Livewire - Seems Its Actually Good!?

Yes

 

These didn't catch fire but they used Yuasa's in't olden days



In March 1915 York Corporation Tramways Department was one of the very first operators in the country to use electric buses and to this day, there are still two relics of this pioneering form of transport in the City – the shelters at Clifton Green and Malton Road Corner, which were built as charging points for the buses

 

We have Hydrogen - that's never going to go on fire

 

I think you would due to wind noise

 

Fair enuff… it's a Hardly

 

Maybe, but you is old and fart a lot I think he meant

 

One litre of ordinary petrol contains about 10 kWh of energy. The most important questions to ask about any battery-electric vehicle are:

How much energy can the batteries hold at full charge in kWh? And how many litres of petrol is that equivalent to?

Harley-Davidson, like every other manufacturer of battery-electric vehicles, avoids providing that information and refuses to answer the question if it is asked. The reason is because the true answer is always an embarrassingly small figure such as 20, 30, or 40 kWh and thus equivalent to 2, 3, or 4 litres.

Would you consider buying a motorbike with a "peanut" petrol tank which can hold only 2 litres of fuel max? If it was 4 litres, now would you buy it? If the seller tried to fob you off with vague waffle about miles range, would that help?

 

Agree, but actual miles range is more important, petrol has a certain energy density which is converted to mechanical work by the engine at a penalty of heat rejection (efficiency), battery power is converted to mechanical work. at a higher efficiency so comparison of range is more useful to the user.
What is more important is the refuel/recharge rate, nobody minds spending 5 minutes filling a tank on a long journey but waiting for a theoretical 40 minutes to not even get full range on a long journey kills it. If the electric bikes range was to be 300 miles it would become a no brainer for most instances excluding long distance touring.
Long way to go yet

 

Provided that these batteries are fully rechargeable for say 12 years or easily & cheaply replaced. Otherwise the resale value of your bike would be minimal, making the PCP monthly fee massive...

 

I think battery technology is getting to the place that that is less of an issue, I just sold a 2006 Lexus hybrid with 160,000 miles on the clock and no noticeable problems with the battery pack, Toyota gave 100,000 mile warranties in the USA.

If it can be demonstrated that battery performance degradation can be liked to ICE degradation i.e. approx. 100,000 miles without significant loss then all good.

I'm certainly not sold on the whole electric thing in terms of environmental reasoning but the technology is moving. Hybrid would make more sense to me but the weight would be restrictive in a motorbike

 

Nissan Leaf owners are about the longest users of EVs. They have suffered huge range drops from battery degradation and are facing sums of over £5k to replace the battery, which is more than the residual value of the car even with the new battery.

 

That would explain Renault's (hmmm Renault/Nissan) reasoning for renting you the battery pack - still a way to go

 

£29k... ouch... yet another bike that would be worth considering if it was £10k cheaper.. before even the arguments about whether a Harley can be battery powered, it's too much money.

Everyone keeps saying prices are going to drop and infrastructure improve, I'm not seeing it, been waiting 10 years... stuff like Tesla Model 3's finally coming here are all well and good but they are nearly £40k so £15k more than a good spec Golf/Focus etc, so.. yeah, I'm just not seeing it.

 

Since you mention energy density, actually the energy density of a battery is far inferior to the energy density of a tank of petrol of the same size or weight. But that is not the issue.

You also mention efficiency. It is true that petrol engines reject a substantial amount of heat, which reduces the efficiency at which the energy in the fuel is converted into the motion of the vehicle. Battery electric systems also reject heat with similar consequences, even though to a lesser extent. More important though is the fact that a given vehicle in motion only has a certain amount of energy available. And in the case of battery-electric vehicles, it is a startlingly small amount.

If a battery electric vehicle only carries (say) 20 kWh / 2 litres of petrol equivalent, then even if it was hypothetically 100% efficient (no heat losses whatever) the fact remains it still only has 20 kWh available.

In any vehicle, the energy available can be stretched out thinly over the maximum possible mileage, or it can be used up more rapidly on speedy performance. You seem to assert that it is the mileage figure which is more important for battery-electric vehicles, but you don't say why.

For petrol vehicles, the size of the fuel tank is not a very important factor; unless the tank is tiny, in which case it become the deal breaker for buyers and users.

 

I am agreeing with you, as we know current vehicle manufacturers (more car than bike) will quote tank ranges, which are usually accepted as ideal and not achievable but give an idea of how far you can go on one tank of fuel. I believe the original standard was 300 miles with up to 500 now typical for cars. If a bike can do between 100 and 150 miles between fill ups you know that a 200 mile journey will involve a break to fuel up. If your battery powered bike can do 100 miles you will have to factor in a substantial break to recharge to reach your destination - as well as being frugal with the throttle.
Batteries and the associated drive motors are currently heavy and will have to improve on that to become competitive - as well as reducing charging times.
The transfer of energy from fuel to motion is different between petrol fuel and electrical store so knowing how much energy is contained in your fuel is not a direct comparison to range. Range is crude, I agree, but is easier to make a comparison between 2 vehicle types.
I often hear claims from plug in hybrid drivers of getting hundreds of miles to the gallon, but this ignores the amount of energy added to the battery pack from the domestic electrical supply, muddying the waters further.
I think we are in agreement that battery powered bikes are not yet in the place that they can compete with petrol powered machines for flexibility and this is due to the fuel source.
A better measure of electrical power sources would be Amp hours so with knowledge of the drive system you would be better informed as to the available range in different circumstances, but this would then be a bit more complex for people used to mpg comparisons.

 

I wonder if when electric cars become the norm and when customers have no other options, if the manufacturers will adopt apples recent swizz of toning down the battery performance through "required updates" to fool the customer in thinking they need a new product as the current one must be old and that is why the battery is failing?

On the plus side, you might now have a genuine excuse to keep bikes in the house if you have no other way of charging them

 

With todays power grid outages, its a good job we've still got petrol cars & bikes. The UK simply doesn't have the infrastructure to switch.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49300025