Brammo Electric Motorcycle

[Motogiro]

Last week my neighbor and friend, Mark, and I headed over to the BMW dealership. I wanted to look at the F800GS adventure bike. This is the bike my brother and his friend have decided to get. He wanted my opinion on the bike.

While I was looking at the F800GS my friend Mark sees this cool looking electric bike, made by Brammo. He asks me what the motor sounds like. I said probably nothing until it starts pushing and then you'll here a whine.

A sales rep comes up and introduces himself. Mark says he wants to hear the electric motor. The sale rep gets the keys and promptly obliges us with turning it on and slowly twisting the throttle. The bike instantly whirs to life pushing it forward a few inches as the sales rep grabs the brake to control it from rolling to far. We talk about the electric bike for a bit. A 70 mile range is in no way a viable concept for me as a bike unless you at least put a small gas generator for charging it.

Even with the key on there is no noise what so ever.
Interestingly, the electric motored bike has it torque available at an instant. I don't think it even has a transmission. That thing just winds out! Because of this, the next thing that happens is sort of scary.

I'm back at the F800GS and I look up to see Mark(standing by the bike) and the sales guy (sitting on the bike) talking, as Mark reaches down and innocently twists the throttle. Remember the bike is totally silent when there is no throttle. The bike launches out of the spot, with the sale guys being thrown backwards and he manages to stay on the bike. As the bike lunges forward, Mark's hand leaves the throttle and now the motor stops. This gives the sale rep time to get forward and grab some brake. His eyes were so big I couldn't help but laugh! Poor Mark's look of surprise was of no help! :rof:

The sales rep had left the key in the on position so the bike was live but totally silent. He did do a good save!

Mark apologized and we left the dealership. On the way out the sales guy points his finger at Mark and says, "Don't do that again!"

On the drive home we couldn't stop laughing at all the adolescent,"what if" scenarios we came up with and the look on that poor sale reps face when he took off.

Thank you Mark for a good laugh. That was dangerous though!

 

[twisty mcfisty]

HAHA That's hilarious! It would have scared the crap out of me too!

I saw in the news a few weeks back where the Pike's Peak race was won by an all electric motorcycle.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3tll74OjBo]Electric Motorcycles Pikes Peak Lightning Superbike - YouTube[/ame]


BTW - I really enjoy this forum. I read alot of good stuff on here. Thanks to all contributors.

 

[Motogiro]

HAHA That's hilarious! It would have scared the crap out of me too!

I saw in the news a few weeks back where the Pike's Peak race was won by an all electric motorcycle.


BTW - I really enjoy this forum. I read alot of good stuff on here. Thanks to all contributors.

Very impressive torque off the electrics!

Everyone brings something to the forum. We have an unusually great membership of people! :rockon:

 

[Erci]

Yeah, the whole totally silent thing is no good.

Fortunately, there IS a solution!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n17B_uFF4cA]YouTube[/ame]

 

[oldfast007]

Fun story! Gives whole new meaning to the phrase "silent but deadly".

 

[mxgolf]

That was great too funny. I have a friend who has a Toyota Prius. We go out to have a beer with him and his wife. We are sitting outside on a very nice day when I notice there car lights are on. I mention that fact and so Steve my buddy goes out to the car to turn the light off. Well low and behold the whole car was still on. There is no key for Priuses just a start button. We laughed about that one for a while and I still give him a bad time occasionally saying did you turn the car off Steve. LOL. No Key and you can't hear the car so I would probably do that once or twice myself.

 

[twisty mcfisty]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1YoCfm7nxU]RYNO Motors Full Story - YouTube[/ame]

This was interesting too.

There is a dealership over here in Marietta, GA that sells Zero Engineering electric bikes. Saw them in Cycle World a year or two ago.

The torque from an electric motor is definitely impressive.

Have a good weekend.

