More concept electric motorcycles

[Richard230]

It appears to be very easy to dream up interesting and innovate electric motorcycle concepts, now all they have to do is actually build production bikes and sell them to the public. That seems to be the hard part. Here are some of the latest: 

http://cleanrider.com/here-comes-yamaha/

http://cleanrider.com/more-electric-motorcycle-concepts/

[littlefreak3000]

Links seem to be broken

[protomech]

I wonder if clean rider is run by the same people that run insideevs.. their database seems to fall over all the time.

[Richard230]

Sorry about the broken links.  They worked for me yesterday.  Clean Rider is operated by one person living north of San Francisco who comes up with the articles as a hobby in his spare time from his apparently demanding daily job.

One interesting item in his article showed the the Yamaha electric sportbike that we saw last year is back and this time it has two-wheel drive with a hub motor driving its front wheel. Still no indication that it might be built and marketed any time soon, though. But the styling remains very cool.

[Richard230]

The links are working again.  Give them another try. 

[Shinysideup]

I never understood the wisdom of using hub motors on a motorcycle: too much unsprung weight.

[littlefreak3000]

I never understood the wisdom of using hub motors on a motorcycle: too much unsprung weight.

Me neither. Its cool for a light weight system like a bicycle but and something heavier and with a wheel spinning at a few 100 rpms its just silly. Waste all the power constantly redirecting all that weight. Just silly.

[Shinysideup]

Even in a bicycle, I found issues with a hub motor when building up an electric bike:

http://www.evalbum.com/676

The main issue, as Brammo found, that, unless one uses a very powerful motor (high voltage, big battery for range) one must choose a hub motor that has either a) good torque for hill climbing but low speed or b) high speed motor for making time on the flats but poor hill-climbing ability. So I mounted one mid-bike and ran it through the bike's gearing system by driving a tandem-style chainwheel on the left of the bottom bracket. (not my design but I prototyped it with the inventor).

I tested a commercial hub motor bicycle and it was sweet, except the range was about 10 miles in the hills of San Francisco.That company went out of business.

Here's a nice breakdown with the pros and cons (and some cool pix):

https://www.electricbike.com/hubmotors/

[Richard230]

Autoblog reviews the Yamaha PES2 concept models:

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/10/21/yamaha-pes2-ped2-electric-motorcycles-tokyo/