Tank Sports E85 250cc motorcycle
the alternative personal transportation thread
I will personally track down and kill the first person who mentions a Segway...awww crap, was it me?
The X-Treme Segway thread was pure gold, though.
i'm glad you brought up this point. Westy already addressed it but i have some more specific info to share. i cited this same white paper back in the Enertia discussion, but it bears repeating:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/greendorm/participate/cee124/TeslaReading.pdf
the link is for a white paper by Tesla Motors, titled "the 21st century car" +/- capitalization.
it's worth reading if you're interested in these issues.key points, in my opinion:
with the above figures keep in mind that the Tesla is hardly optimized for efficiency as a commuter car, and the efficiency of something with less power and better aerodynamics (not a convertible for one) could be even better.the tesla white paper linked above said:Taking into account the well-to-electric-outlet efficiency of electricity production and the electrical-outlet-to-
wheel efficiency of the Tesla Roadster, the well-to-wheel energy efficiency of the Tesla Roadster is 2.18 km/MJ
x 52.5% = 1.14 km/MJ, or double the efficiency of the Toyota Prius.12
[...]
[...]
12
The Department of Energy has defined Equivalent Petroleum Mileage as 82,049 Watt-hours per gallon,
while driving the electric vehicle over the same urban and highway driving schedules as are used to compute the
EPA mileage for other cars, and taking into account charging efficiency. (See Code of Federal Regulations, Title
10, Section 474.3.) This calculation would lead to the dubious conclusion that our electric vehicle gets:
82049 Wh/gal / ( (110 Wh/km x 1.6 km/mi) / 86%) = 400 miles per gallon! [ed: emphasis added]
so Tesla answers the questions of efficiency, and also gives a nice figure that agrees with Westy's earlier estimate, of ~400 mpg effectively. this will vary with the price of electricity vs. the price of gas, of course, but the current trend is to make this number go higher as gas gets relatively more expensive.
i'll address emissions in the next post.
i don't really see kit cars as being any safer than motorcycles. they're licensed as such and aren't mandated to pass any kind of crash test, i believe. that's why the aptera's crash testing is remarkable, even if it isn't a kit car proper.
i guess it would offer the rider/driver the chance to not wear a helmet and stay a bit out of the elements, but scooters such as the BMW C1 have offered that benefit with little purchase in the market:
If that is the cost, then sign me up.
What I want is 45 mile range, as in to and from work on pure electric. Short trips electric, but I don't want to be limited to 40-45 miles on electric. I want to be able to go to my destination, and if the electric runs out, I have a small horsepower motor to get me the rest of the way on gas, but I want like 45 mpg on that. And not some UGLY car! I want it to be designed aerodynamic like a Lamborghini, low to the ground and look cool. If GM does it, they'll charge 35 grand for it.
Why is it a guy in this country can put five grand into a SATURN SUV with as he said, ALL OVER THE COUNTER STUFF, and make it run 45 miles on ALL ELECTRIC and when it dies, you pull over, and start the gas engine and continue on? Why can't GM do it? Why can a guy on TV do it, but GM can't? Shows you who is in CHARGE. No pun intended.
Also, if you convert your home to solar and charge you car/bike on the company dime while at work, the overall cost can be reduced even further.
That being said, I am currently researching a 10hp diesel engine for a chopper project.
This one is running a 9hp Yanmar diesel and gets over 100mpg on home made bio with a top speed of around 70mph.
That being said, I am currently researching a 10hp diesel engine for a chopper project.
This one is running a 9hp Yanmar diesel and gets over 100mpg on home made bio with a top speed of around 70mph.
ok, here's the promised mini-missive on the emissions question:
does driving an electric vehicle actually have a net benefit, or is it simply a matter of shifting the emissions elsewhere?
(short answer: it does have a net benefit!)
longer answer:
http://www.cleanairnet.org/transport/1754/articles-69297_resource_1.pdf , and this post from the Enertia thread: http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2776566&postcount=94
also note that they assumed the current coal-heavy mix of power generation. generate your own power or live in an area with strong alternative energy production (hydroelectric, geothermal, wave action, wind, capturing methane from cows' bungholes) and the equation shifts more in electricity's favor.
ok, here's that promised section
does driving an electric vehicle actually have a net benefit, or is it simply a matter of shifting the emissions elsewhere?
