http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...0/BAVBRG1C4.DTL Bay Area zero-emission advocates got their first test ride Thursday on a zippy new all-electric motor scooter that can take two commuters on a silent freeway ride that will cost them just pennies in electrical power. The plug-in hybrid automobile crowd, in the news these days because of advances in the technology of fuel-efficient hybrids, gathered at San Francisco's Presidio to see the latest wrinkle in emission-free transportation - an electric motor scooter called the Vectrix that can whiz along at 60 miles an hour. At $11,000, the Vectrix may be a bit pricey, but it is a first of sorts and it will probably appeal to the same high-income people who have ordered the $100,000 all-electric Tesla sports car. "We want to get to the right consumer demographics," said Jeff Morrill, Vectrix's managing director for marketing. "It's for urban commuting, and it targets environmentalists, active (electric power) enthusiasts." One of those was Marc Geller, a San Francisco photographer who owns a rare all-electric Toyota RAV4. He said of the Vectrix: "I've ridden it and it's fantastic. It's all about the (electric) plug and environmental concerns, petroleum concerns. I think it's totally cool, compared to that noisy piece of crap."
One of my favorite discovery channel people, The Reverend Gadget, did a retro of a BMW motorcycle, granted his has some great fabrication skills/tools so that probably explained a lot. http://reverendgadget.com/subpage1.html He seems to use lead acid batteries too.
Hi Darreldd, Was it really as noisey as on the video on your site? Sounded like allot of straight-cut gear noise. I have been waiting to see this come to production since reading about it in Design News a year or two ago. If the maintenance is lowered by the EV sufficiently, $12 K might work, but it will be a slow process of proving this out to the public. Motorcycles and scooters are constant maintenance concern. Chain, struts, cables and the usual stuff that is also on cars. Looks like they did away with the chain, which is great. Now if the regen is good at saving the brakes, they might have a winner. The range is the thing I thing needs improving. People that do 30 to 35 miles a day on it will cycle the battery deeply, unless they can get a charge in at work.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(donee @ Oct 14 2007, 01:23 PM) [snapback]525505[/snapback]</div> If I were riding it next to a gas motorcycle, you would not have heard the scooter. There were really no other sounds, so the automatic gain on the camera mic increased the noise. You can hear it certainly. But barely while riding. Bystanders hear it more. The gears are planetary. The variable regen is fantastic, and there is simply nothing on the bike besides brakes and tires that would need maintenance. It is truly plug and play. Did I mention that the regen is fantastic? Mostly people say this about every EV. Unless you ride it on the freeway, 35 miles wouldn't tax the battery capacity. And even driving it down to zero regularly shouldn't be an issue. We do this with our Rav4EVs all the time (same battery chemistry) and we've got drivers with 130,000 miles with no loss of range.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(donee @ Oct 14 2007, 01:23 PM) [snapback]525505[/snapback]</div> <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Oct 14 2007, 03:37 PM) [snapback]525543[/snapback]</div> I believe what you are hearing is wind in the microphone. You can also hear the very quiet whirr of the cycle itself.
I remember one of the guys from New Generation Motors wanted to build a motor cycle using their NGM solar car hub motors, back in 1995. This motor was designed to be in wheel hub of a solar electric racer, while it never achieved efficiency of say the Honda Dream's motor it was decent... and an off the shelf product for many college solar car teams. The motorcycle design would have been crazy... but hell simple... All the math worked, except the economics... about $15000 for the motor and controller... Of course if the motor had been widely mass produced, the cost would have been closer to $3000. (The rare earth permanent magnets would have been expensive regardless.) So good that someone is thinking EV bike... until battery tech catches up, EV bike fit the engineering math...
