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Electric Okay or Die Hard ICE?

cabanza

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Several reports on the web announcing Honda will sell electric versions of the Super Cub/ Dax/ Zoomer by 2024. I'd say Europe and Asia but who knows about good ol' USA?

I haven't ridden an electric motorcycle (yet) but I had the chance to drive an electric car. It was a lot of fun! Would I mind owning an electric car or motorcycle? Not at all. I would find it hard to leave behind my gas motorcycle (and car) though. May be it's because I grew up with it or may be I've just come to love that thumping sound. How do you guys feel about it? As years pass and electric takes over, will you try and hold on to your ICE motorcycle/ car?

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"At some point in time, Harley Davidson will be all-electric"
-Zeitz, Harley Davidson CEO


The change looks inevitable. I'm not sure I would want to give up my ICE vehicle. Definitely not a motorcycle. I could have both but I'd have to have an ICE one for sure.
 
Electric would be fun, but doesn’t suit my needs at this time. A day ride for me can be 200 miles. And on trips it’s often 500-600 mile days. It will be a while before anyone has an electric bike with a range and recharge rate that is practical for that.
 
Maybe it's my old school brain that's stuck in gear and I'm missing something from EV designs, but at of now I'm not particularly interested in any of the EV offerings.

The entire industry seems to be struggling with range issues. Rather than continuing with sticking gonzo, power hungry motors in these vehicles in order to overcome the lack of torque multiplying transmission...just give me a dirt bike with a small motor and a gearbox to multiply torque as needed. It's GOT to help with motor overheating and range, right? Maybe not?

I mean, multispeed gearboxes is how we got modern cars to have usable power with balanced emissions and great fuel economy. I don't know why EV builders refuse to use this same technology. But maybe I'm missing someone.
 
Here in California we have huge problems on the horizon. This, from today's SF Chronicle.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea...ia-s-power-grid-handle-a-15-fold-17726622.php

So would I give up my ICE automobile? Only if I wanted to be utterly controlled by and dependent on PG&E.

Then there's this little nugget that has so far eluded public scrutiny:

https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/programs/vehicle-grid-integration

In other words, to make this massive clusterfuck of an electrical grid work (because there's no way CA will build sufficient generation capacity), electric car owners will be required to hook into the grid and deliver power back to the system. Your car will become a storage unit "in a manner that benefits the grid." So in addition to all the other hassles and costs, owners will have to tether their cars to a cord not only to charge but also to provide power. Electric car owners will have essentially bought a storage battery for PG&E.
 
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What few realize is how much energy and water it takes to process lithium into a battery. Those 400 ton trucks and excavators run on diesel fuel. They may be hybrids as in diesel electric, like locomotives ,but they still require tons of diesel fuel. The fact that you have no emissions from your vehicle doesn't mean that vehicle was produced in a "green" way... As long as the polution isn't in your backyard it must be "clean" right??? 🙄
 
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Electric is outlaw in the US. So it fits to the true motorcycle anti society culture. Hence ev will prevaile in the long run while suckers pay big registration, insurance and property fees and taxes on the next greatest adv thing.
 
Part of the reason I like "engine" cycles is their soul. A living breathing being that resonates with my soul. Don't think I could, or even want to develop that kind relationship with an electric appliance. I do think it's the future unfortunately, but it's not my future.
 
I'm OK with electric but I at this time nothing on the market interests me. High prices and limited range just don't appeal to me. When an electric bike is available that is competitive with ICE I'll consider it. Even then I don't see ever not having at least one ICE bike in my garage. I'm old enough that i don't think I'll live long enough to see ICE bikes and vehicles go away completely. While some think that eventually EV will take over I'm not convinced of that. It may be the hot political fad right now but who knows which way technology will take us?
 
There is zero regulations/registration if the bike has pedals. So motorcycles will eventually be percieved as dirty air grampa stuff....maybe the very large pull start minibike scene is underground...the grom scene is huge. But 750 watts allows me to ride anywhere without an endorsement or insurance.
 
Don't be surprised when the moped/minibike/scooter/e-bicycle/small e-motorcycle laws are revised. 750W may continue without regulation, but high output two-wheelers are attracting too much attention for that to continue forever.

At the same time the illegal bikes make for quick food delivery.
 
The reason gas engines use multispeed gearboxes is they have a limited rpm range. Gears aren't magic, they don't allow a 50cc moped to reach 200mph or pull a stuck 4x4 out of the mud. Multispeeds allow the engine to operate in it's sweet spot over the whole operating range of the vehicle. Electric motors don't have that limited sweet spot.

You downshift an ICE to get up into the power band, there's no torque at that nice low cruising rpm. An electric motor makes great torque at low rpm, there's no need to downshift. You shift up with an ICE when you've gone past the power peak. A Tesla will spin something like 23k rpm at 200mph. Is that it's max power rpm? I have no idea but how much more power do you need, you're already going 200mph. You also upshift an ICE to drop down to a more efficient rpm. Does a Tesla drain a battery faster if it's spinning 10,000rpm than it does at 5000rpm if it's pulling the same kW at both? Is a lower rpm more efficient for an electric motor?

