Electric Motorcycles: Why?

[NorDog]

I did a few years of R&D on hydrogen PEM fuel cell vehicles and have a lot of faith in them.  They seriously kick major butt.   Talk about LOTS of electrical power!!!

I've always thought fuel cell tech was cool, but I'm concerned about getting in a crash with a tank of hydrogen pressurized at 10,000 psi.  Heck, at that pressure, even a tank of inert gas like Nitrogen could take out a building if it ruptured.  If such a tank filled with Hydrogen ruptures and there's any kind of spark in a collision, wow, that would be quite a fire ball added to the carnage caused by the mechanical/pneumatic energy released.

It would be like Death Race 2000 meets The Hindenburg.

[Bill in OKC]

This is also interesting
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7707847.stm#

[LowThudd]

That concepts my big beef with the Prius, well any of the Hybrids. Wired did a tongue in cheek 'go green' issue a little bit back. They pointed out that it takes a whopping 113 MILLION BTUs to build a Prius. The article noted that if you really wanted to be green, you'd get a used, but well maintained geo metro. Buying used means zero 'carbon' on you soul for the acquisition  and the geo metro (if in good shape) has better mileage numbers than a Prius... But, who the hell wants a metro...

Yea...the prius sucks. And, any old diesel like my MB 300SD can run on biodiesel which basically cancels out its own CO2 emmissions by the life cycle of the plant that produces the oil(soybeans currently). There are current and old VW diesels getting @50mpg readily available. If you can imaging what a small percentage of the plant is actually useable oil compared to the photosynthesis potential of the entire plant, burning that oil produces far less CO2 than the plant uses during it's life cycle. However, I think using a food source for fuel is a big no no since people are starving in many areas of the planet. I think of it as a stepping stone to algae biodiesel. 1 acre of algae can produce 20 times more biodiesel than soy. I think all of the alt fuel ideas are useable. There is no magic fuel which will replace all fosil fuels, it will be an accumulation of different fuels in the future.

[Raux]

I've always thought fuel cell tech was cool, but I'm concerned about getting in a crash with a tank of hydrogen pressurized at 10,000 psi.  Heck, at that pressure, even a tank of inert gas like Nitrogen could take out a building if it ruptured.  If such a tank filled with Hydrogen ruptures and there's any kind of spark in a collision, wow, that would be quite a fire ball added to the carnage caused by the mechanical/pneumatic energy released.

It would be like Death Race 2000 meets The Hindenburg.

heard about some experimentation with CF tanks that solve some of that problem.

[superjohn]

I actually think they make more sense than electric cars. Motorcycles are short distance machines for most people. They're rarely someone's primary vehicle, and thus less less likely to be needed for a multitude of duties.

I wouldn't mind having one for commuting back and forth to work as long as it was fairly cheap (<$5K) and could do 75 mph and go 75 miles or more on a charge.

[Drunken Monkey]

I'm interested in them for a few reasons:

Power delivery. You can modulate an electric engine to give you power pulses like a single when it's leaned over and then smooth delivery when it's upright.

Hybrid / Regenerative braking. If designed correctly you could up the power delivery over a conventional engine.

2 wheel drive. Again, if designed correctly you could have motors powering both wheels. And again, you could have some really interesting traction control options.

We're nowhere near getting this kind of tech on bikes, but it takes baby steps to get there. And these early attempt are just the start.

[darthmoto]

I'd love to commute to work on an electric bike to save money. On the weekends and trackdays, I'll stick to my dinobike and dinocar.

[krolik]

I thought an interesting quote in the recent "green" issue of Motorcyclist about the IoM TTX was when the author asked a bunch of bikers in a pub after the race if they'd ride an electric bike and the response was "If its fast, Yes!"

I bet that in five years or so, we'll see some pretty good examples of electric sport bikes, with performance within 10% to 15% of comparable ICE motorcycles. At least electric designs don't have to also invent suspension and tire tech as well.

