Haters!

[protomech]

Posted an response, will see when / if it's published it's up.

We've already discussed pluggable batteries when talking about pannier-mounted addon batteries (here and here). I was unfavorable to them before I bought the Zero, and I think I'm more disinterested in them now.

An extra ZF3 pack would allow me to take the bike on to mom's house on a single charge, an extra two ZF9 packs would let me take the bike to Atlanta if I could somehow fit them (+240 lbs). I make both trips pretty regularly, but not often enough to purchase pannier batteries (assume: $2500 for ZF3 pack, lasts 10 years, allows me to take 10 160 mile round trips/year that would be otherwise taken on gas = $25 fee per trip). I have a gas vehicle, may as well use it sometime to keep it from rotting in place : P

Pannier battery rental is more attractive, but in practice it would require a standardized fittings and a standard battery voltage or DC to DC converters. I'd rather see money and time put into level 2 AC and fast DC charging infrastructure.

[FreepZ]

Those were some good posted comments. Hopefully the ignorant who read the article will also read the comments and learn a few things.

Part of protomech's comment:

Range anxiety is a straw man argument - in the real world, EV drivers and riders quickly learn how far the vehicles will go under what conditions. [...] EVs (whether bike or car) don't have to be all things to all people to be useful and practical [...]

Indeed, look at China. They are selling electric bikes and scooters that have low range, low speed, slow recharge time and no suspension. In short, a bike that most people would scoff at here. And yet people are buying them because they are cheap to buy, cheap and practical to run and it's a step up from a regular bicycle. Nobody seems to be too bothered by the "limitations".

[Car Loss]

Posted an response, will see when / if it's published it's up.

We've already discussed pluggable batteries when talking about pannier-mounted addon batteries (here and here). I was unfavorable to them before I bought the Zero, and I think I'm more disinterested in them now.

You hear something like this in electric-car design, except it's in the form of trailers, not onboard energy. And it's in the form of a genset, not extra batteries.  Basically, imagine a Chevy Volt, except with the piston engine in a detachable trailer instead of under the hood.  For daily use, you leave the trailer at home, so no dead weight.  For long trips, you hitch it up, and presto, no range anxiety.  This makes more sense than the Volt's big 4-banger.  Why is the gasoline motor so big, if the point is to use it as little as possible?  I suspect GM had excess engines they needed to use up.

In the moto world, range extension would be via a small trailer like you see behind some hardcore Gold Wing trippers.  I definitely wouldn't want to make my bike top heavy by 200+ pounds, not when _I'm_ under 200 pounds.

Carlos

[CliC]

You hear something like this in electric-car design, except it's in the form of trailers, not onboard energy. And it's in the form of a genset, not extra batteries.  Basically, imagine a Chevy Volt, except with the piston engine in a detachable trailer instead of under the hood.  For daily use, you leave the trailer at home, so no dead weight.  For long trips, you hitch it up, and presto, no range anxiety.

I'd be surprised if this would work in the general case, at least if you want to run continuously as long as you have petrol fuel. I got about 40-45 miles on my Zero at 70mph. Assuming a 9 kWh pack, that's about 14-16kW continuous power draw (and of course it will be more with a trailer). Generators that size weigh far more than 200 lbs. If you just want a range extender, say an extra 50 or 100 miles (and then you are stopping to charge regardless) then you can use a smaller genny, but it's only a partial solution at best; might as well tow extra batteries instead in this case.

I'd think cars would have the same problem. Perhaps some of the more sophisticated tech that has gone into e-vehicles could be employed in the genset*, but you'd need it on the ICE side as well for significant weight reduction. Also, you're paying a premium twice; once for the vehicle, and again for its auxiliary powerplant. Probably cheaper to put that tech into a better ICE for the car/bike itself.

(* For an example of the state of the art of the portable generator industry, they are just now using AC>DC>AC inverter designs that allow more efficient motor fuel usage, rather than running them at synchronous speed all the time.)

[skuzzle]

You hear something like this in electric-car design, except it's in the form of trailers, not onboard energy.

Here's an old story about a guy that converted a VW Rabbit to EV then created a second Rabbit trailer to
push the first one when more range was needed:

http://www.mrsharkey.com/pusher.htm

[protomech]

You hear something like this in electric-car design, except it's in the form of trailers, not onboard energy. And it's in the form of a genset, not extra batteries.  Basically, imagine a Chevy Volt, except with the piston engine in a detachable trailer instead of under the hood.  For daily use, you leave the trailer at home, so no dead weight.  For long trips, you hitch it up, and presto, no range anxiety.

I'd be surprised if this would work in the general case, at least if you want to run continuously as long as you have petrol fuel. I got about 40-45 miles on my Zero at 70mph. Assuming a 9 kWh pack, that's about 14-16kW continuous power draw (and of course it will be more with a trailer). Generators that size weigh far more than 200 lbs. If you just want a range extender, say an extra 50 or 100 miles (and then you are stopping to charge regardless) then you can use a smaller genny, but it's only a partial solution at best; might as well tow extra batteries instead in this case.

Lotus has a small 1.2L 3 cylinder genset, 120 lbs + oil and fuel and packaging. Maximum output 35 kW.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/09/lotus-range-extender.html

A 0.4L 1 cylinder 10-12 kW version might be 60 lbs with packaging and fluids. Maybe could be tail-mounted.

What would be nice would be a secondary bay, standard form factor and fittings. Plug in secondary battery for extended runs or genset. Plug in a spacer for lower weight under normal conditions.

Inifiniti's Emerg-E sports hybrid concept car uses the 1.2L genset. Wonder if it will make it to production.
http://www.insideline.com/infiniti/infiniti-reveals-emerg-e-hybrid-sports-car-concept-at-2012-geneva-auto-show.html

[Richard230]

Speaking of haters, The June issue of City Bike hit the stands yesterday. On page 27 is an article by the Editor, Gabe Ets-Hokin, titiled "Haters Gotta Hate". I think this article was written in response to various negative comments by some motorcycle owners and publications bashing el motos. It is definitely light-hearted and tongue-in-cheek, with comments like "I'm pretty sure that the venom-spewers are of an ilk that sees any departure from the status quo as an attack on the American Way of Life. In their minds, electric vehicles are a conspiracy cooked up by the motorcycle industry, the motorcycle press, Greenpeace and Ed Begly, jr. Sometimes they even come right out and say it: the Liberals are coming to take away my motorcycle, but much more frequently they come up with sciency-sounding arguments why e-motos are not just unworthy of their sacred asses, but shouldn't even be discussed...."

The article goes on to detail and debunk some of the anti-electric arguments presented by these progress haters. At the end of the article Gabe describes himself as: "Gabe Ets-Hokin was the dictator of the Galactic Confederacy who, 75 million years ago, brought billions of his people to Earth in a DC-8 like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and killed them using hydrogen bombs. He now owns a chain of salad bars located in 27 states and Guam."

I wonder what drugs Gabe was on when he finished that story.   

[FreepZ]

I wonder what drugs Gabe was on when he finished that story.   

All hail Xenu!