Sorry, your 2015 Yamaha R1M is already a dinosaur. Lightning LS-218 is coming

[samgab]

This is the Lightning LS218 Superbike:




http://lightningmotorcycle.com/

It's been in prototype form for a while now.
Of course, when it's eventually available publicly, it'll make the R1M look cheap to purchase, but I think it's a glimpse of the way things are heading...

I own an electric car, and all that stuff about wanting the gears and shifting, to feel in control etc is just nonsense. Shiftable gearboxes are a work-around to a problem; the problem being the limited torque and power bands of liquid fuel powered engines, you need the multiples of gears to keep the torque and power close to the limited sweet spot. When you have full torque all the way through the extensive rev range, you just don't need the work-around of shiftable gear ratios.

I still want an R1M though. *sighs*

[Mike.Gayner]

Aaah electric bikes. The ultimate overpriced poser vehicle. Just enough range to get you to the nearest bar/cafe so you can show everyone how rich you are, and get home agian. Want to go for a decent ride around the Coro Loop or up the coast? Bring an overnight bag and make sure your hotel has somewhere you can plug in, because you're not doing it on a single charge.

And just to head off the impending comments - yes range might improve on a future generation of these things, which is hardly relevant to today's conversation. And we're many MANY years away from having a charging infrastructure in NZ, particularly in remove places where it may never happen.

Electric bikes are simply not practical yet. They're extremely expensive, have piss-poor range and are impractical/impossible to charge on the road.

edit: And just for perspective, you could buy two or three R1M's for the price of one of these first-gen ugly tacky pieces of dog shit.

[nodrog:Me]

Cool, I've been looking for a bike I can hit the brakes in the middle of a U-turn on.

[Tazz]

[Maha]

Cool, I've been looking for a bike I can hit the brakes in the middle of a U-turn on.

Now that is very very Dangerous, whip it good.

[EJK]

I heard that if you connect your iPhone to the USB port you can charge the bike off the phone.

[mossy1200]

I heard that if you connect your iPhone to the USB port you can charge the bike off the phone.

With 2 trolly bus arms you can charge it while riding around town.

[240]

Electric bikes ? umm no thats just wrong.Its a bit like a vegetarian pie, it has the name pie in it but it just ain't right.

[Brett]

Electric bikes ? umm no thats just wrong.Its a bit like a vegetarian pie, it has the name pie in it but it just ain't right.

We said that about Hybrid cars when the Prius was released. Now we're talking about Hybrids (using the term loosely) like the McLaren P1, Porsche 918 and La Ferrari. Progress is a very very very very good thing.

[James Deuce]

We said that about Hybrid cars when the Prius was released. Now we're talking about Hybrids (using the term loosely) like the McLaren P1, Porsche 918 and La Ferrari. Progress is a very very very very good thing.

The analogy does not work. Battery technology is stagnant and has been for some time. There are constant press releases claiming massive improvements in 5-10 years time but the last big jump was Lithium Ion batteries. There are incremental improvements for Li-Ion batteries in the works including changes in dipole material that will help the incremental improvement process, but the reality of battery powered vehicles is that they are suitable only for low average speed commuting, generally in an urban environment.

Hybrid vehicles are simply a "cheat" with onboard power plants to generate more battery charge and hybrids have benefited hugely from the recent explosion of Hybrid technologies employed by F1

[bogan]

Neat!

Electrics are certainly the way of the future, demolishing the current crop's performance specs just shows how close that future is.

[Brett]

The analogy does not work. Battery technology is stagnant and has been for some time. There are constant press releases claiming massive improvements in 5-10 years time but the last big jump was Lithium Ion batteries. There are incremental improvements for Li-Ion batteries in the works including changes in dipole material that will help the incremental improvement process, but the reality of battery powered vehicles is that they are suitable only for low average speed commuting, generally in an urban environment.

Hybrid vehicles are simply a "cheat" with onboard power plants to generate more battery charge and hybrids have benefited hugely from the recent explosion of Hybrid technologies employed by F1

I disagree. We need interest to be developed in these areas to allow off-shoots into others. The technology has a way of finding its way into other obscure applications. Also, I am not convinced that a MASSIVE break through in battery development won't occur making the options for electric vehicles much more feasible.

[Tazz]

Neat!

Electrics are certainly the way of the future, demolishing the current crop's performance specs just shows how close that future is.

Yep. Not a bike but another boost to the electric take over:

http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20150...ers-pikes-peak

And a Kiwi driver to boot!

Don't know if I will ever love an electric as much as a gas or diesel vehicle, but they're getting more and more practical every year.

[mossy1200]

How quick we forget what happened to the popo bike in ChCh that had to much electrickasity.

[James Deuce]

I disagree. We need interest to be developed in these areas to allow off-shoots into others. The technology has a way of finding its way into other obscure applications. Also, I am not convinced that a MASSIVE break through in battery development won't occur making the options for electric vehicles much more feasible.

Don't make me start posting links about the limits of current and foreseeable battery technology. There is massive hype about their current capability that doesn't match real-world capability. Batteries are the wrong kind of tech for just about everything they are used for, they're expensive, and they simply move the pollution back down the electricity generation chain. Do not talk about Li-Ion batteries capacity to generate heat and what happens if their casing ruptures. Or how we casually dispose of them in landfills.

There have been bigger advances in wind power generation and solar panel capability and longevity in the last 5 years that make the gains in battery technology look like the slow crawl it has been.

What's improved is the machinery around the battery technology, such as electric bikes and cars. They're better at utilising the available power and better at packaging more batteries in a smaller space and keeping them cool but they move into the law of diminishing returns the same way their less efficient predecessors do. They're heavy, slow over short to medium distance and HEAVY. Despite all the "advances" of the last 10 years the max usable range of an electric vehicle is still only about 70kms, if you use it the way you use your current IC powered vehicle. They are not viable replacements for petrochemical powered vehicles yet and hybrids and battery powered vehicles are built on the backs of 6 year old children extracting rare earth elements from ancient clay with a teaspoon.

Flexible power sources that don't involve explosively extracting the energy from a source don't exist yet. Look back at articles making claims about where battery tech will be in 5 years from 2010. Nowhere near those claims yet.