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One giant leap for electric motorcycles

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Priller said:
I think you nailed it here. There's a reason Piaggio is in the club. This isn't for the US or Canada, and I'll be very surprised if we see anything here. It's for cities in Europe and Asia, where scooters are used to commute and shop with short-hop trips in urban settings. One thing I saw mentioned is the difficulty people who live in high-density urban environments have with home charging, as they rarely have secured parking. This addresses that problem on two fronts: first, you can swap a battery as necessary without needing to charge; and second, you can bring a battery indoors to be charged with a plug-in station. As a bonus, it helps reduce theft, as a potential thief would need to provide their own battery to ride something away.

The other market for this is courier and delivery services, who can quickly swap batteries to keep a bike on the road. Motorcycle couriers are big business in European cities, as vans just get stuck in traffic.

The upshot of this could be a significant reduction in emissions from places that struggle the most with air quality, so I'm really hoping this takes off. It could make a meaningful difference in a lot of places...
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Side streets and back alleys in Rome are FULL of scooters that everyone uses for daily transportation around town. They're parked - and packed - everywhere. Almost no one has private garages. Forget EV charging the way we think of it. There's a reason a Fiat 500 is as small as it is, but getting around on two wheels is ten times better yet.

That's what this battery-swapping is for. Rome needs help with air quality, so there is a big motivation to go electric, but there's nowhere to park, nevermind plug in a vehicle to recharge overnight.
 
Brian P said:
Side streets and back alleys in Rome are FULL of scooters that everyone uses for daily transportation around town. They're parked - and packed - everywhere. Almost no one has private garages. Forget EV charging the way we think of it. There's a reason a Fiat 500 is as small as it is, but getting around on two wheels is ten times better yet.

That's what this battery-swapping is for. Rome needs help with air quality, so there is a big motivation to go electric, but there's nowhere to park, nevermind plug in a vehicle to recharge overnight.
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Funny you should mention Rome. Here's how people were parking outside our apartment when we were there last (2019 is an eternity ago, it seems) showing why Smart Cars are popular, but even small station wagons are a nightmare:

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Just out of shot is the row of scooters on the opposite side of the street. And as I'm sure you're aware, this is a relatively spacious arrangement.

Same could apply to most older European cities, and then multiply exponentially for Asian cities and Naples, which is almost like an Asian city....
 
Removable batteries is so 20 or more years ago now. That was the idea back then for cars when they were still thinking lead acid. It is a step backwards. I really do think it is a dumb idea and there are so many reasons from an engineering perspective (now the design of the battery and vehicle is compromised to have this) for it to be a really dumb idea.

Small recreational (off road) and even bicycles maybe, that is about it.

Fast charging is the answer. The early reliance and now expectation on home charging IMO is actually hurting electric vehicles in the long run. Put chargers at the current gas stations (and people pay) and let the technology transition over as gas is less and electric is more transition the pumps to chargers. Now we have all this expectation of home charging (even though condos and many homes (no driveway) can't do it but people feel entitled to have it). All this means little business case to build the pay for it infrastructure to charge anywhere on the road....other than home. Range is not as big a problem if you have lots of charging options, no business case if everyone mostly charges at home....
 
Ya, removable batteries means you are not compelled to buy a whole new machine every 4 or 5 years because the integral batteries swelled up. That will never fly in this disposable era.

... you do realize 'fast' charging a battery not only eats way more electric, it reduces the life expectancy of the battery and increases the danger exponentially :unsure:
 
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"Removable to repair/replace" is different from "battery swap as a routine substitute for recharging". Not at all the same.

For recharging - We need every option thrown at it: Slow-charging at home for those who can do it, slow-charging at work for those who can do it, medium-rate charging at every coffee shop or restaurant or supermarket or cinema to allow opportunity-charging during the day's activities, and fast-charging at motorway rest stops for those on road trips. And EVs on the road today are capable of all this. We just need to keep building out the charging network.
 
Trials said:
Ya, removable batteries means you are not compelled to buy a whole new machine every 4 or 5 years because the integral batteries swelled up. That will never fly in this disposable era.

