Third e-bike to line up for 'zero-emission' TT sprint

As the date of the world's first “zero-emission” bike race - the TTxGP - approaches, news of another machine that will line up alongside the Mission One and possibly the TTx01. Oregon-based Brammo has announced on Twitter that it will bring its Enertia e-bike to the annual Manx two-wheel thrash and take part in the world's …

[Sooty]

when

are the numpties who design these things always insist on making them into something no biker would be seen dead on.

would a tiny bit of street cred kill them?

[Sean]

Not a bad looking machine...

I'm guessing the perfromance numbers will need to be adjusted down for the aluminum model though, since it's sure to be a few pounds heavier...

Get back to me when the range hits a couple hundred kms, it might be useful at that point.

Stop sign because with those numbers, I won't be going for long...

[Kenny Millar]

Eh?

So why does it have brakes and not an energy recovery system instead?

[Pete James]

Nice, but.....

Yet again, too exxpensive. Being electric powered is not a good enough reason for being priced so high.

I quite like it but I'll stick to my Ducati Monster thanks.

[Ian W]

Fourth bike actually

You missed the EV-0RR that did the rounds a couple of weeks ago...

http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2009/03/09/ev-0-rr-ttxgp-zero-carbon-fuel-gp-motorcycle/

More up Sooty's street I predict

[Brian Miller]

Really whats the point?

125cc bikes can go over 70mph (like a lot over). get 100mpg or so and can be bought new for £2600. They have a range of over 100 miles. They tend to look cool, and road tax is like £15 a year, insurance for old hands is ~ £70 a year.

Tell me where there is a useful improvement that I should spend 3-4 times the cost for inferior performance to a little tiny 125cc.

Charge at home I presume? Seeing as there aren't that many filling stations that will let your plug in. I am so pissed off that they canceled the real TT race. I only got my big bike license last year and now it's bloody gone.

I hope that the few journo's and misguided engineers that have put there efforts into pre-mature tech with no real possibility to compete successfully, really enjoy their time at the empty inns hotels and bars that will see no action this year.

[Trev]

Are they secretly trying to kill electric?

I'm sure they could at the very least take something like a BMW or similar base and just change the engine to the electric motor. Also couldn't they make the electric motor look like a proper petrol one even if it's actually a plastic case, and possibly add the noise via computers? That might actually sell even if it didn't have any genuine power, eg: town use.

Agree with the comment about brakes too considering they do this on petrol cars.

Wacko theory - maybe it's not secretly the oil companies trying to discredit electric, but is actually the aliens from Independence Day waiting for us to create the perfect CO/2 atmosphere and then take over the world....maybe.

[Chris C]

Can't... stop... laughing...

Wow. This might just take the cake for the most useless piece of shit ever. First, it's UGLY. No biker would be caught dead on that thing. Actually, that's the ONLY way a biker would be caught on it -- dead, because no biker would voluntarily get on that thing. But even more horrific is the maximum range. Are you kidding? Forty-five miles?!? Regardless of recharge time, no biker would even consider getting a bike with a maximum range of 45 miles. It's just not going to happen. That's less than an hour of riding. Has this company ever spoken to a biker to find out WHY they own a bike in the first place? It's not just a way to get from point A to point B, but that's all this thing is good for, and probably not even that.

[Red Bren]

Does it have gears?

If it doesn't have gears, it isn't a bike, it's a scooter!

[Scott]

Why "sport/touring" bikes?

Why do they make all these awful looking bikes on the assumption that people will want to trade in their CBR-600RR for one? They should just work for the moped scooter market which is better suited for these shorter range first gen bikes, and I would imagine their desing would leave more room for batteries under the seat

[Anonymous Coward]

Not bad, but could be better

I agree it looks a bit bland - no reason to do this as more aggressive designs would be no more expensive. And, no, I wouldn't be seem dead on one, even if I do like the technology.

As for cost - sure it's more expensive to buy since the technology is new - we're still in "early adopter" territory as far as the market goes, and will be for quite a while yet. But, keep in mind that the running costs would be bugger all.

Actually, I think it's something our very fine Moderatrix (Sarah) would look good straddling .........

[s]

Spectacular Fail

Just like most of the electric cars this just does not seem a valid replacement for a real bike...

15000 = 3 or 4 of my current SV650's, whilst having less than a 1/4 of the range and a 0-40 of nearly double a real bikes 0-60...

Price of a Duke with looks and performance of a hair dryer, sorry moped...

Be prepared for the worlds most boring race...

[Eugene Goodrich]

Weight figure for composite vs. metal frame

Is the 280 pounds weight figure the composite-frame version of the aluminum-frame version, or are they the same? (I would imagine it's unlikely they're the same, but I have to ask.)

And while I'm here, I might as well ask, is the quoted weight dry or wet? ;)

Paris, because ... well, it's not polite, but you see where I was going.

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Range

With the short range of this 'thing' I suppose you could assume it's targetted at City dwellers. That being the case, what's with the wing mirrors? They'd be off in the first 5 minutes filtering through the City.

Oh, and it looks like shit.

[Frank Kerrigan]

Too slow and not very usefully.

The range is poor and it looks like something you'd get free with cornflakes.

Report: must try harder.

[Eponymous Cowherd]

No, no, no.

Almost £7k for the equivalent of a 125 'learner' bike?

No.

Almost £7k to look like a complete nob while riding it?

No.

Almost £7K to dribble to a halt after only 35 miles?

No.

[Paul A. Walker]

let's not be too harsh...

...remember how crappy and impractical the early petrol bikes were - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildebrand_&_Wolfm%C3%BCller They'll get there in a few years, especially if they keep racing them.

