| Author | Message | ||
     Trojan |
I can't believe that this item hasn't made more of an International impact (unless it has been overhyped and the opposition weren't actually that good?) http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/article/?artic le=43024 It would appear at face value to be a major leap forward for zero emmissions bikes and certainly a major step up from the usual relatively slow electric racers we have seen so far. | ||
| Vagelis46 |
History is beeing made !!! | ||
| Fast1075 |
Bravo!  | ||
| Fuzzz |
I know it is an inevitable future, and the engineering seems sound, but I for one prefer my current motorcycles, roasted dinosaurs and all.... | ||
| Knickers |
Not trying to rain on their parade, because to run an electric bike competitively in any class is quite an achievement. There were 7 bikes on the grid in that class in each of those races. Here are some lap times for reference. Yates best time in both races was 1:39.8 Winner of the heavyweight twin sbk race was James Randolph (very fast dude) on an RC8 with a 1:30.3. Joey Pascarella (AMA supersport champion) in the 600 superbike class was in the 1:29's. The winner in the superstock race had a best lap of 1:39.97 on a Ducati 1000 (air cooled) and finished 5 seconds ahead of chip. Regardless, its an auspicious start. | ||
| Sparky |
Out-freakin'-standing!!! | ||
| Datsaxman |
Electric is *not* zero emissions. Hogwash. The pollution is just not being generated locally. Just sayin... | ||
| Froggy |
Not hogwash, the bike does not pollute. It does not have a tail pipe; it does not emit any harmful gasses while being operated. Therefore, zero emissions. You can point to a power plant all you want, but that is invalid, as it’s the power plant polluting, not the bike. Also, what if the power is being generated by a zero emission plant? | ||
| Court |
>>>what if the power is being generated by a zero emission plant? Interesting to see that, as of this week, the Empire State Building is 100% wind generated electricity. I'm well aware that even that doesn't mean "zero emissions". There are emissions from the manufacturing and construction processes to build the wind farms. But . . we are darn sure headed in the right direction. I also suspect that electric, wind and the various sustainable initiatives are a stepping stone on the way to where we are headed. Very cool stuff. | ||
| Trojan |
Not trying to rain on their parade, because to run an electric bike competitively in any class is quite an achievement. There were 7 bikes on the grid in that class in each of those races. That is what I kind of suspected when I read the reports, because they made no metion of competitors numbers or lap times. So there has been a bit of 'hooplah' and hogwash attached to this which is a shame. It is an achievement just to get an electric bike onto a 'normal' grid in the first place so I would have liked a bit of transparency in the reporting. There was an experiment done by teh BBC this week to drive an all electric Mini Cooper from London to Edinburgh (484 miles)using only public charging points along the way. Not too difficult in the 21st centruty you would imagine? It took him the best part of 5 days to complete the journey and only just managed to finish the final leg between Newcastle and Edinburgh before he ran out of 'juice' (even though he ran without a heater or radio etc!). In other words, his journey took around the same time it took the Romans to reach the same destination by chariot 2000 years ago! maybe the electric vehicle age is still some way off yet  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12138420 | ||
| Sprintst |
Electric = Coal Fired. Simple truth. Coal power in the United States accounts for about half of the country's electricity production. | ||
| Froggy |
That’s like saying Americans are white, or fat, or stupid. Sure, there are a lot of them that fit into those categories, but it isn't the rule. I happen to enjoy my nuclear power.  | ||
| Fast1075 |
Gottlieb to neighbor Hans...Look at my new invention Hans, it will offer freedom to millions, I think I will call it Motor-cycle.....That will never work out Gottlieb, my horse is faster, handles better and is reliable... Glad he didn't listen to Hans...  | ||
| Blake |
>>> Not hogwash, the bike does not pollute. The power generator does though. Take the power generator out of the equation for a conventional motorcycle and it doesn't pollute either. It just doesn't have a way to store energy. That's all batteries are, a means to store energy that has been generated somewhere else. What I like about the idea of electric vehicles going mainstream is reducing our dependence on foreign oil. I don't want an electric sport bike though. What voltage do those things run at? | ||
| Reepicheep |
My Uly is a zero net emissions vehicle as well. All carbon dioxide it produces is recycled into Ohio corn and soybeans. If battery technology can get several orders of magnitude better, electric will be a great option. Right now, gasoline is one hell of a nice battery... it just takes a REAL long time to recharge it. | ||
| Datsaxman |
Froggy, your analogy is so bad it defies analysis! Sorry to break the news to you, but there is pollution created in the generation of electrical power. Quiz: when was the most recent nuclear power plant built in the USA? Do your homework, sir. It gets worse. The inherent inefficiency in the extra step of charging the batteries means that more electric power has to be produced than is going to be stored by the batteries. Even more pollution. | ||
| Jaimec |
Not all electricity is created by burning dinosaurs (see Court's post above about the Empire State Building). | ||
| Court |
Nice to be living in America's "greenest" city ........ NYC P.S. - I'm aware it's a bit of an anomaly as the result of having 10,000,000 folks who are sitting so close to so many nuke plants ..... Very cool. | ||
| Knickers |
That is what I kind of suspected when I read the reports, because they made no metion of competitors numbers or lap times. So there has been a bit of 'hooplah' and hogwash attached to this which is a shame. It is an achievement just to get an electric bike onto a 'normal' grid in the first place so I would have liked a bit of transparency in the reporting. The RRW piece is clearly labeled as a press release by race team so I'd expect some hoopla. The only reporting being done was in the headline which was nothing but factual. | ||
| Slaughter |
Nothin is free. We here in CA have some of the largest wind farms in the USA and they take so damned much energy OUT of the environment that they are changing the weather systems (reduction in local wind and all that is related to wind and wind patterns in the hills - clouds too) and changing migratory patterns of birds. Keep in mind that an EFFICIENT wind turbine takes 60% of the WIND ENERGY from its disc. THEN after taking 60% of that energy out of the atmosphere, it converts that to electric energy at IF THEY ARE LUCKY - a 20% efficiency. Adding up the miles and miles of canyon space makes for quite a change in the weather. Everybody is willing to talk about the weather but nobody is willing to do anything about it... except the electric utilities... and we aint even started. Reduce and conserve, demand EFFICIENCY in whatever SYSTEM you get to propel you from A to B. | ||
| Knickers |
Good interview with Chip in the MotoPod cast. He goes into all the detail of his background and how this bike came about. Lots of interesting technical details. Quite a bit of advanced software needed to put 300 ft-lbf of torque to the ground on a 580 lb machine and make it controllable. http://www.motopodcast.com/ | ||
| Ezblast |
Wow - they make it 200lbs lighter and it will be worth riding - totally cool otherwise. EZ |
