Electric moto

[IT490K1983]

you will have to buy a prious to tow it around

They do more damage to the environment overall to make those girls cars than an old EH or XP Falcon would ever do in a fifty year lifetime. Can anyone see one of these modern electric hybrid cars lasting longer than say ten years in circulation; and then it all goes off to be recycled because it's forked. Sustainability; what does that mean? Politicians are full of s#*t.

[EML]

Having worked in the industry(cars) for 25yrs and been with bikes before that since almost just out of school , I can tell you now that cars (any type) last longer than 10yrs and that's the way they want them.
Holdens and Falcons are no longer the long term option they used to be and evan the Camry/Corolla that was the mainstay of reliability are only good for 10. The Rav 4 ( camry in a box) is only good for 200K klm and most of the new Korean shite wont last that long.
Pop Quiz Time.
Which car in the world has the highest 'customer satisfaction rating' 

[IT490K1983]

Are we talking modern cars only, or any cars?

[EML]

In the current market-no vintage stuff here mate.

[firko]

Which car in the world has the highest 'customer satisfaction rating'

Toyota Corolla ?

[IT490K1983]

Which car in the world has the highest 'customer satisfaction rating'

Toyota Corolla ?

Still not without a few hiccups.

[EML]

common guys try harder, what about mercs......nah. Bemmers......nah. VW.............BIG nah(worst in fact-behind Mahindra and Sangg Yong) Toyotas are high up with the good ones but have had trouble in the US-not sure if that recall was a stunt as MB did something similar in the 90's and sales went up not down!!.
I'll give you one more guess, but it's not Scoda-which iin fact is far better than its parent VW.

[crash n bern]

I give up.  Haven't cared much for anything built after the '70's anyway.

[chrisdespo]

Electric . freeride all sounds like a load of BOG, how much fun could you have on a bike with no gears it would be like riding a JOG scooter not even as cool as a postie bike. has anyone tried to get hold of an electrician these days thats what you will need when it breaks down. might even be like a battery drill when it breaks buy a new one its cheaper.

[TooFastTim]

This is one of the most lucid arguments against 'leccy motors I've seen:

"Electric is certainly interesting but the physics shows the problem, a gallon of petrol has an energy equivalent of about 90 kWhrs, with an engine efficiency of typically 25% that gives about 22kWhrs of useful energy, with 0.746 kW = 1 hp that is roughly 30 bhp for 1 hour for 1 gallon which seems about right.

A current practical Lithium battery about the same volume as a gallon of petrol would typically be 24V at 100Ahr or 2.4 kWhrs, this is one tenth of the energy that an IC engine can produce from our 1 gallon of petrol! Also the battery will be much heavier than the gallon of petrol.

From: http://www.trialscentral.com/forums/topic/20092-what-is-the-future-4-stroke-or-2-stroke/page__st__15

[trailietrash]

A current practical Lithium battery about the same volume as a gallon of petrol would typically be 24V at 100Ahr or 2.4 kWhrs, this is one tenth of the energy that an IC engine can produce from our 1 gallon of petrol! Also the battery will be much heavier than the gallon of petrol.

I'm not sure why he quotes the weight of the electric storage device and compares it with the combustion engines fuel. I could be a bit shifty and just compare the weight of electricity to a gallon of petrol in arguing the pro's of electric motors but nothing is that simple to compare without taking in all factors. A 24v 100Ah lithium battery is a bit odd too and not what I would call typical.

[Mike52]

Question guys.

How far will a PRIUS [ you know one of those electric cars that are going to save the world]
go on the battery alone?

[EML]

Don't know how far but local gas fitter has converted one to petrol/elec/LPG and now costs just 3 cents per kilometre to run.

[Rossvickicampbell]

went in a taxi Prius the other day (couple actually) - was surprised how low the battery storage level was and how quickly once running it re-charged to 100% - now either makes lots of battery or doesn't hold much initially?

[TooFastTim]

I'm not sure why he quotes the weight of the electric storage device and compares it with the combustion engines fuel. I could be a bit shifty and just compare the weight of electricity to a gallon of petrol in arguing the pro's of electric motors but nothing is that simple to compare without taking in all factors. A 24v 100Ah lithium battery is a bit odd too and not what I would call typical.

To be pedantic he doesn't. He merely compares the weights of petrol vs battery. You'll probably find that petrol plus the IC motor is pretty much on par with battery vs electric motor.

I don't know what the typical discharge rates are for litium batteries. I did a search but no specifics. Admittedly a 100 A/H is pretty radical but that implies that a lithium-electric motor combo would be even further off the pace.