Ducati Monster Forum

(http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k195/john543/2010_eCRP_1-0_Electric_Superbike204.jpg)


http://www.ultimatemotorcycling.com/2010_eCRP_1_Electric_Superbike (http://www.ultimatemotorcycling.com/2010_eCRP_1_Electric_Superbike)

The name says it all:  CRaP

http://www.topspeed.com/motorcycles/tt-isle-of-man/ke3446.html (http://www.topspeed.com/motorcycles/tt-isle-of-man/ke3446.html)

Charge (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLkRx56C2Vw#normal)

Looks nice. If it's light and fun to ride, I'd rock it.

They really need to stop with the "zero emissions" B.S. Though I guess it just reafirms the old out of sight out of mind adage.

Call me when they make one that can go 150 miles on a charge and recharge under 10 minutes.

to hell with that.  he sold out on his real dream bike which I thought was KICK ASS.  Or maybe some company bought it, more likely since he had over 70 patents on the thing.  NEVER will I own something that hisses at me rather than barks.  Not me anyway.

You could always buy a little box that goes "vrooom vroom"  ;D

I personally don't care, as long as the range is over 100 miles, it's lightweight, it can charge (or have a fresh battery put in) in under 5 minutes and it makes some power.

And personally, I like the torque curve on electric motors...

100 miles is a commuter bike.  I need more than 300 to make it a good day.  hell, we shot people to the moon and have a permanent space station but can't recharge a battery fast enough?  and the making and disposing of batteries is worse for the environment than riding my fossil burning machine.  hydrogen is the future!

Put me down as a fan of hydrogen too.
So clean you can run the exhaust through a mini espresso machine and have a coffee on the road.

 [laugh] i think about what you just said and thought about it in real life.

NASA's solution to a battery that doesnt charge fast enough

a) nuclear powercore that constantly generates heat to recharge the battery. Expected life: 85 years
b) Solar Power: unlimited miles, but unusually odd solar panels large enough to generate lift. Expected lift: -300lbs
c) secondary battery to charge the main battery, while the bike runs on the backup battery. total weight :200 extra lbs.

pick and choose your battles. You dont want a bike that can potentially make you sterile do you? :P

What did he "sell out"? Just last month Czysz put up a pretty cogent analysis of the MotoGP shift back to 1,000cc and the advantages & disadvantages that posed to MotoCzysz. Sounded very much like the rule change to 800's pretty much killed their MotoGP effort, pushed them into developing electrics, and that the move to 1,000 puts a lot of wind back in their sails for MotoGP in 2012.

http://www.motoczysz.com/club/ (http://www.motoczysz.com/club/)

Even if they do go to MotoGP with a gas-burner, I'd be really hesitant to dismiss his claim that electric vehicles are the future of performance motorsports. Will they be battery-powered with quick-charge capability? That's certainly coming. Or fuel cells instead? You guys DO realize what a fuel cell does, don't you? It converts fuel (hydrogen, alcohol/methanol, whatever - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell)) into electrical current. It's still going to be an electric motor putting power into a wheel.

I love the sound, the feel & the (current) performance of an internal combustion motor. But gasoline is going to exit from the stage sooner or later, because it won't be the best way to make a wheel turn. I love the sound & feel of steam engines, too, but steam's day came and went in vehicles, including some high-performance (for the time) race cars. 

then the manufacturers would have nothing to fix...good point.

and lastly the answer is YES, I don't want to go snip-snip so this would be fun and enjoyable versus the alternative

I wanted him to develop the bike and make it marketable to the masses although it would have taken a decade I'm sure.  I simply loved the bike and am sad to see it go.  This prototype was the most exciting in a century IMO and no amount of money will replace what I perceived to be genius....well, several hundred million would help.  :o

If gasoline becomes illegal then catch me if you can because I DO NOT like electric bikes, never have and never will.  Future or not the hype is there and I firmly believe hydrogen is the long-term future.  No way they can economically phase out gas for batteries with the "lack" of technology they have built into it right now and for that matter the future.  Just saying......HYDROGEN!  ;D

me no likey quiet bikes. wheres the brooOOOOOOOMmmm ? ??