I don't know. But I'm guessing the people who are designing electric vehicles do know, and I'll bet dollars to donuts the reason they don't use transmissions has nothing to do with an imagined refusal to use some technology and everything to do with the technology does nothing for them.

Lithium batteries - the tech is already leading away from lithium. Sodium-ion tech is one of the latest ones I've read about. Sodium as in salt. No, it doesn't beat lithium right now. Give it time, no technology springs out of the box 100% ready for prine time.

Yes it require resources to build/run electric vehicles. Just like it requires resources to build/run gas vehicles.

As someone who spent pretty much his entire career working with ICE engines (exhaust development) I have a pretty healthy attraction towards gas engines. But I think electric vehicles are fooking sweet. My lawnmower is battery powered now, as are my trimmer and chain saw. Good riddance to gas - for my needs batteries work so much better.

I didn't go electric with my lawn equipment to save the world. I did it because it is SO much nicer to me to slip a battery into something than fill it with gas. It is also much nicer to mow the lawn and not walk around in a mower's exhaust for an hour and a half. No oil changes. No pull starts. Less noise.

With electric vehicles it's the tech that interests me. How a motorhead can ignore the awesome performance of electric vehicles is beyond me.

There will always be a reason not to buy something, and always situations where a specific vehicle won't work. Horses for courses. I wouldn't buy an electric bike if I had to ride 700 miles per day. I had a 996 for 17 years. It had 7500 miles on it when I sold it. How many 200 mile days do you think I did on it? I don't regret buying it for a second and still regret selling it once in a while.

The politics behind impelementing them is a different subject. People who think that gas vehicles will be gone in 20 years are delusional. No amount of legislation in the world can solve the logistical issues with doing that. I think those people simply have no comprehension of how entrenched gas powered vehicles are. There are millions upon millions of gas powered vehicles registered in the USA right now. No way possible to replace them all in 20 years. People can't afford new cars, manufacturers can't make them anyway, and cities couldn't charge them if they did.

On the other side of the coin, the tech is changing rapidly. Many of the objections are overblown to begin with. They still shouldn't be forced on people but just because it "won't work" for you doesn't mean it's a worthless tech.
 
ICE - because I care about the entire environment, not just the immediate area.
Furthermore, to me, electric vehicles are "dead", no soul... no joy. Might as well play a game on the xbox.

On the big picture, we need a few billion less people here to really "save the planet".
 
The reason gas engines use multispeed gearboxes is they have a limited rpm range. Gears aren't magic, they don't allow a 50cc moped to reach 200mph or pull a stuck 4x4 out of the mud. Multispeeds allow the engine to operate in it's sweet spot over the whole operating range of the vehicle. Electric motors don't have that limited sweet spot.

You downshift an ICE to get up into the power band, there's no torque at that nice low cruising rpm. An electric motor makes great torque at low rpm, there's no need to downshift. You shift up with an ICE when you've gone past the power peak. A Tesla will spin something like 23k rpm at 200mph. Is that it's max power rpm? I have no idea but how much more power do you need, you're already going 200mph. You also upshift an ICE to drop down to a more efficient rpm. Does a Tesla drain a battery faster if it's spinning 10,000rpm than it does at 5000rpm if it's pulling the same kW at both? Is a lower rpm more efficient for an electric motor?

I don't know. But I'm guessing the people who are designing electric vehicles do know, and I'll bet dollars to donuts the reason they don't use transmissions has nothing to do with an imagined refusal to use some technology and everything to do with the technology does nothing for them.

Lithium batteries - the tech is already leading away from lithium. Sodium-ion tech is one of the latest ones I've read about. Sodium as in salt. No, it doesn't beat lithium right now. Give it time, no technology springs out of the box 100% ready for prine time.

Yes it require resources to build/run electric vehicles. Just like it requires resources to build/run gas vehicles.

As someone who spent pretty much his entire career working with ICE engines (exhaust development) I have a pretty healthy attraction towards gas engines. But I think electric vehicles are fooking sweet. My lawnmower is battery powered now, as are my trimmer and chain saw. Good riddance to gas - for my needs batteries work so much better.

I didn't go electric with my lawn equipment to save the world. I did it because it is SO much nicer to me to slip a battery into something than fill it with gas. It is also much nicer to mow the lawn and not walk around in a mower's exhaust for an hour and a half. No oil changes. No pull starts. Less noise.

With electric vehicles it's the tech that interests me. How a motorhead can ignore the awesome performance of electric vehicles is beyond me.

There will always be a reason not to buy something, and always situations where a specific vehicle won't work. Horses for courses. I wouldn't buy an electric bike if I had to ride 700 miles per day. I had a 996 for 17 years. It had 7500 miles on it when I sold it. How many 200 mile days do you think I did on it? I don't regret buying it for a second and still regret selling it once in a while.

