, similar to those used in jumper cables for cars. The periodic electric shocks are collected in this way and fed into the battery. According to Bosch, it takes around 100 electric shocks to charge the battery by 10% with the electric fences used today. This corresponds to around 20 minutes. The charging process for a completely empty battery would therefore take just over three hours.In collaboration with the Swiss Farmers' Association, Bosch is also developing new types of transformers. These transmit the power to the electric fences in the same way as today's models - but they recognize whether an e-bike is connected to the fence and would increase the power output accordingly. Bosch expects that in future an e-bike can be fully charged at a cattle fence within 30 minutes in this way. The Swiss Farmers' Association, on the other hand, recognizes the potential of tourism services from agricultural infrastructure and sees this as an opportunity to make better use of the many solar systems on farms. After all, e-bikers are primarily out and about when the weather is nice - precisely when they produce a surplus of solar energy. In this context, the farmers' association is calling on the federal government to compensate farmers financially for these services from the national fund for tourism promotion. Bosch, for its part, has agreed to use the net proceeds from these new adapters to compensate farmers for their electricity services.According to Bosch, these chargers will be available from specialist retailers from the beginning of May. The price per charger should be less than 50 francs. They can be used for all Bosch batteries (including earlier versions). An adapter for Shimano, Brose and Maxon motors is to be supplied later in the fall.