They are adding sound to electric cars...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=silent-but-deadly-electric-cars-may-2009-10-14 (http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=silent-but-deadly-electric-cars-may-2009-10-14)

I wonder what crazy sounds the electric stuntaz might decide is cool?   lol   

Hydrogen will only be used in fuel cell/electric vehicles. Using hydrogen in an ICE is extremely ineficient and wastefull in comparison. Running hydrogen in an ICE is 1970s technology, and fuel cells are current technology. If you like hydrogen, electric is the way to go. When I built electric cars in the early 90s, we had an electric scooter that could do donuts until the batts ran down. The torque curv is phenominal. With a fuel cell and a less comuter chassis, I would love to own an electric bike.

batteries are the next ethanol IMO.  time will tell of course but for the record I'm talking about internal combustion hydrogen not hydrogen fuel cell electric cars.  and yes I'm well aware of the storage, transport and consumption problems.  BUT the kool aid tasted soooooo good.  8)

I wonder if Shift-Tech or BellissiMoto could build a custom carbon "electric motor cover"  [laugh]

(http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k195/john543/mavizen-takes-the-wr_460x0w.jpg)

I read about that! It'd be cool to have one blasting out the sound of a turbo Offy or Cosworth DFV

We're witnessing the something in its infancy. I think this is really exciting.
Like the first few dozen moon-rockets crashed and burned before they ever got into orbit. That's where we're at with electric bikes.

It won't be too long before there is a good bike that doesn't feed Saudi kings every time you ride. fek that.
I like my booming Duc fit with Termi's like the next guy. In a few years, this will be a fun option.

 No one is going to take your lollipops away, keep yer pants on folks.  [laugh]


I went to a Mission Motors party here in SF. They wound up their electric street version on a stand after the '09 GPXTT.

IT AIN'T QUIET. at all.

Sounds like a turbo about to take flight. I had to plug my ears it was so loud. Like something you'd really want to get out of the way off if it was coming around the corner.
Not as beautiful a sound as a Ducati, nor as loud as Termi's on a Monster, but they'll work on that.

When they release them to the public I will add one to my collection.

I love the idea that I could go for a ride and not stop at a gas station, Hit my favorite restaurant and plug in to their power. Have something to eat and when I come out it has a full charge ready for another 130 miles. I know at first things will be difficult to find a power outlet to plug into but it will come sooner than later knowing that this IS our future. Someone will figure out how to charge one battery while riding someday.

Next to the MoooOOOOOOOp?

we can do that now BUT some are opposed.   :-X

 

Well yeah-I don't really want to walk everywhere. It'd take hours!

Your favorite restaurant would tell you to f-off and go park it at the commercial recharging station down the street. Future speaking and all.

hahahhahaha

He's pretty funny for an engineer hu?

I wonder if anyone has considered a battery exchance similar to propane exchange at gas stations. You could roll in to the gas station and swap out your empty for a full charged cell for a fee. If there were a handful of standard batteries types, it might be possible. (I am sure there would be issues with this system as well though)

That would be cool, except that you would be rellying on the quality control of a gas station attendant. I would hate to get stranded because of a bum pack. Having built electric cars and bikes I can tell you, all kinds of stupid things can happen to batteries due to opperator error. Either the driver or the charger. There was one exec at the company I worked for that decided because it was electric, he didn't have to shift the manual trans car at all. Over reved the motor, and caused the battery packs to discharge too quickly, destroying the packs. Needless to say, the potential investors who were riding did not invest. :P

That is the platform that one of the GPXTT teams is building their bikes on.
It raises the weight of the vehicle a bit because of having to build a frame around the battery area. It creates a few engineering challenges but I like it as a concept while we're stuck with batteries.
Granted, anti-stupidity would have to be added to the UI to alleviate dumbunnies from frying batteries etc.   

Other concepts that Mission Motors are playing with utilize hybrid power packs like super-capacitors. There are a lot of opportunities in this direction.
Tiny, massively powerful, super light weight. Almost there...

Yeah bad statement... I'm sure they will add stations at the restaurant to bring in customers. (Future speaking)

Probably...easy enough to do. I wish McDs would open up a biodiesel pump so I can run my MB on the same stuff that made my ass fat.  ;D

 [laugh] [clap]  ROTFL

Too much liability.  Most restaurants will still want to be just restaurants and only deal with every tenth customer wanting to sue them for food poisoning instead of adding the hassle of every fifth customer wanting to sue them for shorting out thier vehicle as well.

in California there were FREE charging stations in many places down town, at parking lots, ferry terminals, train stations, and restaraunts. All subsidized.