The politics behind impelementing them is a different subject. People who think that gas vehicles will be gone in 20 years are delusional. No amount of legislation in the world can solve the logistical issues with doing that. I think those people simply have no comprehension of how entrenched gas powered vehicles are. There are millions upon millions of gas powered vehicles registered in the USA right now. No way possible to replace them all in 20 years. People can't afford new cars, manufacturers can't make them anyway, and cities couldn't charge them if they did.

On the other side of the coin, the tech is changing rapidly. Many of the objections are overblown to begin with. They still shouldn't be forced on people but just because it "won't work" for you doesn't mean it's a worthless tech.
I understand what you're saying, but there must be more to the equation.

My cordless drill has a high and low gear. If I run it in high gear while using too large of a bit it'll get hot and the drill will start cutting out to protect itself. Shifting to a low gear produces much more power and the drill will run much longer.

Torque multiplication isn't magic, but it is indeed useful. It's a box of levers and leverage is the technology we've used to build just about everything.

The fact is, torque is literally the only measurable force that propels a vehicle down the road. Gearbox aside, you can change the gearing on a chain driven bike and feel huge, immediate differences in power- even with the same powerplant in place. If you can multiply torque, then you don't need as much of it at you think.

Less torque= smaller motor.
Smaller motor= less energy consumption.
[UWSL]Less energy consumption= more range. [/UWSL]

As far as EV tech changing rapidly and any objections to it being overblown...[UWSL]don't think is changing rapidly at all, regardless of what they claim. [/UWSL]

[UWSL]- They're still underpowered and lack range. [/UWSL]
[UWSL]- The minerals required for production relt heavily on child/slave labor.[/UWSL]
[UWSL]-They're a fire hazard that we don't have a solution for. ( Firefighters are being trained to submerge them in water? When? After they're hauled away as a blazing inferno on the back of a rollback spitting flames and toxic fumes through towns? Or do we now build large aquariums on every street corner, "just in case"?[/UWSL]
[UWSL]- We still don't know how to dispose of them when we're finished with one. [/UWSL]

The only thing about the technology that we've nailed down is that they can exist. That's not saying much. We had electric cars 100 years ago. They just weren't practical so they got ditched. The only thing that has really changed is the battery/storage ...but the modern "solution" to that is quite literally a humanitarian issue. I don't think it's fair for us to sit on a "clean" high horse of EV, while it has a hoof firmly planted the face of Congolese slaves living in a environment ruined by cobalt mining. They're yard, not ours?

The only upside to EV's are simpler maintenance for the owner and new toys are fun. Well, there's the upside of it supporting one's current climate ideology and giving them the warm and fuzzies inside, but still the plight of the Congolese people and their countryside absolutely must be ignored in order for that to work. And that's straight up bullshit.
 
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Don't be surprised when the moped/minibike/scooter/e-bicycle/small e-motorcycle laws are revised. 750W may continue without regulation, but high output two-wheelers are attracting too much attention for that to continue forever.

That is already happening in Europe.... now that mopeds and bicycles are electric and less gas is sold the money hungry governments needed a way to tax the crap out of people somehow... So they just "invent" licenses and other "fees" to make up for that short fall. Specially in The Netherlands where the car has been the milk cow for decades with high fuel cost, due to taxes, and road tax based on the weight of the car.....
 
Actually some northern counties report up to 98% of the budget is for pensions. Thats why I gave up on cruisers long ago. The roads beat ya to death. Motorcycles and bicycles do not damage roads such as logging or transport. Nor do either need mega parking lots or the infastructure as 4 or more wheel vehicles. It is a very interesting scenario. The cost might be placed on consumer goods and the grid 1st. But I have found the state will almost plate anything for the money. I have been tempted to try to slide a tse250 or a 300 through.
 
I'm not anti-EV, but not a single one out there interests me...except maybe for a 70 series Land Cruiser that have been EV swapped for use in mines. None of the bikes, cars or truck offerings do a thing for me with their limited usability. I have considered one for a daily '60 mile get to work' vehicle but the math just doesn't make sense to go that route. I also love manual transmission vehicles and no EV is ever going to have one.

Perhaps my biggest and most shallow complaint about EV's is their appearance. Why in the hell do they all have to have funky wrap around head light designs?
 
I'm not anti-EV, but not a single one out there interests me...except maybe for a 70 series Land Cruiser that have been EV swapped for use in mines. None of the bikes, cars or truck offerings do a thing for me with their limited usability. I have considered one for a daily '60 mile get to work' vehicle but the math just doesn't make sense to go that route. I also love manual transmission vehicles and no EV is ever going to have one.

Perhaps my biggest and most shallow complaint about EV's is their appearance. Why in the hell do they all have to have funky wrap around head light designs?
Check out evalbum...lots of vw conversions with manual transmissions. The builders prefer the manual. The site has a nice search feature..where battery and motor type can narrow the results. Lots of s10 and ranger builds too.
 
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