Wanna Ride Weird??

[Skyryder]

Seem to recall saying something that electric motorcycles will not take off. Seems I may have to eat humble pie.
Go too http://motorcyclecity.com/electric-hybrid/ecycle.htm

There are some strange babies here. Not for me but maybe the day might come when we are riding the past.

Skyryder

[Motoracer]

I reckon my bike is lacking noise as it is, so you can keep thoes quiet electric bikes outa my way!

I wish I had a yoshi full system :cry:

[Jackrat]

Nope not for me,I ride weird enough as it is.
I'm waiting for Kawasaki's KLX650 diesil to get here. :o
Interesting but.

[Eurodave]

Why the hell are most of those bikes in the hyperlink so fuggin ugly?

Just because they have a different engine design doesnt mean that the bikes styling has to be 'different" [read fugginugly] cause one of the reasons I buy a bike is for the looks

Show me a cool looking electric bike & sometime in the future I may be more interested in buying one

[Ixion]

Seem to recall saying something that electric motorcycles will not take off. Seems I may have to eat humble pie.
Go too http://motorcyclecity.com/electric-hybrid/ecycle.htm

There are some strange babies here. Not for me but maybe the day might come when we are riding the past.

Skyryder

Hm. D'you believe that weight figure of 105kg. For a 200 cc diesel PLUS that honky electric motor. ?

I wonder what the handling is like with that electric rotor spinning around at some very high speed ?

[Sniper]

Dont put me forward for one of those. Whats with the camel hump tank?

[Wolf]

I'd happily have an electric motorbike for commuting on a daily basis - cost fuck all to run, charge it up at night.

Until such time as fuel cell technology comes down in price (and weight and size) and the problem of where are we going to get the hydrogen (electrolyse from water? - need to generate the electricity to do that) is solved, electric vehicles will have limited scope. Even though modern deep cycle batteries are smaller and lighter than their predecessors, they're still heavy and bulky and take a while to charge, leaving commuting as about the only practical use for EVs so far.

That being said EV cars have been made in amateur's garages, FFS, that can exceed 116km/h and have a 50km range - think of the number of people who live within 25km of their work (most of whom are within a 50km/h zone) and imagine all of them driving/riding to work in/on an electric car/bike.

Certainly cut the petrol consumption down a lot - meaniing that they could continue driving or riding their petrol-fueled vehicle on longer journeys for a lot more years - certainly more than they'd have if they continue driving their fucking cages for five minutes when they could walk there in 20 minutes.

The GSX250 I'm currently trying to get running properly was donated to me to be used as the core of my own DIY EV project - I was going to get motor, controller, batteries etc and build my own electric bike - based around an '82 GSX250 frame.

Personally, If I had my dream bike - BMW R100 for those who're new here - I would not be riding it to work. I would ride a smaller, more economical bike for my daily commute and save the Beemer for the weekends and holidays when I can take it out on the open road and have a proper ride.

If I had said beemer, would it matter to me if the commuting bike was an electric bike rather than, say, a little 125 or 250 japper? Weeellllll - electric bikes don't use gas, which means... all the more petrol for the Beemer!

I think eventually we (as a species) are going to have to change our means of fueling our vehicles - be it ethanol or some synthetic "petrol" for internal combustion engines or hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered electric vehicles, eventually we are going to run out of fossil fuels and emission controls are going to dictate cleaner alternatives. For that reason, I keep a close eye on advances in alternative fuels and EVs.

I am not going to give up riding a bike - so it is important for me to know that whatever means they come up with for powering cars is going to be practical for powering bikes also. I'l hate to think that the system they come up with will be so bulky and heavy it won't fit in/onto a bike frame.

Mega-fuggenugly some of those bikes might be, but they're at least a sign that someone, somewhere, is working to ensure that, whatever happens to the fossil fuels, WE WON'T MISS OUT!

Electric does not mean "weak" or second best - anyone here who disagrees with me is quite welcome to state their case after they've sat on the tracks in front of the Paraparaumu-Wellington "Unit"...

Some of those bikes on that site have great top speeds and acceleration - and they're lugging 'round a pile of batteries! Imagine what would be achievable with a lighter, more efficient, power supply - such as will be available in years to come.

