Comments on: Electric Motorsport GPR-S Electric Motorcycle

By: Farhan

Farhan — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 09:30:26 +0000

I travel about 80 km up and down to work on my indian bike. Pretty much enjoying the long ride with indian fuel economy. If there were to be an electric bike that does 100 km (63 miles) at a reasonable price with the same fun of a combustion engine bike, I’d be the the first to buy. I wouldn’t mind recharging it about 4 hours I could do it overnight.

By: Ray

Ray — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:19:45 +0000

Nicolas,

I’ve actually done some research on electric vehicles and efficiency of ICEs. I find it interesting that you almost always hear detractors compare the efficiency of of ICEs
after the gas is in the tank and EVs from the raw materials. From memory electricity
generated from burning fossil fuels can achieve 60% effficiency, but are more typically in the 40-50% range. Typical ICE runs at 20-25% efficiency. Efficiency of electricity transmition to plug is 90-97%. I’ve seen numbers quoted for manufacturing gas from oil at 93%, but was never able to find where this number came from. I actually got raw numbers and calculated the efficiency at between 84-87%. Charging batteries anywhere from 80-90% efficient. Electric motors 80-95% efficient. We won’t go into transporting the gas from refinery to gas station or the electricity to pump it.
So, typical ICE 20-25%*84-93% = 16.8 – 23.2% efficient.
typical EV 80-95%*40-60%*90-97%*80-90% = 23.0 – 49.7% efficient.
Note: The most efficient ICE cars are roughly on par with your most inefficent EV.
You best EVs are about twice as efficient as the better ICEs.
This doesn’t even talk about pollution. Again you will almost always find that comparison is done once the gas has reached the ICE. If you look at the average
car as putting out 100 units of pollution, the average EV puts out 10. The Toyota Prius would output 20 units.

By: Nicolas

Nicolas — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:14:35 +0000

The interesting point that has been mentioned above is the overall efficiency of the system … Is there any serious study that shows the real impact on the environment of the electric vehicles ?
Let’s say we count how the electric power is generated, a gas turbine or steam turbine would have an efficiency around 50%, maybe 60% in combined cycles. I don’t know what is the power loss in the grid, maybe 10% (?), and I have no clue how an electric motor takes adavantage of the power stored in the battery … at the end are we really far from the 34% efficiency of the gas engine ?
Then you’d say an electric car has no emissions, but the same gas/steam power plant doesn’t look really pretty on this aspect. Nuclear probably does better, as long as it stays under control… Hydro is pretty cool but you’ll tell me it put entire regions under water, wind turbines are very cool but NIMBY. Solar is not usable yet at larger scale, and uses probably nasty chemicals in it. And the battery does certainly use vile components/metals that need to be disposed, too.
At the end, what’s better ? It’s just a question, guys, not a critic, and I’d love to have enlightened experts opinion on this question. Anyone ?

By: Azzy

Azzy — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:32:10 +0000

As to comparing this to a gas bike, Im going to paraphrase Popular Science… You are trying to replace a gallon of gas with that entire battery pack. You have a battery pack that will get about the same range as a gallon of gas in many bikes, but at the high cost and slow recharge of electric.

Its going to be years until they can get battery tech to the point that it will be feasible, but here is the biggest issue. Cost.

Not many are going to pop down the chunk of change to buy such a limited bike. Without the market pushing for a more efficient bike, you arent going to get a ton of them out there, so teh price will remain high, options slim, and will go teh way of the EV1.

Unless you get government pushing it, where we will end up with a bike with twice the range, 1/2 the speed, 3x the weight at $50,000 and only availible in blaze orange with mandatory second helmet.

Lets get this stuff worked out mainstream in cars, then try and move it over. Until tehn, let the custom shos try at it, lets wish them well, and we will see if it takes off. I’m not holding my breath though.

By: QrazyQat

QrazyQat — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:57:02 +0000

One reason Killacycle is so fast is they are basically outright abusing highly modified motors.

Well duh. That’s pretty much the definition of drag racing. Point is it can be done, and that’s super fast. It suggests that a merely very fast bike is not impossible, and will be more and more possible as time goes on.