[Patrick Slattery]

nope

€14k ? Why bother? It would cost a bomb to charge. I'll stick to my XR, costs €5 a week to run.

[Ash]

Or...

... for half the price you can get a Suzuki SV650, Honda CB600, or Suzuki Bandit with double the range, double the speed, and very nice looking bikes. Hell, you could spend the savings on all the mods for any of those bikes and end up with something that is a dream to ride, and didn't cost stupid money.

Or, buy a small car for winter too.

[Matt W]

Bah

The hydrogen ENV looked a far better prospect of getting anywhere near the energy density required for real utility.

http://www.intelligent-energy.com/index_article.asp?SecID=5&secondlevel=76&artid=3949

[Anonymous Coward]

Well

@Kenny Millar

Regenerative braking would be incredibly heavy and so the ratio of unsprung to sprung weight would be unacceptably high.

@Sooty

I'm a biker (that's biker not motorcyclist) and it looks OK to me, it kind of harks back to Andy Sparrow's Bloodrunners. The styling is quite clever, it manages to look a lot better with a rider than without. The major problem they have going for real bike styling rather than plastic fantastic is the lack of an engine. With a naked bike the engine is usually an integral part of the look.

@Sean

Couldn't agree more on the range. What on earth is the point of a machine with a range that short? It's right on the limit of getting me to work and back, in fact so close to the limit that I wouldn't trust it. I suppose the only advantage of such a small battery is that the charge time will be short.

And finally...

Those chunky tyres may add to the look, but on a machine that is obviously intended for short urban hops they are totally unecessary. Somthing slimmer would no doubt improve the range. So many EV's seem to come with style installed as a major component with functionality following far behind.

[Neil Hoskins]

Request

Maybe you could put the prices of these spectacularly stupid vehicles right at the beginning of the news item so that we don't need to read any further.

[TeeCee]

What a good idea?

I was just thinking that it was about time that they addressed the appalling emissions problem from small, highly-efficient petrol engines.

Especially since we've completely eliminated all those 10+ litre diesels in trucks, buses and trains that used to go around belching huge clouds of smog-inducing toxic exhaust products everywhere.........oh......hang on......

Someone remind of the the reason for this bloody stupid thing again?

[Ed Blackshaw]

I'm sorry but

That costs more than 10 times what I paid for my Fazer, wouldn't get you to the shops and back and would get you laughed off the road by a 16 year-old kiddie on even the worlds most chavved up 50cc scooter.

[Ed Blackshaw]

@Red Bren

It's electric and slow too, so it's not just a scooter, it's a mobility scooter! Expect to see it being ridden the wrong way down a dual carriageway by an alzheimers' patient any time soon!

[Anonymous Coward]

@Patrick Slattery

> "It would cost a bomb to charge."

Actually, no. Electric vehicles are very cheap to charge (compared to the petrol/diesel equivalent, per km driven). That's half the point of EV's, whether bikes or cars - zero emissions, obviously, but also cheap to run (from low charge cost and from less maintenance).

[Jon G]

Zero emissions ????

...and what about the amount of carbon put out during the design, test, manufacture and supply of the bikes......????

[Steve]

@ Patrick Slattery: "It would cost a bomb to charge"

40p!

Less than half of that on E7

Where do you get your bombs from?

[Steve]

@ AC 23rd March 2009 10:12 GMT

"Regenerative braking would be incredibly heavy and so the ratio of unsprung to sprung weight would be unacceptably high."

Why do you assume the regenerative mechanism would be unsprung? Why wouldn't you simply turn the drive motor into a dynamo?

@ Kenny Millar

I suspect the disk brake could be in case the electric braking fails or is used when one needs to stop sharpish.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Steve

"Why do you assume the regenerative mechanism would be unsprung? Why wouldn't you simply turn the drive motor into a dynamo?"

The drive motor drives the rear wheel. Try taking a muddersickle or indeed a push iron up to a gentle speed, say 20mph, and hitting the back brake alone. You won't decelerate much, but you will wear a hefty chunk out of your rear tyre. There's no easy way of connecting the drive motor to the front wheel. Any such solution would be expensive add weight and complexity (ask Colin Chapman about that) and impair the steering and handling. So the other option would be to put a dynamo/generator in the front wheel. Which would add considerable unsprung weight and probably really crank up the gyroscopic precession - that is to say it would really twat with your steering at any reasonable speed.

Any other questions.

[Steve]

@AC

I've already addressed that comment. To reiterate: the regenerative mechanism would not be useful for hard braking, that’s what the front disk is for. For 99% of deceleration events, rear wheel braking will suffice. Also, the rear wheel need not lock, the dynamo load characteristic wouldn’t allow it (dynamo torque falls off with low revs, unlike a brake where the torque remains constant).

To summarise:

- Rear brake for soft braking and regeneration, has inherent non-skid function (better than ABS), is sprung.

- Front brake for hard braking using a light disk only (regeneration from the front is a false economy).

Almost just like when normally riding a bike.

Any other points you need answering?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Steve

"For 99% of deceleration events, rear wheel braking will suffice."

I agree that *some* regerative affect would be usuable when decelerating on the throttle, but once you actually need the brakes in normal riding then you will use the front brake more than the rear.

[Steve]

@ AC

That's only true for hard braking. For non-hard braking, practically *all* of the kinetic energy can be harvested for reuse via the rear linkage.

The eco-rider will have to accept that maximising the regenerative potential will require forward planning to avoid hard braking. It's not perfect and may take some getting used to, but it can work (safely) and it can work very well - with practically no overhead.

I question the sanity of those who want to buy and ride a leccy bike yet desire to always brake hard and avoid the regenerative benefits the leccy bike can bring.