The way I see it if you are running an ICE on a homegrown or reclaimed source of fuel to assist your normal pedaling then there really is no need to have an electric motor at all? But still you could generate power in to a battery for your lighting system? My goal of utilizing both is more at this time is to see how feasible/useful it can be.
Staton's system looks like a DC generator that is plumbed in to their 18.75:1 gear box which will in fact rob a substantial amoun of hp from the ICE that it is hooked to to make it efficient and I suppose that is what is holding them up because 49cc - ICE's that produce 3 or more hp stock are non existent outside of the pocket bike world as far as I know. 49cc being the legal cut off point size limit under federal/state regs with some states like OR being only 35cc.
Here is a picture of a setup similar to what Staton is up to as far as a DC generator run by an ICE. I don't think it worked well enough for the person that built it to pursue it any further than this rather crude stage. Perhaps with a larger motor he would have had more luck. Putting all this stuff on a trailer that can be easily detached has some merits however.
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One point in his favor is I think he said he had less than $300 in the whole setup including the trailer that he got off of CL.
That is why we think that the best that can be done within the current regulatory guidelines is to capture parasitic power from a 2 hp ICE and charge a battery and then run the electric off the battery. You can still run the ICE to keep the battery charging but then why have the electric motor? That way you could motor in to town on the ICE and do your intown running around on the electric, then motor home. A voltmeter would keep track of your charge and if you are not getting enough with the ICE runtime you can do an aux charge at home or work. Having a constant power source for lighting so that you could do away with all the different small batteries would be a plus also and you could fit the ICE easily with electric start.
But is the extra fooling around and ending up with a heavier overall more expensive bicycle worth it? It is entirely possible to run small engines on alcohol and has been done in the past by David Blume with mopeds as illustrated in his book "Alcohol Can Be A Gas" which as far as I can tell is the alcohol bible. The cold starting issue can be addressed with some ether and you an recapture heat off the exhaust manifold with a shield and direct it in to the intake manifold as a vaporizer. As I said alcohol likes high compression and the small 4 stroke ICE's don't lead in that field in stock form but can be modified to get as much as possible but still only around 10:1. The aforementiond pocket bike 2 cycle engines can have as much as 14:1 and I have seen them listed with as much as 14hp
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Running alcohol/castor bean/hho generator on a 2 cycle would easily yield in the 200 mpg range. All the products would be non invasive and non polluting but the 2 stroke would still sound like a 2 stroke which are quite a bit louder overall than their 4 cycle cousins that can run on alcohol alone or even in conjunction with hho (Brown's Gas) with the power for the hho generator coming from the battery once again.
As much as I want to see electric bikes succeed every time I compare them with ICE they come up lacking. However a hybridization of the two is worth looking in to and we will be doing so by next spring at the latest.