Anyone up for a Norton Electric in 2-3 years

Most E bikes have much less than 155 mile range. The newest Zero tested in this months Bike magazine has around 75 mile range when ridden hard.

And it costs £22k.

Considering you have to get home after each ride, that means ridding your £22k bike no more than 30-40 miles from home unless you KNOW you can charge en route for 2 hours.

Exactly how much environmental impact is reduced by such usage ??

I just don’t see how anyone can call this viable, either as a motorcycle or as a means to reduce emissions?

It’s a toy for those who like the tech. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But a £22k motorcycle that can’t reliably go more than 40 miles from home cannot be called a viable motorcycle IMO.

Current EV tech is comparable to the floppy disc age. Battery and charging tech needs to leap forward a lot, comparable to the super chip stage, before we get true viability. And we need to solve the ‘elephant in the room’ which is the base level of electric generation.

Meanwhile, the ICE is the most efficient, cleanest, most refined it has ever been. And they’re 100% recyclable !
 
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'...Meanwhile, the ICE is the most efficient, cleanest, most refined it has ever been. And they’re 100% recyclable !'

It's just a shame the fashion these days is to buy the biggest thing out there, regardless of whether you need the capacity of a small bus or lorry :-(
 
Fast Eddie said:
Most E bikes have much less than 155 mile range. The newest Zero tested in this months Bike magazine has around 75 mile range when ridden hard.

And it costs £22k.

Considering you have to get home after each ride, that means ridding your £22k bike no more than 30-40 miles from home unless you KNOW you can charge en route for 2 hours.

Exactly how much environmental impact is reduced by such usage ??
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Well, don't ride it hard! :)

The newest Zero SR models offer a 227 mile city range according to the vendor (which necessitates the Power Tank upgrade, available this spring).

A friend of mine bought one of the large Zero versions, I am not sure which, some 18 months ago. He manages a round trip of 180 km (112 miles) without charging at an average speed of 44 mph. Not very impressive of course.

Charging from 0 to 95% takes less than an hour using a power charger. In this country (Norway), finding a charger is simple (except there may be a queue).

Hey, resting at the curb side eating sausages while waiting for the charging cycle to complete doesn't impact the environment .... except for the livestock and the frying oil of course.

I think the bike was conceived for Californian commuters.

As for the toy statement, few bikers use their ICE powered vehicle for commuting or making holiday trips these days, so I guess the bike is a toy to most bikers, irrespective of age.

- Knut
 
MAK said:
Speaking to person in Belgium who is actually on this site who’s job was in electrical distribution said the the system can’t cope and the cables will melt under the ground!!
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I can assure you this guy is talking rubbish. If there is a power shortage, the network will either shut down or trickle the supply.
Some charging stations rely on battery banks which are recharged at a slower pace during nighttime. This trend will probably progress, as the current power network isn't sized for industrial loads and vehicle charging loads occuring concurrently.

Deployment of charging stations will speed up as demand grows. In many countries, the government has taken a back seat position, allowing private venture to sort things out. This is not a working strategy, and has led to a myriad of incompatible payment options,
Tesla's network exempted.

So, you may question the environmental friendliness of constructing power banks. I can't wait to see a life cycle environment impact study of this development.

- Knut
 
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mdt-son said:
I can assure you this guy is talking rubbish. If there is a power shortage, the network will either shut down or trickle the supply.
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This is correct.
I worked for an electric utility for 40+ years, and there were instances where aluminum power lines were installed underground. On hot, high load summer days, some of these power cables did actually melt inside their concrete conduits. This vaporized the rubber insulation, and the carbon monoxide produced got past the seals on building walls and produced dangerous CO levels for occupants. The company ended use of aluminum feeders because of this. When copper feeders overheat, generally the splices between sections of the cable fail, explosively, disconnecting the feeder from its supply, so no melting occurs.

Today, since the introduction of electric network controls, the control system can detect areas that are drawing too much power, and these sections will be "browned out", or power will be reduced to avoid a failure on the network.
 
mdt-son said:
Well, don't ride it hard! :)

The newest Zero SR models offer a 227 mile city range according to the vendor (which necessitates the Power Tank upgrade, available this spring).