Also the MotoCysz concept of quick change replacable battery packs looks like a winner. Why wait for 2-3 hours for a recharge when you could change battery packs in minutes (or less).

[Pedro-bot]

Buying into the technology now by others helps the future development and refinement of electric vehicle technology in the future. If people continue to buy into electric vehicles, the technology can only get better, greener, faster, etc.
Oh yeah, and I'm all for lowering dependency on oil.  

[jerryz]

Peak oil is B/S the US A has huge reserves and the Saudis have only tapped the firt 25% of theirs in 50 years of production. 
The whole climate change thing is a massive con the world was much warmer in Roman times they grew grapes in Scotland and Northern England ,, and in 14th century Europe the average temperature was  much higher than now and they had no cars ,dirty coal etc . there was a mini ice age in the 17th and 18th century Rurope was up to 5c cooler these are natural cycles.

Its just politicians and the commitee to make you live on your knees bleeding heart liberal scientists  who push this drivel.
Financial times showed recently how Al Gore has made $2 Billion out of trading carbon credits that he advocated.

jerry the Monmsterman

[Slide Panda]

Tech, not politics Jer. Stay on target red 3

[WetDuc]

Actually, the fuel cell vehicle R&D I was involved in was specifically targeting optimized solid state hydrogen storage.  This eliminates the 2,000/5,000/10,000psi tanks needed to hold the fuel and instead stores it in a solid material that can absorb the hydrogen like a sponge absorbs water.  Totally reversible and totally inert (not going to explode).
Hydrogen tanks are a start to get fuel cells up and running, but nobody in the field expects them to be the long term solution.
The downside to the solid state method of storage is that the cost of production of these solids is high and they tend to be relatively heavy.  SOTA materials include LaNi5, TiFe and Mg2Ni.  NASA has been using alkaline and PEM fuel cells with LaNi5 storage media to power the orbiter in space since the 70's.
The basic premise is to "crack" 2 H2O-->2 H2 + O2 then store the H2 (and maybe the O2 as well unless you are on earth where there is plenty of O2 in ambient air), which requires energy to be put in (could be solar, wind, dino-fuel, coal, etc...).  When electrical power is needed, feed some of the stored H2 into the fuel cell which converts 2 H2 + O2 --> 2 H2O and energy is released in the form of electricity.  Beautiful design conceptualized back in the freaking late 1800's.
I just have to say it to avoid people asking why this technology is not in place sooner...Obama cut the US hydrogen program when he came into office!!!!!!!!  Guess who was scrambling for a job last year?!   Yes, that's right, he cut out the hydrogen program like a freaking tumor and probably laughed while he did it-all current funding cut and future funding eliminated.
OK, seriously, I'm not trying to derail, just pissy about the finite subject and had to mention why we DON'T see more and more of PEMFC/MFC technology popping up anymore.

[Porsche Monkey]

^^^ very interesting.  It is getting kind of close to the political threadlock threshold though.  Maybe we should back off and go back to discussing the original topic. 

[KnightofNi]

i like the electric vehicles for a couple of reasons.

mainly i like them because of the tech factor. i'm with monkey boy on his points, but i also like that it's quiet. it's easier to sneak around into places where drawing attn to yourself is a bad thing. (i'm thinking of offroad riding areas for the most part btw)


also, i know what goes into producing all the batteries and the frame and what happens when you need to discard the batteries. and i love telling enviro-freaks about it when they say how much better their hybrid is. 
when i started commuting by bicycle a few years ago i got an aluminum frame for the same reason. yes i'm "1 less car" but it would take a lot of peddaling to actually offset what was done to produce my frame.

[WetDuc]

Personally, I think the main issue is that if you have an electric bike and you run out of battery, it's going to take a good while to recharge (>1hr) unlike simply filling a tank (which takes a minute or two).  Imagine wanting to leave work, but not being able to because the bike still needs to charge...that would suck.