 

[SweaterDude]

since Lithium Technology, power has never really been the problem. its either effective range or stability of the battery cells. when they find a way to charge a battery in around 5 minutes, create a range of 200-250 miles, and place charging posts over a wide network along the roads, then electricity will be practical. because until then, petroleum and diesel will remain king. sure the new hybrid systems with regenerative braking are cool but WOW are they expensive. only McClaren, Porsche, Ferrari, and Fisker are making these systems for transportation, and i probably wont ever have $300K+ to spend on a car.

the tech is cool but how do these companies plan to survive by selling a handful of overly expensive machines that are nothing more than interesting/neat. all of that time, research, tooling, manufacturing, overhead, etc. cant be that easy to cover.

the real news will happen when an electric vehicle wins an endurance race such as 12 hrs. of Sebring, Sebring 24, or LeMans. thats when you know we're starting to get somewhere that matters. I dont mean to be "that guy" or the harsh critic, but we have been exploring electric propulsion for decades and really have gotten nowhere. I personally dont think it is the solution to the fuss about fossil fuels. Did you know?: in the US in the 1920s there were more electric cars than gas powered cars.

 

[Water Bear]

Some of the issues you describe are related to infrastructure; There already exists in this country a truly vast infrastructure for supplying internal combustion engines with refined gas. Much of our economy depends upon it.

Assuming that range is the real technological hurtle right now, the cost of such vehicles is probably very high due to large research and development costs in battery technology. Due to that, the cost of such vehicles probably can't come down until after the technology has matured.

However I can only assume that power plants are much more efficient at converting potential energy in fossil fuels into usable energy than a car will ever be, especially after such fuels are refined for automotive use. (You can also use electricity supplied from nuclear reactors). In other words, yes it will be difficult and expensive to make electric vehicles practical, but it seems like it has definite promise to reduce emissions and the price of vehicle operation. Also consider that electric motors are much simpler than ICE engines are, at least in principal.

 

[darius]

Mission may release a consumer version in 48 months time for $15k and hopefully with much better range than the Brammo.

RideApart Review: 2014 Mission RS | RideApart
Mission's Future | RideApart

2014 Mission RS

 

[SweaterDude]

However I can only assume that power plants are much more efficient at converting potential energy in fossil fuels into usable energy than a car will ever be, especially after such fuels are refined for automotive use. (You can also use electricity supplied from nuclear reactors). In other words, yes it will be difficult and expensive to make electric vehicles practical, but it seems like it has definite promise to reduce emissions and the price of vehicle operation. Also consider that electric motors are much simpler than ICE engines are, at least in principal.

Hydrogen had promise too, but we dismissed it as a lost cause. there are plenty of other issues as well, like weight, heat, half-life, etc. but those arent quite as important as the ones mentioned already. we know that nuclear reactions are the most efficient way to go from potential to kinetic energy, but with current technology there is NO WAY to contain a micro dirty-bomb for a controlled release. i just think we are wasting time on a technology that is completely impractical for private transport. Like i said before, if it was practical, which it's NOT, i would be all for it. Until then.....

 

[PFD023]

Watched the documentary "Charge" last night. It's about first Isle of Man TT Zero Emissions Gran Prix in 2009. If you get the chance to rent/buy it you should. Narrated by Ewan McGregor with some great video. Can't belief how far these bikes have come in a few short years.


Who wouldn't want one.... http://rideapart.com/2013/09/energica-ego-review/

 

[Water Bear]

Hydrogen had promise too, but we dismissed it as a lost cause. there are plenty of other issues as well, like weight, heat, half-life, etc. but those arent quite as important as the ones mentioned already. we know that nuclear reactions are the most efficient way to go from potential to kinetic energy, but with current technology there is NO WAY to contain a micro dirty-bomb for a controlled release. i just think we are wasting time on a technology that is completely impractical for private transport. Like i said before, if it was practical, which it's NOT, i would be all for it. Until then.....

What I mean is that powering your car with the electricity generated by power plants, eg. nuclear plants, is probably far more efficient than using power generated by your car's engine.

So what I'm thinking is that if a car's engine transfers 70% of the potential energy in refined gas to heat, a nuclear reactor probably transfers much less of the potential energy in a batch of atoms into heat when it converts that energy into electrical potential or whatever.

What I was trying to get at is that every new technology has up front development costs, so one has to ask oneself if some growing pains are worth the future benefit. We have to develop some alternative fuel source since fossil fuels will run out, and improving battery technology sounds like a good idea since it (might) promise extremely low emissions and has many other uses.

I'm just blowing smoke, but it's interesting to think about.