The first electric bicycle company

The first electric bicycle company

In the spring of 1972, Ana Torres and Leo Grant sent out a business plan for a new company that would build electric bicycles. In their nine-page proposal for (9) ________ financing of this venture, sent to a small group of local investors, the two designers predicted that the market for (10) ________ a vehicle might consist (11) ________ commuters, delivery firms and local councils. Such (12) ________ the beginnings of Green Wheel Works in Bristol, which produced the popular Swift, the first bicycle (13) ________ be commercially sold with rechargeable batteries nationwide. At an auction around forty years later, the original typescript of the Torres-Grant proposal was sold as part of a collection called The Origins of Cycling, which contained about 800 manuals, drawings, catalogues and (14) ________ artefacts from the history of transport. Two items (15) ________ particular generated interest among prospective bidders. (16) ________ were the Torres-Grant business plan and a technical notebook containing the idea for a removable battery, a feature widely used in many modern electric bicycle designs.