... you do realize 'fast' charging a battery not only eats way more electric, it reduces the life expectancy of the battery and increases the danger exponentially :unsure:
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Motorcycles and cars are full of parts that wear out and need to be replaced. Just because a battery is not "swappable" does not mean it is not removable for repair or replacement when it is done. My motor can be repaired or replaced when it wears out but it is not swappable....

At scale all these 'swappable" batteries will need to be fast charged anyways (so that is entirely moot) otherwise when you show up at the swap station at peak times they will be out of charged batteries--just wait xxxx and we will have a charged battery for you (or will need to have a huge inventory to deal with peak times and many more chargers--and a huge place to store and charge them all). Economics dictate that they need to have as small an inventory as possible and they must fast charge. They also have to deal with swaps of bad batteries meaning more inventory, or more likely the car/motorcycle owner runs the risk of getting a worn out low capacity battery and getting a short range as they just roll it back out. More than one standard, even just different for cars and motorcycles, multiply the numbers....

Again, workable for recreation short range off-road or electric bicycles, workable for my electric drill, not for everyone on the road or even a significant number of people on the road. Huge step backwards.
 
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backmarkerducati said:
Again, workable for recreation short range off-road or electric bicycles, workable for my electric drill, not for everyone on the road or even a significant number of people on the road.
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As discussed further up, this really isn't for Canada and the US on a major scale. This is for Europe and Asia and South America and Africa, places where people in cities use scooters as primary transport in dense urban environments, need a charging option that works without secure parking, and where trips are typically short hops, not long hauls on divided highways.

Really, it's for urban scooter users as a replacement for the billions of small displacement bikes that make up the vast majority of what companies like Honda sell around the world.
 
Motorcycles and cars are full of parts that wear out is a whole different ball game when you go from mechanical internal combustion engines to electric drive.
What breaks on a kids Oset ride <- the battery.
 
Priller said:
As discussed further up, this really isn't for Canada and the US on a major scale. This is for Europe and Asia and South America and Africa, places where people in cities use scooters as primary transport in dense urban environments, need a charging option that works without secure parking, and where trips are typically short hops, not long hauls on divided highways.

Really, it's for urban scooter users as a replacement for the billions of small displacement bikes that make up the vast majority of what companies like Honda sell around the world.
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Honda makes something like 15 million motorcycles every year. Only a tiny fraction of them are the premium-market models that we see here. The vast majority are utilitarian urban run-around models.

The battery-swap concept isn't for premium-market models used for long trips or high power demand applications ... but the implications for places like Rome or Bangkok are huge.
 
Priller said:
As discussed further up, this really isn't for Canada and the US on a major scale. This is for Europe and Asia and South America and Africa, places where people in cities use scooters as primary transport in dense urban environments, need a charging option that works without secure parking, and where trips are typically short hops, not long hauls on divided highways.

Really, it's for urban scooter users as a replacement for the billions of small displacement bikes that make up the vast majority of what companies like Honda sell around the world.
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It still does not scale unless the goal is a super light battery that they take into work and/or home at the end(s) of the trip to charge. At this point lighter electric bicycles would make way more sense for these people. If this is the case like electric drills no need for a standard battery (and lots of technical--packaging, stymied tech advancement--and economic downside) as you just keep charging what you have (maybe even have a few spares).

Any third party infrastructure for swapping a dead battery is exactly what I was highlighting regardless of the size of the vehicle, there as well. Scale kills it and scale needs fast charging anyways.
 
This makes way more sense. Tend to forget the vastly different markets in asia and some parts of europe.
I am still not sure if this would be a hit in some places. In markets saturated with cheap, reliable and fuel efficient bikes/scooters, I don't know how competitive electrics would be unless the govt pushes for them.
The cost should be higher and I don't see much pros vs. existing gasoline counterparts (other than emissions).
 
backmarkerducati said:
It still does not scale unless the goal is a super light battery that they take into work and/or home at the end(s) of the trip to charge. At this point lighter electric bicycles would make way more sense for these people.
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That is exactly the intent. These scooters that are used for daily transportation are like the "e-bike" scooters that we get here.

