It was bound to happen. (Electric motorcyles)

[Big E]

UK Issues 2040 ICE Phase-Out Plan; No More New Gas Bikes After 2035 - Adventure Rider

If you thought this electric vehicle trend was a passing fad, it looks like […]

advrider.com

[Cantab]

Yep , Honda with everything....

Stuff

www.stuff.co.nz

[rd99]

The upside is I'll probably be buried with my Busa by then.

[fallenarch]

I heard these electric cars have so few parts they are going to be really cheap to produce when they start selling in volume. Going to be interesting!

[Mythos]

The upside is I'll probably be buried with my Busa by then.

I think I'll be retiring about then if they let me keep working. I'll probably be retiring from motorcycles then too. In the meantime, I hope I get to own a couple more internal combustion motorcycles and I would hope they'd make a couple more show stoppers before the electric bikes take over completely.

[Bumblebee]

I heard these electric cars have so few parts they are going to be really cheap to produce when they start selling in volume. Going to be interesting!

They have all the same parts as a gas vehicle except a different power train...instead of a gas tank they have a battery pack....

Unless you were being factitious that is...

[rd99]

[Mythos]

They have all the same parts as a gas vehicle except a different power train...instead of a gas tank they have a battery pack....

Unless you were being factitious that is...

The engines have so few parts, I'll bet.

[Bumblebee]

The engines have so few parts, I'll bet.

But the rest of the car is still a car...with all the stuff it takes to make it so.

[fallenarch]

No pistons, valves, transmission, etc. Ever see the size of the CNC machines that make transmission parts?

[Kiwi Rider]

The big question that everyone overlooks is . . . will petrol be available at all?
(For vintage vehicles etc, like our Busas for instance)
and if so, what quantities per day will be allowed per biker, and how much are they gonna charge per gallon?
I reckon the price will be ridiculous if it is still being sold.
Thoughts?

[michael parris heuberger]

The big question that everyone overlooks is . . . will petrol be available at all?
(For vintage vehicles etc, like our Busas for instance)
and if so, what quantities per day will be allowed per biker, and how much are they gonna charge per gallon?
I reckon the price will be ridiculous if it is still being sold.
Thoughts?

Hi. I will be pushing up daisy by then.

[Bumblebee]

The big question that everyone overlooks is . . . will petrol be available at all?
(For vintage vehicles etc, like our Busas for instance)
and if so, what quantities per day will be allowed per biker, and how much are they gonna charge per gallon?
I reckon the price will be ridiculous if it is still being sold.
Thoughts?

...and what are they going to be doing with all these now defunct gas vehicles? There'll be scrap yards the size of small cities out there trying to process them....

Money better soon be pouring in to upgrade the electrical power grid to support all these EV....

[Mattbastard]

Money better soon be pouring in to upgrade the electrical power grid to support all these EV....

THIS! Especially in the US. People (including the jackasses who write these types of laws) seem to think our grid is infinitely strong. Look at what happened in TX last spring. That's just a start.

EV's don't draw a hell of a lot to charge. IIRC I did the math and one whole charge was only about $1.30 in electricity, but that's extra amperage all night, every night. Now put all that load in 50% of all homes on the grid. These friggin power companies should be foaming at the mouth about this.

[ottafish]

Again it comes down to, can I do a full day's ride or drive and not have to stop and recharge just to get home. Whist I think they have their place in urban commute, I don't believe they're the answer for anything out of the main, built up areas. Bike or car, we have some areas that are so remote and distant that it can be over 400kms between towns. I can carry spare fuel but not a battery pack.
Hydrogen fuel cells need more investment and support

[Bumblebee]

Again it comes down to, can I do a full day's ride or drive and not have to stop and recharge just to get home. Whist I think they have their place in urban commute, I don't believe they're the answer for anything out of the main, built up areas. Bike or car, we have some areas that are so remote and distant that it can be over 400kms between towns. I can carry spare fuel but not a battery pack.
Hydrogen fuel cells need more investment and support

VERY true...

[fallenarch]

I think some serious investment needs to be made to get batteries to the point they need to be to replace IC powerplants. It is conceivable to have a battery that can be charged in roughly the time it takes to fill a car at the gas station. This would make the range issue moot, provided enough stations can convert or provide charging stations.

The problem is the investment to get to batteries like this is huge and car companies make cars, not batteries. On the other hand, it would be difficult for a startup to float that sort of investment for the years it would take to get to a payoff (although I know companies are trying to do it). I personally wish the government would just figure this out so the commercial side could get past this hurdle (like they did with ICs, nuke power, etc.).

For me this has nothing to do with sustainability - that's a nice side. It's about creating a new power industry that will make a lot of billionaires. Look at the physics and an electric car should outperform an IC vehicle rather easily. So I'm just hoping they can get this all figured out while I can still drive!

[fallenarch]

Another interesting thing (I'm told) is that we usually keep a pretty good distance between people and high voltage. Usually, the voltage is stepped down to 120V or even 12V before it's where the general populace can touch it. Yes, 120V can kill you but 240V or 480V is in another class! I am told also that the lower voltages are much less likely to arch.

Anyway, to make cars and bikes to rival IC performance levels we are going to have to get people a lot closer to some serious juice. That will be interesting.

[ottafish]

Over dinner and at other times when we have this type of discussion, I raise the idea of standardization. In an ideal world, (EV world), they should have got together and come up with a standard floorplan/chassis with a removable battery pack. Then the petrol stations, (gas stations as you guys call them) move to battery cell swap service. Much like the old Cobb & Co changing stations. Your battery is getting flat, find the nearest swap station, drive in, they remove your flat battery pack and swap it for a fully charged unit and away you go in under 5 mins. You pay, say $2k a year for unlimited battery swaps, guaranteed for a set number of years and the price gradually increases as the vehicle ages.

[Bumblebee]

Over dinner and at other times when we have this type of discussion, I raise the idea of standardization. In an ideal world, (EV world), they should have got together and come up with a standard floorplan/chassis with a removable battery pack. Then the petrol stations, (gas stations as you guys call them) move to battery cell swap service. Much like the old Cobb & Co changing stations. Your battery is getting flat, find the nearest swap station, drive in, they remove your flat battery pack and swap it for a fully charged unit and away you go in under 5 mins. You pay, say $2k a year for unlimited battery swaps, guaranteed for a set number of years and the price gradually increases as the vehicle ages.

Would have to be 24hr/7 day a week service with qualified people on staff at all times....don't know if that will ever come to fruition as we can barely manage what we already have...

I get to thinking about all the things we use daily which run on gasoline...chain saws, lawn mowers, generators, snow blowers, rototillers, etc...fuel will have to still be available for these items not to mention all the construction/industrial equipment which runs on fossil fuels...

Imagine a lumberjack deep in the forest cutting timber with an electric chainsaw....