Picture this, your buddies are dragging knees and pushing hard on their favorite canyon road, the familiar sound of inline 4 cylinder engines in everyone’s ears, then all of a sudden you’re there, no one heard you approach from behind and all they hear now is a bit of a high pitched whine. You’re riding an electric! Then someone else swoops in, this time the sound is deeper but different, and what’s that smell? French fries? A biodiesel sportbike. Could it happen?
Where does innovation come from when designers plan a new motorcycle? There’s a rush to innovate in the automotive markets and with $100 oil, it’s easy to see why but does it make any difference to the average motorcyclist? When you’re driving your car, sure, but when you’re out for a ride, not much.
In the U.S. and much of the rest of the world, motorcycles are not necessary, they’re fun but most people need a car and with $3 dollar a gallon gas there’s an obvious need to make the car affordable and economical. On the other hand, motorcycles use a lot less gasoline to begin with, an extra dollar or two on the fill up doesn’t have much impact on your riding frequency so the bike has to provide something else, fun, thrills, freedom, friends but unless you’re a very committed environmental activist, taking out the fun for the chance at a few extra miles per gallon won’t be very appealing. Besides, there are already lots of small displacement high mileage bikes out there so motorcycle companies trying to distinguish themselves as innovators need to look elsewhere. How about appealing to the desire to have something radically different?
Rapidly developing electric vehicle technology is probably one of the best bets for dramatic innovation while keeping the fun factor high. KillaCycle is showing how fast an all electric drag bike can be and there’s an equivalent 4 wheeler the Current Eliminator. Really quick all electric vehicles are pretty neat.
More people are seeing the advantages of diesel, too. I still wish the Thunder Star turbo diesel sport bike would move forward, that has some serious potential and I’m still not sure why a major manufacturer hasn’t tried that route. The VW Polo 3 cylinder diesel engine the bike is built around gets high praise, it just seems like an obvious move, but maybe I’m missing something.
The point is, motorcycles have no pressing need to innovate in the era of high priced gasoline unless the pumps run dry but why not innovate anyway, just for the heck of it? Automatic transmissions are nice and tilting 3 wheelers are cool but new fairings and graphics or a few more horsepower don’t mean much but if you can keep up with your buddies while riding an electric or diesel, now THAT would be cool!
Phoebe says
I’ve wondered for a while now why diesel engines hadn’t caught on for motorcycles, especially for cruisers. The combination of a relatively small displacement-engine, high torque at low rpm and really great fuel economy seems like it would make a great combination (on paper, anyway).
B*A*M*F says
Modern diesels tend to be more complicated and expensive than their gasoline counterparts. Modern diesels really need forced induction to provide the specific outputs seen in cars. The high pressure injection systems are also a lot more complex than the carburetors that most V-twins have. That makes a bike more expensive, and either prices go up, profit margins drop, or some combination thereof. Economic motivation for such a product is hard to find.
An additional issue for a diesel bike is that the weight of a diesel engine is usually greater than that of a similar gasoline engine. Just within the past couple of years have engineers managed to bridge the weight gap.
guitargeek says
Diesels are also NOT SEXY. Once you get used to the sound of gasoline engines, a diesel sounds terrible, like it’s about to throw a rod.
I say we cover everything with thin film solar panels and switch over to an electric economy…
Schneegz says
The biggest hurdle to Diesel engines in motorcycles is emissions regulations. The size, weight, complexity and cost of emissions equipment required to make a Diesel engine 50-states legal is far more difficult to package in a motorcycle than a car.
Eventually manufacturers will figure out how to reduce the size and weight of Diesel emissions equipment. Then we may see Diesel powered motorcycles, but it would probably best to start with touring bikes and cruisers due to the weight of a Diesel engine.
On the other hand, there are some gasoline engine innovations that haven’t been applied to motorcycles and I don’t understand why not.
Direct fuel injection, for example, has been widely applied to car engines. Direct injection allows for higher compression ratios, which increases fuel efficiency, torque and power. Direct injection also helps reduce emissions.
In the future, electromagnetic actuators will replace cams and their drive trains, greatly reducing weight, rotating innertia and friction, further improving efficiency and power.
There are a lot more tricks left in the internal combustion engine than most people realize.
todd says
What about Aprilia’s direct injection two-strokes? Those things run really clean (that I recall) but are not US legal because of the reduced number of piston cycles per power pulse. A two stroke is much lighter and simpler and potentially provides more power than similar capacity four strokes. Not new tech but still it’s different and less expensive.
-todd
kneeslider says
This isn’t for a motorcycle but I like the way he thinks. Now, we just need a motorcycle equivalent. Real innovation!
Adam says
Innovation doesn’t necessarily have to come in the form of technology.