I don't think a battery to be carried by hand can have more than 3 - 4 kWh of storage capacity. (10 - 15 kg). That's in the vicinity of the battery capacity of what the e-bike scooters use, except a lot of those are crappy lead-acid because cheap. Range is supposedly 60 - 80 km on those. That's more than enough to cross Bangkok and back.

As for being competitive in the marketplace ... A lot of the very same cities that we are talking about, have major problems with air quality (and noise). A government push to ban or severely restrict the use of combustion-engine vehicles is foreseeable ...
 
backmarkerducati said:
At this point lighter electric bicycles would make way more sense for these people.
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No they wouldn't. The typical scooter user often rides to work, and so the basic scooter design is much more suitable for staying clean, warm and dry without having to change clothes, not to mention the storage benefits for daily shops etc.

Brian P said:
As for being competitive in the marketplace ... A lot of the very same cities that we are talking about, have major problems with air quality (and noise). A government push to ban or severely restrict the use of combustion-engine vehicles is foreseeable ...
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London already has a congestion charge that exempts electric vehicles, and it's nowhere near as saturated with scooters as the more southern European cities are. Other cities like Florence already use photo enforcement of permitted vehicle access to historical centres, as many tourists have discovered when sent a massive bill. For Spain, Greece, Italy, France, and a number of more Eastern cities, I could easily see either a ban or a fee on using gas scooters once this tech becomes established.

It would be harder to enforce using fines in some less developed cities, but I'm sure there could be positive incentives like rebates, cost incentives, etc. to offset the inertia of people sticking with what they know.
 
Priller said:
No they wouldn't. The typical scooter user often rides to work, and so the basic scooter design is much more suitable for staying clean, warm and dry without having to change clothes, not to mention the storage benefits for daily shops etc.


London already has a congestion charge that exempts electric vehicles, and it's nowhere near as saturated with scooters as the more southern European cities are. Other cities like Florence already use photo enforcement of permitted vehicle access to historical centres, as many tourists have discovered when sent a massive bill. For Spain, Greece, Italy, France, and a number of more Eastern cities, I could easily see either a ban or a fee on using gas scooters once this tech becomes established.

It would be harder to enforce using fines in some less developed cities, but I'm sure there could be positive incentives like rebates, cost incentives, etc. to offset the inertia of people sticking with what they know.
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From a government policy side, they could also restrict access to gasoline in undesirable areas (eg. no gas stations within 10 km of city centre). Make it a pain in the ass to get fuel and it encourages people to switch. Of course, there will be enterprising people that setup informal gas transport but gov't could play whack a mole with them too.
 
GreyGhost said:
From a government policy side, they could also restrict access to gasoline in undesirable areas (eg. no gas stations within 10 km of city centre). Make it a pain in the ass to get fuel and it encourages people to switch. Of course, there will be enterprising people that setup informal gas transport but gov't could play whack a mole with them too.
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Definitely. Sort of like the Dutch restricted car parking in cities after the Second World War to encourage bicycle use, which worked quite well. Inconvenience is a great motivator...
 
Parking is already a big motivator for using a scooter in Rome. It's certainly a motivator for not buying a vehicle any bigger than you absolutely need. Would you want to park a Ford F350 there??

There are lots of vans in Europe ... but commercial vehicles on delivery aren't in the same situation as someone trying to park overnight or while at a tourist attraction.
 
Brian P said:
Parking is already a big motivator for using a scooter in Rome. It's certainly a motivator for not buying a vehicle any bigger than you absolutely need. Would you want to park a Ford F350 there??
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After you get used to small cars as standard, seeing something full-size like a Range Rover comes as a bit of a shock. They look impossibly big. The Italian government sometimes used the Lancia version of a Chrysler 300 as limos, and they look comically large on a Roman street. Sort of like seeing someone roll around in one of those ridiculous F-650's here...
 
Too bad things like this aren't legal here. Would be great to zip around in the city with.
125 km/h top speed, 100km range.

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RION2 | SUPERSPORT

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Other problem is the price. $6800 USD :oops::oops::oops:
 
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