[Coyote]

An electric bike would be interesting. On/off motor should be fun

Might be interested in this, an electric R1 :yeah: 1/5 scale though
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXBEP3&P=0

[Coyote]

Might be interested in this, an electric R1 :yeah: 1/5 scale though
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXBEP3&P=0
And here's a reveiw (http://www.rccaraction.com/articles/tiger_bike.asp) on it

I want it :)

[Coyote]

And for the dirt bike fans: http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?cookie%5Ftest=1&catalog_name=COOL&category_name=COOL_008_000_000_000&product_id=60-4353

[Wolf]

And here's a reveiw (http://www.rccaraction.com/articles/tiger_bike.asp) on it

I want it :)
I can just see you on it, fording the majestic Bugadivyno River as you commute from Waikikamukau to Erewhon... :devil2:

[SPORK]

Wah! Running out of petrol scares me.

I mean, what about passenger planes?!

[Wolf]

Wah! Running out of petrol scares me.

I mean, what about passenger planes?!
Jet liners run on kerosene, smaller IC-engine powered prop jobs like Cesnas run on Avgas.

The problem is not running out of petrol, it's running out of crude oil - whence we get petrol, diesel and kerosene as well as napthas (solvents), lubricating oils, asphalt and shit-loads of other things that we use.

You could probably synthesise most the stuff in petrol - it's only carbon chemistry, after all - given appropriate plants and a supply of raw carbon-based ingredients but the problem would be the cost of manufacture. Petrol is dear enough when you're just distilling crude oils (and you get lots of useful side products such as diesel and kerosene), imagine how bad it would be if they had to synthesise the carbon chains from simpler chemicals - and they'd have to synthesise the kerosene and napthas as well (vege oils have been used as substitutes for diesel so we'll ignore that). A fully synthesised petrol would be horrendously expensive.

I've read a New Zealand book that went into home-brewing alcohol fuel - setting up your engine, brewing and storing the fuel, legal requirements at the time (back when distilling alcohol for drinking was illegal) very interesting book.

There are a few issues with alcohol - starting on cold mornings is one, sux to run on ethanol if you live in Canterbury or Waiuru - and a lot of people would find it a tad underpowered even with a properly configured engine.

Electricity, however, delivers a serious amount of power and responsiveness - if you can get around the weight and range issues - smaller, ligher fuel cells and a means of delivering the hydrogen (such as Chrysler's "Natrium" system which uses stable, non-flammable Sodium Borohydride to supply the hydrogen on demand).

Once we run out of crude oil, we will be stuffed in several different ways unless we have already found alternatives (concrete roads, anyone? - we won't have any more asphalt) to the multitude of products we get from crude oil.

I'm glad there are people around the world working on the solutions now, refining them, improving the technology - do we really want to take a massive leap backwards when we finally run out of petrochemicals? Didn't think so. What we have now, in the way of electric vehicles, batteries and fuel cells, is very crude - but better we have that now, and improve over the next few years, than have only that a few years down the track when the arse falls out of the petrochemical industries.

Personally I think we should already have had better fuel cells by now - we could have been running efficient fuel-cell electric vehicles years ago if they'd bothered developing them sooner - fuel cells were invented in 1839 - no that's not a typo - by William Grove. Even if they spent a hundred years on developing them, we could have been using fuel cell powered vehicles in 1939 instead of petrol. Instead, the year is 2005 and fuel cells are still heavy and bulky.

[ktulu]

Had an interesting review on the toyota prius on top gear last night. This is pretty much the only hybrid vehicle that has really made it, I see these things driving around every day and it seems like such a good idea.

Problem is I see us running out of oil then banning all internal combustion engines as opposed to developing these vehicles in to mainstream to prolong our limited supply of crude oil which can be freely used for motorsport and other stuff, make it more expensive I guess

[Wolf]

Problem is I see us running out of oil then banning all internal combustion engines as opposed to developing these vehicles in to mainstream to prolong our limited supply of crude oil which can be freely used for motorsport and other stuff, make it more expensive I guess
Your point is well made - we should have had a lot of this stuff developed ages ago and be using it now to prolong the petrochemicals we have - rather than running out and saying "Oops, shit, well we have to go for electric or alcohol (or alcohol/electric hybrids) now - sorry that the current tech is not up to what you were used to with the super-powerful IC-powered cars. Never mind, it'd be back to normal in twenty or so years..."

