Electric bikes and cars - get real

[Trev]

Every insurer just about will insure EVs, and mine is way cheaper than my old X5. I have the BMW i3. Best car I ever owned. £2.70 for 80 miles of charge, 170bhp instant torque on tap (you won't lose the traffic light GP). oh, and batteries warranted for 8 years.

Is that the latest 'longer range' model? I'm seriously considering for next year and would be interested to hear more from someone owning/using one rather than a journo testing one; realistic range, how long it takes to charge, ride and handling compared to previous cars, road noise/refinement at A road speeds, etc

[V_King]

Right I am going to call it out, all this press coverage on electric motor cars and now motorcycles, what has the world been smoking!!!!!

Electricity, produced mostly by burning fossil fuels and nuclear power, so what is cleaner petrol powered cars/motorbikes or fossil/nuclear powered cars/motorbikes, well nuclear never disappears, you bury it and it is still there in over a 100 years later smouldering and poisoning the earth and then you have fossil fuels creating more pollution than any petrol car ever can, so please please stop this madness, electric cars and bikes are not the solution.

Rant over and off to fill up my petrol powered motorbike. :sick:

with oil extraction, distillation, storage, distribution etc, car tail pipe emissions are roughly three time more of what your car produces if count everything.

depending on the electrical power plant efficiency, the overall electrical mile emissions are half and much less than the petrol depending against what power plant you measure.

there is a discussion regarding the battery manufacturing emissions, but IC engine production hunger for energy are really high.

[-Ralph-]

I know NOTHING about power generation, batteries, manufacturing electric motors, recycling, so I'm going to keep quiet, other than to repeat what I just said on another thread.

Looking at the torque figures on the electric bikes on show at the NEC, they are going to be quite fun to ride.

I'm also taking my son to a local trials event next weekend to see if he's interested in getting started, and looking at bikes for him the Oset 20 seems to be the way ahead, he can set up courses on the driveway and garden and practice without pissing off the neighbours, and I'm sure if he took it down the BMX track at the local park nobody would mind either, though if he did either with a petrol powered one the pitchforks would come out.

[FAT MATT]

I think they have a place. I get the issue with regards mining for the battery materials, I get that mains electric isn't entirely clean and the draw backs of low range, battery life etc.

But vehicles like the Zero DS are a real world option to me. A daily commute of 50 miles round trip is doable. Plus thanks to the likes of Paris it appears all other cities are going to jump on the diesel ban!

[Richard Simpson]

I've ridden the KTM Electric Freeride...and the only thing worse about it than an ICE bike is the range and weight.

Massive power and never in the wrong gear.

[Redmurty]

interesting conversation with a guy in an R and D department of a very large car company.

He said electric cars are basically the way things are going with lots of new cars on the horizon. It was also believed that people will generate their own power through technologies being drawn up now, there will then be a surplus of power and thus it will become basically free.

Battery life and the amount of distance travelled on one charge is climbing, diesels are basically dead or on the death rattle, due to pollution and cities talking about banning diesels.

There will be 5 layers of automation up to the point that cars will be fully automated ie you just get in and tell it where to go and it does everything else. he said that they believe fully automatic cars will be safe but there is concern about the mid level automation because how the human will interact with them causing problems.

Car owner ship will plummet as you will not need to actually own a car just book one for a journey and it will go to another job after you get out. Car ownership will also die out because kids coming up are less interested in cars and driving no longer being a pleasure.

I asked who will be responsible for any type of accident if a car is fully automatic, he believes this will be a stumbling block until manufacturers and insurance companies sort it out.

He was worried about the speed and power of electric cars as the one on the drawing board at the moment are very fast.

cheers Spud

[threepot]

Interesting post Spud. I had a drive in a Tesla S recently at Swansea Airport,and it was impressive! Amazing acceleration..0-60 in about 4.5sec?! Just a little road noise from the tyres. It was like driving something in a computer game. They definitely are the future. A friend has a Nissan Leaf,and he reckons the running costs are minimal using Economy7 during evenings to charge it.

[petecam]

I spend a lot of time travelling and the pollution in many cities is horrific. However I also recently spent a week in London and that seems relatively clean in comparison. I’m not sure how much of that is due to the congestion charge but what I also noticed was the amount of charging points available and in use for electric cars. It was impressive. I also noticed many of the new buses were hybrid.

We have to welcome this with open arms, if not for us for our kids, we need to clean this place up a bit. There are concerns with any new technology and early adopters pay a premium but the more its adopted the cheaper and more reliable the technology gets.

I bet we will see a big change over the next 5-10 years.

Cheers

[Redmurty]

I spend a lot of time travelling and the pollution in many cities is horrific. However I also recently spent a week in London and that seems relatively clean in comparison. I’m not sure how much of that is due to the congestion charge but what I also noticed was the amount of charging points available and in use for electric cars. It was impressive. I also noticed many of the new buses were hybrid.

We have to welcome this with open arms, if not for us for our kids, we need to clean this place up a bit. There are concerns with any new technology and early adopters pay a premium but the more its adopted the cheaper and more reliable the technology gets.

I bet we will see a big change over the next 5-10 years.

Cheers

during the conversation I had we discussed computers doubling power every 18 months, thus driving technology forward and the time span of my above post was likely to be about 15 years.
His main concerns where as he described the transition from each level of automation, other than that the consensus is electric transport is coming!
We discussed "green" cars at present are not much if any cleaner than a small petrol car if you take the generation of the power and the making and disposal of the batteries

I am very lucky as I have a great job, my next client we discussed camping and touring on motorbikes in the late 40's and fifties. I think we call it adventure biking now :whistle:

cheers Spud

[Redmurty]

Interesting post Spud. I had a drive in a Tesla S recently at Swansea Airport,and it was impressive! Amazing acceleration..0-60 in about 4.5sec?! Just a little road noise from the tyres. It was like driving something in a computer game. They definitely are the future. A friend has a Nissan Leaf,and he reckons the running costs are minimal using Economy7 during evenings to charge it.

we discussed noise or lack of it, they had looked at putting a noise generator onto their car and then realise the noise level they had aimed at was louder than small petrol cars now, so the idea quietly died :whistle:

2017 some interesting manufacturers are bring electric cars out hmy: it was a case of oh not them surely :pinch:

cheers Spud