Watch the film "Who killer the electric car" if you want to' know in detail what happened. It was a hugs auto maker lobby to get rid of them.
Car manufactures make very little money on electric cars as by far most of their profits come from REPAIRS.
An electric car has NO radiator, differential, no oil system, no carburator injectors no mufflers, no cat converters, no transmition, no leaking gaskets, no sparlplugs, no spendy tun ups, no fuel lines, no air or oil filters, ...

You get the idea. What are they going to repair? not much. That's the point.   
The big Car companies want electric cars like they want to go out of business.   
It's a whole different business platform. That's why new companies are stepping up.

It's good for everyone except mechanics and ford, gm, etc.

Same thing happened with high speed train systems in the US during the Clinton administration - except substitute "car industry" for "airline industry" for the villain. Things were moving along ok until the monica-distraction; one of the big movers and shakers for the trains used to swim every day at the pool I worked at, and would tell me all about the stuff. A few years later he mysteriously quit coming, and we later learned it was suicide. At the time, I didn't really know what depression looked like (still don't), but I now know its easy to miss and not trivial.

 [roll]  No, they killed it because no one outside of LA wanted a car that could only go 100 miles, took 0.75-3 hours to refuel and costed twice as much as a car that could go 300 miles and be refueled in less than 5 minutes.  Yes, it was research and yes the whole car industry is generally short sighted especially when their shareholders start selling when the EPS drops.  If you want to split hairs then no, maintenance profits don't go to the manufacturer they go to the dealership by and large and actually the manufacturers make more money on the financing interest than the sale of the vehicle.

For an electric vehicle future we're not talking 800 cars in LA here. That's cutesy novelty research status.  We're talking 250+ million across the country and more world wide.  That's business status.  In business status there is no free.  Not for long anyway.

I read that the power grid in this country cannot handle charging everyone's car if the country went to electric cars.  The study assumed everyone would plug in their cars when they got home from work.  Lots of infrastructure upgrading needed in parallel with increasing electric vehicles.  An IT guy at work said they were recycling laptop batteries because China had stopped exporting lithium. 

This is how the EV1 ( the GM electric car) came to be:

California was going to possibly pass a law that you can not sell cars there unless you built a certain amount of "zero emission cars, I forget the particulars.  California is a big state and a big market.  GM and others built electric cars anticipating passage of this law.  The cars were too expensive to sell, and would also would have been too expensive to keep on the road for a normal lifespan.  GM decided to lease the cars at a loss and destroy them after the lease period.  The California law never passed, so no new ones were ever built to replace the old ones.  Other manufacturers used similar strategy. 

Just like AMC Pacers, Gremlins, Edsels and Pintos the EV1 and the other electric cars had a few hardcore fans who mourned the death of their cars.  Someone made a movie.  End of story.

If you watch the film, "Who killed the electric car?" you will see a very different perspective, on film, documented.
Narrated by Martin Sheen

You can see almost the whole thing in parts on Youtube:
Who Killed The Electric Car? 2/9 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mo4OXeqzVw#normal)

There were a lot of hard core fans, a lot of politics, lobbying etc. You had to apply to get one. There was a massive waiting list. No one was allowed to own one. No one was allowed to keep one after the lease. They came to people's houses and hauled them off with people freaking out. Explain that. When is the last time a car company sent trucks around to pick up ALL of a model of fully functioning car? Then took thousands of perfectly good fully functioning cars and ground them up. That's a little weird.

They did this because the law was passed. Then they overturned it.

yeah, lets let the Gov subsidize the system like they did Ethanol (DEAD) and for that matter soon to be AMTRACK which has been receiving federal funds from the get go.  The worst thing we could do is let the Gov build our technology which they believe is the future.  People demand something and someone steps up, lets just hope sensible and knowledgeable people get moving fast.  I want my hydrogen damnit.

You are correct, the law was passed, then overturned, long time ago.  When these cars were leased they were to go back to the manufacturer and get destroyed.  Those were the terms of the lease.  Yes, when the program fell apart GM pulled the plug (pun intended) and retrieved the cars that remained.  GM lost tons of money on every EV1 produced and was not willing to spend tons more keeping them alive.  If the owners who loved them had to pay the true cost of owning these cars they would not have been so loyal.