Why your next bike might be electric...

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CafeRay

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Ok, people hate electric bikes, no power, not enough range, to expensive, nerdy etc. yada yada...but things are changing, fast.

You can watch "Charge" on Netflix, which shows the first TT Zero race at Isle of Man. A mix of various freaks with cobbled bikes that mostly break.

But Honda (Mugen) is now investing big bucks, and the speeds....

2010: 96.820 mph
2011: 99.604 mph
2012:104.056 mph
2013: 109.675 mph
2014: 117.366 mph ( w John McGuiness) McGuiness reckons that if the weight is reduced, the linear power will make ebikes faster than ICE.

Last year's Pikes Peak race, an Ebike beat all other ICE bikes by 20 seconds.

And even HD has thrown in with the LiveWire, which we can demo now, but final specs are not set.

Honda is dumping serious money into this...

mugen-shinden-ni-ready-to-take-on-the-iomtt_1.jpg


The latest Brammo track bike, 170hp, 200 ftlbs of torque, with a flat torque "curve".

[video=youtube;C2ee8UycewM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ee8UycewM&list=UU8mYd0n4dcNI30BpNFHazFQ[/video]

Two big changes, right now:

New lithium batteries have 700% more energy density:

http://www.greencarreports.com/news...ide-to-boost-energy-density-by-7-times-report

Elon Musk's mega battery factory with Panasonic is finalized:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/23/us-japan-panasonic-idUSBREA4M0DS20140523

Which means in a few years, 1/5th the price, 5X the power. Tesla next model will be under $30K. Harley will likely be using these batteries for LiveWire.

And just to head off the inevitable comments, electric in Ontario is made as follows:

generation_mix.png
 
And here's an excellent article , showing that magnesium is likely the future in this technology, not lithium. Magnesium is essentially purified from sea water.

http://www.nature.com/news/the-rechargeable-revolution-a-better-battery-1.14815

In 2012, the JCESR hub won US$120 million from the US Department of Energy to take a leap beyond Li-ion technology. Its stated goal was to make cells that, when scaled up to the sort of commercial battery packs used in electric cars, would be five times more energy dense than the standard of the day, and five times cheaper, in just five years. That means hitting a target of 400 watt-hours per kilogram (Wh kg[SUP]−1[/SUP]) by 2017
 
nice vid.

yes- I'm also diggin' the HD Livewire
 
I already ride a bike with a short range, under 200km per tank.
But at least I can fill it up with a quick splash of gas and be on my way agian.
I don't believe full electrics will be viable until they can compete with the ICE in this regard.
 
Yeah I see electric bikes grabbing a growing % of the motorcycling market over the years. I wonder who wants to predict/guess when electric new bike sales will approach 50% of total sales?

Regarding "slow refueling," I've always wondered if any sort of industry standard battery pack could ever happen? Combined with a quick-swap option, you'd ride your depleted e-bike to a "station" and pop out your battery for a freshly charged one. In theory that could happen even FASTER that fully refueling a gas bike.
 
The problem with the battery issue is that you would have to have a monopoly on making those batteries (which you can't have without some kind of interlock system). What's to stop someone from making cheap batteries, going to a station and swapping it with an OEM one?
 
We've got utility companies and governments mandating us to conserve energy, wash and dry our clothes late at night, turn off our air conditioners etc and pay a premium for electricity depending on demand. IMO, this is worse than watching the price of fuel at the pumps.

I honestly want alternative modes of transportation. I would love an electric bike that offers comparable range, easy to refuel/recharge, easy to maintain. And won't cost a fortune to replace the batteries etc.

All the talk about the environment, and these batteries need to be recycled and aren't cheap to make.


I know we have to start somewhere. But, I'm not buying in until it generates more appeal in these areas.
 
NordicMan said:
Regarding "slow refueling," I've always wondered if any sort of industry standard battery pack could ever happen? Combined with a quick-swap option, you'd ride your depleted e-bike to a "station" and pop out your battery for a freshly charged one. In theory that could happen even FASTER that fully refueling a gas bike.
Click to expand...

That was the concept behind Agassi's "Better place". The idea was you buy a car for $8000, but the batteries are rented. You can hot-swap batteries at service centres in 60 seconds and just pay a $12 rent. The company worries about when to charge, recycling etc. They could use the grid to actually store off-peak electricity and replace it on on-peak high demand. So, with enough centres, infinite range. They even charge the batteries close to the source, i.e. hydro dams.

