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Hey gang - This one is definitely worth a look. An electric drag bike that runs 8.2 seconds in the 1/4 mile.

www.wheels.ca/article/30277

Cheers-Colin Firth -Ontario Canada

The first round of electric cars failed because
of their miserable performance.If they could
make a good looking,high performance electric
car at a decent price,it will sell.Once they
become popular we might see some fast EC bikes.
But I suspect the EC mopeds and scooters will
come much sooner into vogue.

Straddling a 280-kilogram motorcycle. . .

how much is that in pounds?

Pollacheck crosses the quarter-mile marker doing 156 m.p.h.(251 km/h); he's traveled 1,320 feet (402 m) in 8.22 seconds, faster than any of the gas-powered cars, trucks or motorcycles that have raced in the drag

The writer lists the other stats.

KaZooCruiser,

1 kg = 2.205 lb.
280 kg = 617.288 lb.

FYI, here's the converter I used:
www.mediacollege.com/misc/utilities/measurement-converter.html

That bike is a relatively stout beast thanks to the weight of the batteries.

There is a ton of research (pun intended) on electric fuel cell technology ongoing in all corners of the world. Even GM has The Volt which will eventually make it to North America one day.

The inherent problem today with battery powered vehicles is their driving range which comes up short in comparison to the range of most fossil fuel powered vehicles filling the showrooms today. They can make a vehicle go hundreds of miles between charging but the batteries take up a good portion of the vehicle's mass.

Researchers are increasingly developing better battery systems that can store more power but they need to find a better balance with weight for all round cost efficiency. This means lighter more powerful storage cells.

In my opinion, probably the best way to equate the electric vehicle's development cycle would be to compare it to the early consumer-based computer chips for PC's.

As we all know, the technology in chips became faster and more efficient and the chip sizes became smaller and smaller. The electric cell development cycle today is similar to the early years of the personal computer age back in the late eighties early nineties. My first computer had 250 mgb of storage, today my digital camera has 1Gb of memory.

Given a few more years we are certain to see more players, more R & D money invested into these vehicles and subsequently a more linear ramp-up with efficiency.

Just my thoughts.

Cheers-Colin Firth-Ontario Canada

An electric bike? Now that's reVOLTing. Ed

Thats WATT I think too.

As I see it here is the trouble with batteries. Let's supposes a battery can be made with double it's storage capacity and half it's weight. Electric motors are more efficient by a decent marging than engines, but the electricity being used to charge them by and large is still generated at only a marginally more efficient rate than the engines themselves convert fossil fuel to raw energy.

So we only have half the equation there. I don't think nuclear power is at all practical as a replacement for fossil fuels because the waste NEVER goes away and is devastatingly toxic. Not today, but someone's gonna have to deal with that. Not just bury it!

My thoughts on short term solutions lean toward burning hydrogen in an extremely high compression Wankel rotary engine.

KZRider... saving the world over late breakfast

bill_wilcox100 wrote:

KaZooCruiser,

1 kg = 2.205 lb.
280 kg = 617.288 lb.

FYI, here's the converter I used:
www.mediacollege.com/misc/utilities/measurement-converter.html

Thanks for the education and link.

That thing is a porker.

Fast, but blubbafiedfat.

I wonder how well an 800lb (bike and rider) machine handles? Never mind, they don't. That is also part of the bike equation.

I already have trouble with leanover. Riding a bike is like standing up in a canoe. Add emergency manuvers and inertia can make your day miserable.

Why isn't hydrogen conversion being done more aggresively?

My understanding is that as hydrogen gas expands, it cools the environment near it.

because the easiest way to make hydrogen is to run electric current through water to split it into hydrogen and oxygen. However the energy produced by burning the hydrogen is a bit less than what it takes to split the water. Then you have the inefficience of a standard combustion engine; in the end you waste alot or energy.


I would like to see electric commuter vehicles come on line soon, with so many sources used to produce electricity (wind, geothermal, nuclear, coal, gas, oil, solar, hydroelectric....) it just seems like the way to go. They don’t have to replace gas powered cars, I would just like to see them cut the demand for oil and gasoline so everyone could save a buck at the pumps.

Another issue with hydrogen powered vehicles is the lack of fueling stations; unlike ethanol hydrogen cannot be pumped from standard gas stations.

As I understand it, Hydrogen doesn't have a fast enough flame front to work in a lower compression piston engine. at so many rpms it just burns so slowly that the expansion in the cylinder is slower than the engine is working, so you're overrunning your fuel.

Under extremely high compression the hydrogen actually decomposes, the efficiency goes through the roof, the flame front dissapeares and the pistons turn into shrapnel. BOOM!!

So the proposed solution is to use a improvement of the Wankel rotary three chamber engine. That's what they put in the Mazdas I think. A rotary engine works on the same basic pronciples as a gear oil pump. you bring in air and as the engine rotates the chamber gets smaller and smaller. At the point of highest compression, you inject fuel, and the expansion rotates the engine. There is no linear motion to convert so you don't have to worry about breaking cranks, no rods, no pistons no valves to float.

I believe it's Duke University that's working on a prototype, but I'll try to find and post a link. It explains it much better that me.

jjdwoodman wrote:

As I understand it. . . the proposed solution is to use a improvement of the Wankel rotary three chamber engine. That's what they put in the Mazdas I think. . . I believe it's Duke University that's working on a prototype, but I'll try to find and post a link. It explains it much better that me.

You might send them this link as well

. . .

Suzuki might still have a bunch of these laying around they'd sell for cheap