Fact: petrochemicals will eventually run out - and the number of vehicles on the roads is increasing, new markets are opening up. The increase in vehicles will only increase the rate at which we run out of petrochemicals unless something is done to counter it - such as using battery-powered electrics to commute and hybrid vehicles on longer journeys (or even using hybrids and pure electrics for around town and leaving the gas guzzler in the shed for long trips)

Now is the time we should be doing this - since we weren't doing it much up til now. All power to Jerry Halstead and others like him who have built their own back-yard electric conversions and used them to commute - saving the petrol for longer trips.

[Coyote]

In a way, seeing the demise of crude oil might be a good thing as it will finally kick car companies into developing other means of transportation. The only reason why fuel cells hadn't been developed was these major comglomerates believed in using the cheapest source they can and if it does run out, they won't be there to see it, let the other generation sort it out. Also, governments will soon relise if they continue to support companies that are killing the earth, they won't have millions of people to control anymore. Eventually they will push car companies into making greener vehicles, save the earth, and live like kings for a while longer. Toyota have already seen this, thats why they are trying to get ahead of the other companies in developing hybrid cars now

Ethanol/Electric hybrids I believe are the future. Ethanol is 98.9% alcohol (from what I remember) and emit a very tiny amount of harmful gases but most of what they emit is water. This looks like the greenest and cheapest power for the next fleet of cars. I'm looking forward for the change, I'm only 15 and I might live to see the earth die

[Ixion]

Trouble with ethanol, is it's shit to use, because it absorbs atmospheric water like mad. So you have serious problems with storing it (ie at the servo) or even with leaving it in your bike tank for a week. Absorbs water , and then your carb settings are totally shitted.

[Wolf]

Trouble with ethanol, is it's shit to use, because it absorbs atmospheric water like mad. So you have serious problems with storing it (ie at the servo) or even with leaving it in your bike tank for a week. Absorbs water , and then your carb settings are totally shitted.
Unless you get it as pure as possible then mix it with petrol to stop it leeching water - oops, we don't have any petrol...

I'm looking at fuel cells being a good contender for the future but at the moment they are only about 50% efficient (use 50kW of National Grid electricity to produce enough hydrogen to get 25kW of electricity out of the fuel cell) and are large and heavy.

This will change.

The sodium borohydride method of chemically storing the hydrogen until needed (released by passing Sodium Borohydride over a catalyst) seems to be the best idea so far - need a catch tank installed to trap the dehydrogenised slurry after its been used so it can be taken back to the servo and rehydrogenised for reuse, but that's not too much of a prob.

Chrysler is getting around 30 miles to the gallon of Sodium Borohydride solution with current technology - once again, that will improve as the efficiency of the fuel cell increases. Sodium Borohydride is recyclable and it's related to laundry detergent - so a spill will result in cleaner roads.

Chemically storing the hydrogen solves a lot of problems related to storage - flammability, motility of atoms, pressure etc.

Or we could just run electrical conduits through our roads and have coils mounted under our vehicles to pick up the electricity by inductance - would need a couple of batteries to get from one inductance field to another and smooth out the power, but no worries there.

Modern batteries are getting quite good power densities - consider the battery in a cellphone - small and light, lasts for ages, can be partially discharged and then recharged without developing a "memory", hundreds of deep cycle recharges before it finally craps out. Only problem - bloody expensive. A 12V version with a decent Amp-hour rating would be smaller and lighter than a comparable sealed lead-acid battery but cost heaps more. It would last a lot longer than the lead acid battery but when it did die, it would probably cost a lot more than the lead acid batteries that would be needed over the same time span.

If there were a sufficient demand for 12V, high amp-hour versions for electric vehicles, the price would be driven down - at the moment it's just not in the manufacturers' best interests.

[Lias]

Why the hell are most of those bikes in the hyperlink so fuggin ugly?


Amen. The designers of some of those bikes were on SERIOUSLY good drugs then they came up with em.