(short answer: it does have a net benefit!)
longer answer:
http://www.cleanairnet.org/transport/1754/articles-69297_resource_1.pdf , and this post from the Enertia thread: http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2776566&postcount=94
what does that number for GHG emissions mean? an earlier section in the same MIT Energy Lab paper clears that up. note that they assumed a total-system energy efficiency of 32% for electric vehicles. Tesla claims 52+%. using 50% would put electric vehicles in the lead in basically every category.the above linked paper from the MIT Energy Lab said:Section 2.6 Electric Power
Recharging from the grid means that the fuel cycle energy consumption and GHG emissions
associated with electrical energy depend on the mix of primary energy sources used to
generate that electrical energy. In the US in 2020, EIA, 1999a, projects the major
constituents of that mix to be coal (52%), natural gas (28%), nuclear (10%), renewables
(9%), and petroleum (1%). Transmission and distribution losses of 9% are included in our
energy consumption numbers.
We assume that the projected price is the average 2020 price of electrical energy to US
residential customers (7.3¢/kWh) discounted by 30% for off-peak use; that discount could be
larger, or smaller. Electric power prices, energy consumption, and GHG emissions are
summarized below in Table 2.9.
also note that they assumed the current coal-heavy mix of power generation. generate your own power or live in an area with strong alternative energy production (hydroelectric, geothermal, wave action, wind, capturing methane from cows' bungholes) and the equation shifts more in electricity's favor.
ok, here's that promised section
section ES-2 of the above-linked paper said:
The bars shown are meant to suggest the range of our
uncertainty about the results but, as expected, even the uncertainties are uncertain. We
estimate uncertainty at about plus or minus 30% for fuel cell and battery vehicles, 20% for
ICE hybrids, and 10% for other vehicle technologies.
[...]
Vehicles with hybrid propulsion systems using either ICE or fuel cell power plants
are the most efficient and lowest-emitting technologies assessed. In general, ICE
hybrids appear to have advantages over fuel cell hybrids with respect to life cycle
GHG emissions, energy efficiency, and vehicle cost, but the differences are within the
uncertainties of our results and depend on the source of fuel energy.
You can convert an existing car to full electric. Cost depends on the top speed and range you want. Take something like an old VW bug and only need in town driving with a top speed of 50 mph a DIY conversion can be had for under $4000. Things get more complicated on heavier modern cars that have power steering and power brakes.
the Vectrix doesn't suit your fancy? it's in this thread, somewhere in the first 18 posts or so...
a) safety. how does it do in a crash? how does it do if the vehicle catches on fire? how does it do in katrina type flooding? zzzzzapppppp
b) ancillary accessories: how does he run the steering, HVAC, audio, all the other junk when on electric power?
c) pulling over to switch over is unacceptable for many people
d) how much cargo space is taken up by this car's battery pack?
e) has the range, cost, etc. been verified by anyone without a vested interest?
I have not drove an auto in three months, i have got a ride less then a dozen times, with a little luck I will be able to get a road bike soon and need a car even less.
seeing one on the freeway reminded me that i've forgotten to include the first hybrid to reach US shores, and still the one that holds the mileage title. yes, it's significantly more efficient than a Prius, and that's no knock on the Prius.
its looks aren't for everyone, but i dig it: CRX meets the jetsons. its only downside, albeit a significant one, is that it's a two seater with limited cargo room. it would make an awesome commuter car, however, especially since Honda's dealer support is much, much better than, say, Aptera's (being nonexistent).
yes, 70 mpg.
its looks aren't for everyone, but i dig it: CRX meets the jetsons. its only downside, albeit a significant one, is that it's a two seater with limited cargo room. it would make an awesome commuter car, however, especially since Honda's dealer support is much, much better than, say, Aptera's (being nonexistent).
.....
here's a product that one of you monkey entrepreneurs should develop and sell. i'd be first in line:
why don't soft-hybrid retrofit kits exist?
by this i mean a system with a small auxiliary battery just powerful enough to repeatedly turn over an uprated starter. a basic regenerative braking system would keep this small battery topped off. finally, some simple circuitry would shut off the motor whenever the car was stopped with the driver's foot on the brake for 5 seconds (automatic) or when the car was stopped in neutral with the clutch out for 2 seconds (manual). as soon as the foot left the brake pedal or the clutch was depressed and a gear engaged on a manual then the starter would get the engine running again.
market a kit that included the uprated starter, battery, primitive regenerative setup, and circuitry for the stop-start mechanism, make it installable by a local mechanic for an hour's worth of labor, document its fuel efficiency advantage in city driving, and sell it for under $1000 (installation included) and i bet you'd make a ton of money. get the state or feds to throw in a tax break for purchasers and you'd be even more golden.
why don't soft-hybrid retrofit kits exist?
by this i mean a system with a small auxiliary battery just powerful enough to repeatedly turn over an uprated starter. a basic regenerative braking system would keep this small battery topped off. finally, some simple circuitry would shut off the motor whenever the car was stopped with the driver's foot on the brake for 5 seconds (automatic) or when the car was stopped in neutral with the clutch out for 2 seconds (manual). as soon as the foot left the brake pedal or the clutch was depressed and a gear engaged on a manual then the starter would get the engine running again.
market a kit that included the uprated starter, battery, primitive regenerative setup, and circuitry for the stop-start mechanism, make it installable by a local mechanic for an hour's worth of labor, document its fuel efficiency advantage in city driving, and sell it for under $1000 (installation included) and i bet you'd make a ton of money. get the state or feds to throw in a tax break for purchasers and you'd be even more golden.