It was a brilliant solution, raised $812M in startup. It failed because it threatened too many industries. For a bike, they would be suggesting $3500 to buy the bike, and $6 every 150km.

http://qz.com/88871/better-place-shai-agassi-swappable-electric-car-batteries/
 
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nakkers said:
We've got utility companies and governments mandating us to conserve energy, wash and dry our clothes late at night, turn off our air conditioners etc and pay a premium for electricity depending on demand. IMO, this is worse than watching the price of fuel at the pumps.

I honestly want alternative modes of transportation. I would love an electric bike that offers comparable range, easy to refuel/recharge, easy to maintain. And won't cost a fortune to replace the batteries etc.
All the talk about the environment, and these batteries need to be recycled and aren't cheap to make.
Click to expand...

No one can stop you from generating your own electricity by solar panel or windmill or even gas. Price is plummeting, and right now we have millions of lead-acid batteries that are 99.9% recycled efficiently for every single vehicle on the road. The media likes to talk about the environmental impact of lithium mining, but tar sands production is far, far worse.
 
CafeRay said:
No one can stop you from generating your own electricity by solar panel or windmill or even gas. Price is plummeting, and right now we have millions of lead-acid batteries that are 99.9% recycled efficiently for every single vehicle on the road. The media likes to talk about the environmental impact of lithium mining, but tar sands production is far, far worse.
Click to expand...

In most urban centres , the only reality for a source of juice is the monopoly from utility companies. It's the population density and sprawl. Once you get past the home owners association by laws or condo owners regulations plus the cost of equipment and installation of that nice power supply, I just don't see it becoming anything more than a novelty until something can be made to match the economic and convenience of the internal combustion engine.

My hydro rates continue to rise while surrounded by windmills all over the place. What's up with that?

I know someone can do the math and show operating cost per km for the various energy sources and I believe electric wins.

I just think it's ironic we get warnings in the summer about brown outs and black outs and we keep looking at electricity as an alternative.

Build a reliable and cheap energy source and it will make things palatable. Who's gonna pay for it?

Well I guess if we don't mind billions in waste to not build them, I suppose we all will eventually.

Until then.......business as usual.
 
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I can see myself on an electric bike in about 10-15 years. By then, the technology hopefully will be much much better and cheaper.
 
the future is hydrogen fuel cells. It's the fastest way (next to gas) to "re-energy" your vehicle.

Telsa has a fast DC charging system, which will charge your batteries to %80 in twenty minutes. They also have plans for a "toll booth" where you pull up, drop your batteries and get fully charged ones lifted into your car. (10 minutes). You wouldn't own the batteries, rather you'd rent them.

Until the infrastructure required for hydrogen fuel cell arrives we will have fully electric as an alternative to gas. But gas won't be gone before H.F.C. comes in.



Some new tech, coming soon (couple of years) is graphene. Think of it like a waffer thin carbon fiber capacitor. You'll get the same electrical power with much much less weight.
 
Anyone who's posted in this thread have an aftermarket (read louder than stock) exhaust?

Electric will never be viable to the "Loud pipes save lives" crowd
 
cknowles said:
Anyone who's posted in this thread have an aftermarket (read louder than stock) exhaust?

Electric will never be viable to the "Loud pipes save lives" crowd
Click to expand...

Apparently the Harley LiveWire concept electric bike is "louder" than any other e-bike so far.. but according to them there is no extra "noise making" technology added in, they just used gears & devices that produce more noise :rolleyes:
 
Of a new prince, new bondage. As long as the mining and smelting/processing (which is energy-intensive) doesn't choke us all first, then it will be nice to see (breathe) urban smog eliminated. I can't see already valuable heavy metals getting cheaper when they become super-critical to keeping the world economy running, even with Mr. Musk's new battery factory.

We'll still have a scale problem though. The strides in efficiency taken by ICE engineers over the last twenty years has been squandered by increasing average horsepower and increasing the overall number of vehicles on the road. Yes, there is less smog, but more CO2. That remains a problem as we enter the future. More steel, more aluminum, more plastic, more rubber (+battery metals/compounds). All of that costs energy. It's the elephant in the room.
 
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If they were about half the price they are now, I'd buy one as a secondary around town bike. Otherwise, still too inconvenient to plug in and wait.
 
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