I think saying things like "just can't compete" is clickbait and not a very realistic perspective on the situation.
Electric motorcycles have advantages and disadvantages when compared to gas motorcycles. There are tradeoffs with either choice. Yes, electrics are cooler but you give up significant range. Electric are quiet but some want loud pipes to save their lives. And so on.
Framing the debate as in this headline encourages extremes and absolutes and screaming matches which I do not find helpful.
It doesn’t get cold enough where I dwell to prevent year round riding. After this thread I went shopping and they don’t fit my lifestyle as I’m am adventure rider (completed the Iron Butt 1000 for an idea of what I’m referring to). I like the idea but I’d have to be not a poor to be able to have an extraneous vehicle. As it stands I commute on an electric scooter and I’d rather suicide than have to travel farther than it will get me to my job. I expect in a decade or so they’ll be more feasible and illegal in Florida😉.
100% agree. Soundproofing in modern cars is incredible now. I drive a 12.L basic shitbox and I can’t hear these fucking babies until they’re right beside me. Borrowed a Cayenne the other week and they’re basically inaudible
Loud pipes annoy pedestrians and cyclists. Drivers don’t notice
What makes you think your region is somehow better at that than the other regions? The reality is that you’ll find careless people everywhere. And there is a difference between “very loud chopper shaking windows” which is a dick move, and “motocycle with a regular engine that you can hear”. Electric motorcycles are 100% silent, you only hear the tires. It’s basicaly like encountering a bike on the road. There absolutely needs to be some feedback for people to know about them, especially when they’re overtaking in traffic etc.
Excellent points. I like my bikes quiet so I can go fast and not attract attention, treat other road users as deaf and blind and help yourself stay alive!
Can’t compete at what? Motorcycles are cool and there isn’t anything electric with wheels that’s nearly as cool. You cannot emulate that Harley/Honda sound. Electric bikes can’t compete.
Fast is cool. Electric is cool as hell because it’s fast WITHOUT the obnoxious noise and toxic fumes pumping out the back. Steam engines are kinda cool. Bullet trains are fucking awesome. Get out of the 20th century guy.
The moment Europe gets its shit together and implemented a standardized charger, with governments then enforcing its use and maybe subsidizing existing gas stations to offer quick charge options so we have a somewhat dense charge network, I’ll immediately switch. Electric bikes are superior in every way except range.
I don’t have a car anymore, the bike is for fun, not for sensibility. But I drive fast and do weeks-long trips and wild-camping. Impossible to do with electric bikes. My real range of bikes advertising 150km is closer to 60-70km, and I don’t use highways: but hard accelerating and braking on curvy country roads kills range.
Temperature doesn’t come into this at all. With the right gear, neither summer heat but winter freeze is really a problem.
Eh, a motorbike isn't going to be as comfy as a car with an AC regardless of whether it's electric or gas powered. Vented gear and lighter colors can help a lot in the summer, but they don't look as cool and people would rather scorch in black gear and be almost invisible at night apparently.
I've seen a much greater adoption of EVs in my area once the range started becoming decent enough, along with the prices and the greater availability of charging stations. And I figure the same will happen with motorbikes. Electric scooters are already super popular in the city. They're cheap, they allow you to skip traffic, and the range is decent enough for short commutes. Once there's bigger motorbikes with a decent enough range and decent prices, people will buy them as well.
There's something that bothers me about the whole EV transition thing which is how polluting the transition itself is - if I have a newish gas powered car, that took a lot of resources to build, am I really saving the environment by buying a new EV, which will cost even more resources? Ideally, it would be people with really old very polluting cars switching to EVs - but because of the cost of EVs, I notice it's mostly people with bigger purchasing power switching to EVs - people who often already had fairly new and efficient gas vehicles which could keep running for a little longer without as much harm to the environment. I have a not that old medium CC four-stroke motorbike, with a low fuel consumption and supposedly fairly low pollutant output. Even if a decent alternative EV exists and I switch to it, how long do I have to ride the EV before the polution benefits of the EV in comparison to my current bike outweigh the pollution cost of building it in the first place?
To answer your question, the purchasing power people’s old car isn’t destroyed, it is bought by the people with older cars updating. The more ev’s bought, the more supply in the 2nd hand market and cheaper 2nd hand cars to move further away from older polluting cars. This is one time where trickle down works.
That makes sense. Though I would like to see stats on number of cars going into the used car because of EV purchases. Judging on conversations with work colleagues, there's still a lot of people keeping their old cars around because of "autonomy fear" - in other words, people convincing themselves they need a 400Km autonomy for that one time a year they might use their car on a vacation. Which is stupid, IMO, as they'd benefit more from selling their cars and renting on the rare occasion they need to do a really long distance, but it's apparently fairly common. Though I'm sure that will change once people realize they are mostly not touching their old cars.
That’s partly why I’m trying to keep my little 80s Suzuki running, which I commute on. The raw material going into a new bike, as well as energy in the processing, is tremendous.
But without a catalytic converter etc, the suzi is undoubtedly working against my daily job at a green energy research company, not to mention that moto tech has evolved very much in the past 40+ years.
I’m going to go electric, but I’ve unfortunately gotta save a bit, and wait till this bike breaks. Till then, moderate amount of maintenance and a low-quality bike experience in comparison to what’s out there now.
Sorry bro. I’m getting up in years myself. So long as we live a meaningful life, no regrets eh?
I was WOT on the highway the other day, this electric blue Hayabusa pulls up next to me, we wave and then he peels off, fucking stunningly fast and he’s on the horizon… Still happy with my bike, she’s mine and I customized her just right.