Motorcycling (and the cost benefits) could be promoted simply by selling motorcycles and cars through the same dealership channel. Suzuki touts their sportbike hertiage in their cars, why not sell the GSX-R side-by-side with the SX4/Swift?
Honda has motorcycle equivalents for each of their 4-wheel brethren, why not sell the 599/Hornet alongside the Civic Si?
This could raise awareness of the fuel efficiency and perhaps convenience of the motorcycle to the general consumer. If nothing else, it’s a good form of marketing and could save the costs of having a separate dealership just for motorcycles/ATVs.
Just imagine, you haul away your brand new GSX-R600 in the back of your brand new Ridgeline. (Probably wouldn’t happen that way though…)
Adam says
Sorry, I meant CBR600RR, not GSX-R600…
steve says
OK, here is some intersting technology that looks perfect fro a motorcycle. Low weight, compact power. Maybe several scuba sized tanks would provide the pnuematic air supply. http://www.theaircar.com/howitworks.html
Steve
stacius says
From what I’ve seen on this board and others is that motorcyclists are very concerned about the ‘look’ of their rides.
I’ve heard bikes dismissed because someone didn’t like the paint scheme, the shape of the swingarm or thought a parallel twin ‘looked better’ than a v-twin in certain applications.
We’re going to have to change our perception of what a motorcycle should look like before maker will bother to deviate from the accepted norms.
There’s no reason for makers to innovate if no one will buy their products.
That will change when WE change.
hoyt says
“The Department of Transportation estimated in 2004 that if we converted merely one-third of America’s passenger cars and light trucks to diesel, we’d reduce our oil consumption by up to 1.4 million barrels of oil per day–precisely the amount we import from Saudi Arabia.”…..
Then…
“Yet in reality, American carmakers seem conspicuously slow on the uptake. Stanek is about as ardent a fan of alternative fuels as you’re likely to find inside GM, but even she admits no one there is seriously thinking of abandoning the gasoline engine anytime soon.”
Paul – that article was incredible. Thank you Johnathan Goodwin….
“He put truck engines inside Camaros, Grand Nationals, and Super Bees; he even put a methanol-fueled turbocharger on a tiny Yamaha Banshee four-wheeler. “We took that thing from 35 horsepower to 208,” he recalls”
You gotta read that article.
Jon says
Personally, I think it would be a blast to pass someone and let them smell fries…
Hugo says
Modern diesel engines are about 2-2.5 more expensive then “normal” engines and because the engine of the motorcycle is about half the cost of the complete motorcycle you can do the math 😉
If you look at current car engines like the Porsche 911 Turbo (which turns almost 7000rpm) it shows that modern turbo’s combined with direct-injection (like the BMW 335i engine with twin-turbo) can make for a small engine with lot’s of torque and high hp. Just imagine the Kawasaki 650 with this technology..off course the downside of al this technology will be price
Michael Besal says
Who knows if diesels will smell any better with bio-fuels than they do with petroleum fuel. I’ve said for decades that all diesel passenger vehicles should be required to have the exhaust pipe exit at the front end so their occupants can enjoy the same lovely diesel aroma that all the poor saps that have to follow them do. Really, what would a group of 40 or so diesel bikes riding formation (to Sturgis, for instance) smell like from behind? It probably won’t do anything to help the image of motorcyclist in the public’s eye.
Rick says
Good point, there are a lot of way to improve the efficiency of the motorcycle engines that are currently being produced. Innovation doesn’t mean we need to revamp the entire thought process, but start making the minor changes that are most important.
Dave says
European diesel cars cost much the same as petrol (sorry gasoline) cars. They are absolutely not 2 to 2.5 times more costly. The cost of making gasoline engines meet the latest emissions rules has been harder than it has for diesel. If we need proof look at how the UK taxes diesel more highly than petrol so the costs per mile are much the same.
Bike engines could be made much more efficient and not necessarily more costly. Blown and turbocharged 2 strokes would do it. They need no complex cylinder head and valves no expensive cam drives etc etc. These engines would have a normal sump with air blown directly into the cylinder through piston ports. There would be no crankacse pumping losses and the blower and turbo are inherrantly simple rotary machines. With 2x the power pulses we would be making 2x the power. Volkwagen’s road diesels are already making 100bhp per litre. A two stroke diesel could be doing 100bhp from 500cc. With all the torque available that would give today’s R1bladabusaa a run for it’s money.
Why dont we have them? I think Stacius hit the nail. Bikers dont are more bothered about tradition than innovation.
For example –
Torque kills gearboxes so running one at high revs allows it to be smaller and lighter than one running at low revs. No arguments there, modern bikes rev to 16000+ to extract more power from lightweight parts.
In that case, why do the same bikes run the clutch and gearbox at 50% engine speed. The torque load is doubled demading heavier components and creating a slower gearchange. Tradition is very hard (if not impossible) to break.