That's sort of the system the Chevy Silverado Hybrid uses. The brakes and steering are battery and as soon as the brake is pressed and the truck gets to less than 15mph (I think) the engine shuts off until you hit the gas.
It's a good concept, expect it hasn't proven to save any fuel in any real world tests.
Big Oil will be paying you a visit soon. Please have your affairs in order and watch for the black helecopters...
irate2:
that's a pretty cool idea....right now we're using this..i don't really see kit cars as being any safer than motorcycles. they're licensed as such and aren't mandated to pass any kind of crash test, i believe. that's why the aptera's crash testing is remarkable, even if it isn't a kit car proper.
i guess it would offer the rider/driver the chance to not wear a helmet and stay a bit out of the elements, but scooters such as the BMW C1 have offered that benefit with little purchase in the market:
gets about 75mpg...so far it works great for the type of community we live in..pretty useless during the winter though...D
They've got a new system out now (suv and p/u) that's a 40% improvement over the gas models. The original hybrid only had an advantage in NYC style gridlock (plus you could run a whole jobsite off the battery pack).
http://www.autoblog.com/2007/11/14/la-2007-2009-chevy-silverado-hybrid/
sounds good to me but I think the price is a bit unrealistic...didn't the GM electric car have the regenerative braking system?...D
yeah, basically all i'm asking for is a stop-start system a la early pre-"two mode" GM efforts or even what BMW does in europe.
and the only way it could _not_ save fuel is if starting an engine used more fuel than idling it for the average amount of time it was off. the conventional wisdom even regurgitated here on
is that fuel injected cars only use ~10 sec worth of fuel to start up...
regenerative braking is easy: any electric motor can act as a generator. look under your car's hood at the alternator and stare at it for a while...
So in your opinion why haven't car makers started applying it to their vehicles? I think it has to do with the after market sales...D
i think car manufacturers have been run by bean counters for decades, and, further, i think that most consumers are idiots. how else do you explain how it took until now for the big 3 to essentially go bankrupt?
on a less pejorative note, how else do you explain how domestic automakers got panned year in and year out for horrible, hard-plastic interiors yet kept on cranking out the same junk?
answer: it sold because people kept on buying fords 'cause it worked for grandpappy.
other people agree with me and think a big shakeup is in order, and that's the motivation behind the Automotive X Prize.
http://auto.xprize.org/
a good article to read on the X Prize was in Wired recently:
1 Gallon of Gas, 100 Miles -- $10 million: The Race to Build the Supergreen Car
thewiredarticle said:
This is titled the "alternative" personal transportation thread, I think maybe Toshi was implying things a little more eco-friendly than your standard car? Let's keep the 4-wheeled machines out of the thread, there's nothing alternative about a car, electric or not.
While they cut down on CO2 emissions from driving, the manufacturing costs of any car are huge, much less the batteries. Also a good part of the electricity in America comes from oil, natural gas, or coal, so your electric car still runs on fossil fuels. That's not even including the other costs of having a car-based infrastructure. Rush hour gridlock, urban sprawl, and the pure wastefulness of one or two people per car are still costs incurred by them.
Electric means nothing.
While they cut down on CO2 emissions from driving, the manufacturing costs of any car are huge, much less the batteries. Also a good part of the electricity in America comes from oil, natural gas, or coal, so your electric car still runs on fossil fuels. That's not even including the other costs of having a car-based infrastructure. Rush hour gridlock, urban sprawl, and the pure wastefulness of one or two people per car are still costs incurred by them.
Electric means nothing.
you should take a gander at this post of mine earlier in the thread:
http://ridemonkey.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2858894&postcount=51
Cliffs Notes: even when considering the current makeup of the electricity generation system in the US (ie, lots of coal in the mix) as well as the production and recycling costs of electric cars they still are a viable option.
given that electricity CAN be made much more efficiently, not to mention in a more sustainable manner, and that we wouldn't need to import oil with all that that entails, it seems that electricity IS a good option.
i, for one, welcome our new electric-car overlords, and i feel that plug-in hybrids and full electric 4 wheelers have a place in this thread.
