Electric Bikes - Would you buy one?

[Stromble]

With the amount of people putting aftermarket pipes on to unleash the tone of their engines I can't see electric taking off.

I like the idea apart from the silence. Being able to hear the engine note to gauge power delivery is a vital to ride a 100HP+ bike at pace.

Surely the bike has sub woofer built in and a console allowing you to pick your own exhaust sound ...

[s_devo]

In less than a week (June 12), the world will witness the FIRST clean emissions Grand Prix. Known as the TTX GP:
http://www.gizmag.com/electric-dream...perbike/11844/

Awesome - I wonder where we can watch it?

Anyone had a crack at creating an EV bike?

All good!

[Supertwin Don]

If you are looking for the electric bike race - Isle Of Man - the TTXGP - is to be run on Friday 12 June
Any of the IoM websites should have links on

My son is over there with the Kingston University team - although he is running an electric drag race bike at the Ramsey Sprint on Tuesday 9th - check out "Proud Daddy" on the Drag race forum

[bogan]

i shall be watching the isle of man with intrest, if i can find a source that is, dont know if its being televised. But watching this will show exactly where electric bike tech is up to these days.

From a performance point of view, by comparing track times of the ttxgp bike with those of previous petrol race bikes we should be able to figure out just how many years behind petrol the electrics are.

With regards to range and charge times, electric vehicles a still a new thing, and with the popularity of them now, there will be far more money spend developing batteries, supercaps etc, hell we may eventually get a room temp superconductor to store the power!

Pollutionwise, electric is far better, efficiency of fossil fuel burning power stations is far greater than that of cars, efficiency from mains elec to bike power is around 75% conservatively. And fossil fuel powerstations are a minority here in NZ, and will become one elsewhere in the world. Sure it creates more drain on the electricity infrastructure, but shit aint free... well cept for geothermal.... hydroelectric.... wind...... solar...... tidal.... and fossil fuels, but theyre wrecking up the place so dont really count.

[Zuki lover]

Real motorbikes aren't electric. Makes it sound like a kitchen appliance

[Pixie]

I don't know, at first glance I saw that unleashing the 19HP and having a very mild amount of fun would drain the batteries in 35 miles. Still a way to go before it is worth having IMO

But I plan on still riding 30 years from now so I could easily be riding a 60+ HP electric bike capable of travelling 300+ kms on a charge and recharging in the time it takes me to eat lunch. I predict electric will get good, but it will probably take a few more years yet.

How about charging in the time it takes to fill a gas tank:

http://www.eestorbatteries.com/

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/...harge-life.ars


The future is in supercapacitors,not chemical batteries.

[James Deuce]

i shall be watching the isle of man with intrest, if i can find a source that is, dont know if its being televised. But watching this will show exactly where electric bike tech is up to these days.

Current results indicate parity with 1953.

[bogan]

Current results indicate parity with 1953.

ah yup, few years of development required then!! can you post a link to the race time history for the track?

[James Deuce]

http://www.iomtt.com/TT-Database.aspx

The fastest electric machine would have been in the top 10 in 1953

http://www.iomtt.com/TT-Database/Eve...53%20%20&era=3

http://www.iomtt.com/News/2009/06/09...at-the-TT.aspx

84.81mph average in practice.

They'll probably be in to the 1970s era laptimes next year. I don't think the chassis is the issue for most of them, simply that they are learning about energy usage. The might even improve over the race.

[MarkH]

How about charging in the time it takes to fill a gas tank: The future is in supercapacitors,not chemical batteries.

That may well be true, or it may not. Regardless my prediction is that electric will get very good eventually. Whether it is supercapacitors, LiMn Batteries or something else is not important - what matters is power, range & charge time. Once electric can provide a truly good performance on a real world motorcycle then we can decide if we would like to buy that motorcycle or not. Currently it is all just speculation.

[Skyryder]

I don't see them taking off for some time but there will be a 'generation' new to biking who one day will ride electric bikes. They will start off with them and ride nothing else.

Probably the children of some on here.


Skyryder

[bogan]

http://www.iomtt.com/TT-Database.aspx

The fastest electric machine would have been in the top 10 in 1953

http://www.iomtt.com/TT-Database/Eve...53%20%20&era=3

http://www.iomtt.com/News/2009/06/09...at-the-TT.aspx

84.81mph average in practice.

They'll probably be in to the 1970s era laptimes next year. I don't think the chassis is the issue for most of them, simply that they are learning about energy usage. The might even improve over the race.

thanks for the links. I agree chassis is definetly not the issue here, as chassis developement for ice bikes works for ebs as well. Simply put its power density, one of ttxgp bikes (i forget which one) is using 100kg of batteries, which contains an equivalent useable power to that in 3.3L of fuel.

[motorbyclist]

http://www.zenncars.com/media/documents/Reuters3.pdf

looks like supercaps are the way to go

though THIS annoys me in an anti-competitive/monopolising business practice sort of way:

Zenn also holds worldwide exclusive rights to the battery system in vehicles
under 1,400 kg (3,086 lbs).