Motorcycles are greener than cars anyway. Less wear on the road, less traffic jam influence, fewer parking spaces, fewer materials to produce and maintain, etc. Am fairly confident you 40 year old motorcycle is far greener than a new EV. Sure, EV will eventually offset its own manufacturing and material cost, but it will take a while, especially if we take into consideration where the electricity comes from.
if I have a newish gas powered car, that took a lot of resources to build, am I really saving the environment by buying a new EV, which will cost even more resources?
There have been a bunch of studies on this over the years, with different conclusions depending on the bounds of the question. For example, does the car you get rid of actually leave the market, are you replacing a beater or a decent car, what sort of car is replacing it (hybrid, plug-in hybrid, standard range EV, long range EV). I think (without double checking the actual studies) that the answer is that if you replace an ICE car with a standard range EV, and keep it for like 10 years, you are better off.
The shame is that the studies always force a particular perspective onto the question: should you replace one car with another? I would bet that the best solution is to keep the ICE car, but get an electric motorcycle or moped, and use that for every situation possible, and save the ICE car for rare situations that actually need the range or size.
EV manufacturers love to promote their vehicles as “better for the environment”, but they are really only “better” than ICE cars.
The unfortunate thing in your case is that apparently motorcycles are worse than cars in terms of emissions. Yes, the fuel efficiency is higher, but cars have better combustion and catalytic converters, so they produce less of the really potent greenhouse gases than motorcycles. I only learned that recently.
You raise some good points. I find that it's hard to find information on the topic as a whole because a lot of sources have fairly big biases - either pro or anti EVs - which often times aren't very transparent. And also because you usually have to dig deep to find an example that fits your situation. For example, on the topic of your last paragraph, when comparing cars to motorcycles, what's a "car"? Are we talking about a two seat Clio or a four seat family wagon? It gets even worse with motorcycles given the big variety of engine configurations.
Some years ago I read something similar to your last point - that in general, motorcycles produce a fair amount more greenhouse gases than an average car. More recently I've come upon an article that tested different motorcycles with different CCs and engine configurations and the results were a lot more nuanced. They mentioned that 2 stroke motorcycles were basically awful in terms of how much greenhouse gases they released. 4 stroke motorcycles, on the other hand, were comparable to a small car. Small and medium CC 4 stroke motorcycles would win out against the average car in terms of emissions, whereas bigger CC 4 stroke motorcycles would emit slightly more greenhouse gases than the average car.
For dual sport / trail bikes, electric motorcycles get about 70 mile real world range if you’re lucky. A gasoline powered bike can get three times that, easy. But I love how quiet electric bikes are, great for trail riding.
It is a safe assumption that if you notice engine noise on anything made since 1960 either the muffler has worn out, or someone has replaced it with something loud.
It is a safe assumption that if you notice engine noise on anything made since 1960 either the muffler has worn out, or someone has replaced it with something loud.
Uh… have you heard any Harley, ever? No, they’re not obnoxiously loud like the shitbags can make them, but they’re not quiet by any means.
It depends on what kind of rider you are and how far you want to go, but more importantly how fast you want to accelerate and how fast you want to go at top speed.
I was in Germany recently on the autobahn and I noticed just so very many Teslas sitting in the middle lane while we overtook them for miles and miles I just kept seeing them.
I asked my brother in law how come these Teslas are being overtaken by us in our turbo diesel when they are so fast and he said to me that it is because their range is so limited that although they can go fast they have to sit in that middle lane, and can’t use their capabilities, otherwise they will run out of power, and won’t be able to get to their destination.
So the same thing will apply to these motorcycles. If you’re a kind of guy that wants to do 300 or 400 kilometres in a day around mountain ranges and really giving it some then an electric bike is not going to be for you.
I think, waiting for actual experience reports is going to be better. The air resistance of a bike is lower, so the effects of going faster are reduced. Of course, though, the battery is going to be smaller, so maybe it still requires optimizing fuel efficiency as much as possible.
Bikes are not very aerodynamic. A car has much better airflow because everything is enclosed. Of course bikes do have less front end area and so they do fairly well, but a good car isn't far behind despite being much larger.
I wrote a post a couple of weeks back covering some of your concerns. You can find it here.
Specifically, even with coal as a source, EVs are cleaner anywhere from a few months to under 2 years. Some cars are built carbon neutral like my ID.3, the ID.4 and I believe Kias
I guess I wasn’t really discussing the economical or environmental benefits or negatives of either of the types of vehicles. I was more describing that somebody who likes to ride, and ride hard, will probably not want one as it won’t have the range that they require under load. Exactly as my experience seeing the Teslas sitting in the slow lane in Germany demonstrate.
From my experience of using an electric car, I do go slightly slower on the highway than when I was using a ICE.
Not because of range anxiety, the electric charging network is well developed in France so finding a place to charge has never been an issue so far.
No, it’s because when you get an electric car you start being way more conscious about how much energy you are using and the energy usage difference between 130km/h and 110km/h is quite significant for not a big difference in time.
Haha. I get it. It’s a company car though. As many are. The corporation pays the fuel bill. So the vehicle has to be able to perform like that for many, many km. And it does. There will be a change coming for sure, but right now, the EV just can’t do it.
I was not thinking about the cost for the wallet but more for the cost for the environment.
I don’t think using 5 time more energy just to gain few minutes is the best use of limited resources, we are transitioning from a world where resources a considered unlimited to a world where resources are scarce and need to be used appropriately.
So there is a change coming for sure but I expect the change will be more that speed on highways will get lower, few countries are already considering lowering the speed limit on highways.
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