Actually modern passenger cars on average put out significantly less of most harmful emissions per vehicle than any other motorized vehicle measured by the EPA, so yes, a car is an eco-friendly choice. They have had strict emission regulation imposed on them for longer and have progressed further than other motorized transportation methods.
good point, but you're conflating two separate things: greenhouse gas emissions and smog forming emissions.
cars are MUCH lower in smog-forming emissions than motorcycles, scooters, basically anything else that burns gasoline. however, greenhouse gas emissions (CO2) are directly proportional to fuel economy (ed: directly proportional to the amount of gas burned and inversely proportional to economy, but you get my point) and are a separate issue from the above.
Really? Come on, now. This reminds me of some "eco-friendly" houses in Seattle that were torched by the Earth Liberation Front. A lot of people laughed at how stupid the ELF was, those houses were eco-friendly! But, as it turns out, the houses were ~5000sqf, placed far from public transportation in an undeveloped area. You have obscene waste, mandatory driving to and from work/school/stores, habitat destruction and fragmentation, all under the scam of "eco-friendly" so the new owners could feel good about themselves, buying an energy-efficient house.
Driving a car is the single worst thing you can do for the environment. Maybe not if you only account for the immediate emissions coming out your tailpipe. But factor in the infrastructure that is set up for your car. Shipping the oil from overseas, building the car, all the plastic, steel, and aluminum that has to be processed and put into it, what private car ownership does to cities... the list goes on.
Cars are the worst, bottom line, and nothing you do can make a car eco-friendly.
actually, i think the Segway bears mention, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segway
new models came out recently (who knew?!), so now you steer by "leaning" the handlebars to the left or right in addition to controlling speed as you always did by leaning forward or backwards.
for the newfangled "i series" models: costs between $5-6.5k USD. 12.5 mph top speed, "15-25 mile" range via Li-ion batteries.
the real problem with it, as i see it, is that it doesn't belong on the street at its smoking 12.5 mph speed, and it doesn't belong on the sidewalk with its comparatively wide, wheeled base and substantial weight (105 lbs + the rider). and i'll be damned before i commute along largely-nonexistent sidewalks: if i could do that i'd walk.
that said, there are 30,000 segways out there...
Are you ready for this? 25mph, range of over 10-100 miles, never have to pay for gas or plug it in. Price? As low as $100.
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/bik/604241149.html
IMO, when it comes to alternative personal transportation, all the technology was invented 50 years ago. You really can't improve a bike, no matter how much R&D and hype.
Please show some figures that show smog and/or CO2 production over their lifetime. Cars are some of the most recycled machines on earth. Bus and trucks are more efficient CO2 wise but their smog emissions regulations are more lax. Rail would probably be best on land.
Have you consider a jet airliner - a few trips and you've released as much CO2 as you'd drive in a whole year in a car, so right there you are wrong already. People who use air transportation (planes and helicopters) and personal boats are easily worse than people driving cars (or similarly scaled and compared to larger land passenger vehicles)
Have you consider a jet airliner - a few trips and you've released as much CO2 as you'd drive in a whole year in a car, so right there you are wrong already. People who use air transportation (planes and helicopters) and personal boats are easily worse than people driving cars (or similarly scaled and compared to larger land passenger vehicles)
those are based off the Lotus Elise, which is not cheap in its own right. add in $$$$ worth of Li-ion batteries and $30k is right out the door.
(the Aptera is supposed to be $30k upon introduction... www.aptera.com, mmmmmmmm)
with joe sixpack at the helm try more like 15 mph on flat ground, walking speed on uphill stretches, and a range of 5 miles before getting butt-sore. oh, and used 2 days out of the month due to apathy and laziness.
i commute on a bike whenever possible, don't get me wrong -- i can beat the bus point to point, and that's without accounting for time spent waiting at bus stops. however, it's not a viable option for the unwashed masses.
I saw that. I'm not sure why Chevy won't sell me a Volt yet. An electric car really would fit my bill. I have another nice car for trips. My commute is very short, yet unserviced by buses. It's has a steep hill, lots of potholes, and lots of angry truckers. Not exactly a nice bike ride.
It frustrates me to drive 2mi each way in a gas car.
I'm in the same boat. You can do an electric conversion fairly easily on an older car. I'm kind of considering it but I have little more than a dirt driveway and some handtools. By your username I'd guess your better equipped. You can buy a converted vehicle too, price will depend on top speed and range.
http://www.ev-america.com/
Maybe the lesson here is that nothing will change if we're apathetic and lazy. We'll continue to focus on overpriced, overengineered, wasteful machines that do very little to fix our issues at hand.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that alternative transportation solutions are a lot simpler than electric/diesel/hybrid/etc stuff (which aren't solutions anyway), and are based in people caring about the consequences of their lifestyles and changing the way they live, like riding a bike even if it isn't a "viable option".
Man, I am bitter today!