A friend of mine bought one of the large Zero versions, I am not sure which, some 18 months ago. He manages a round trip of 180 km (112 miles) without charging at an average speed of 44 mph. Not very impressive of course.

Charging from 0 to 95% takes less than an hour using a power charger. In this country (Norway), finding a charger is simple (except there may be a queue).

Hey, resting at the curb side eating sausages while waiting for the charging cycle to complete doesn't impact the environment .... except for the livestock and the frying oil of course.

I think the bike was conceived for Californian commuters.

As for the toy statement, few bikers use their ICE powered vehicle for commuting or making holiday trips these days, so I guess the bike is a toy to most bikers, irrespective of age.

- Knut
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Motorcycle sales are up and you need to visit Italy or Germany to see for yourself how many bikes are used for holidays and commuting. Every day is a bike day.
 
BritTwit said:
This is correct.
I worked for an electric utility for 40+ years, and there were instances where aluminum power lines were installed underground. On hot, high load summer days, some of these power cables did actually melt inside their concrete conduits. This vaporized the rubber insulation, and the carbon monoxide produced got past the seals on building walls and produced dangerous CO levels for occupants. The company ended use of aluminum feeders because of this. When copper feeders overheat, generally the splices between sections of the cable fail, explosively, disconnecting the feeder from its supply, so no melting occurs.

Today, since the introduction of electric network controls, the control system can detect areas that are drawing too much power, and these sections will be "browned out", or power will be reduced to avoid a failure on the network.
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But how can reduced power output to a factory be viable if it needs full power for a particular operation.
 
MAK said:
But how can reduced power output to a factory be viable if it needs full power for a particular operation.
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That's a whole different argument.
Power reduction to avoid massive system failure is often the only alternative to a long term power interruption.
It can take a utility days, or sometimes weeks to repair a large scale failure that takes out power transformers and multiple sections of underground conductors.
How much production would be interrupted then?

The unfortunate reality today is that our (world over) power grids are not up to the needs of transitioning from fossil power to renewable sources just yet. Forcing the transition before its time is going to cause a great deal of hardship on society. But the political will on the left seems intent on forcing this change ASAP regardless.

Unless there is some common sense injected into the transition process we are likely to be forced into a world of power shortages, "brown outs", or rolling black outs like folks in California experience today. Even Elon Musk has come out to say that we will need carbon fuels for the foreseeable future to successfully transition to a fully renewable energy future.

I put much more credence in his opinion than that of screwy left-wing political hacks.
 
Just thought I'm post some specs from the Zero Motorcycle site.
Their most optimistic figures are for city driving, low speeds and lots of braking regenerative charging.
You can see the effect of 70mph use has on battery range.

Standard Extended PowerTank
(15.6kWh) (17.3kWh) (20.9)
City 169 187 227

HyWy (55mph) 103 114 139

Combined 128 141 172

Hywy (70mph) 84 93 113

Combined 112 124 151

I haven't ridden the newest Zeros, but I did ride one in 2010 at Americade at Lake George, NY. It had the extended long range battery good for 170 miles, at the time. It was quick, and did great low speed wheelies, but was no lightweight, and also top heavy around town. I assume due to the extended range battery.

With time they will improve, but as of now I don't think they are an effective all-around replacement for an ICE motorcycle.
Though I think they do/will have their place, or niche in the pantheon of motorcycles.
 
Looks like the screen editor doesn't like TAB settings.
Reformatted data:

________________Standard___Extended____PowerTank
_______________(15.6kWh)___(17.3kWh)___(20.9kWh)
City_____________169________187__________227

HyWy (55mph) _103________114__________139

Combined _______128_______141_________172

Hywy (70mph) ___84 ________93__________113

Combined________112_______124_________151
 
Bike magazine said that ‘cracking on a bit’ got 70 miles. The testers ‘normal riding’ got 95 miles. A 95% charge took just over 2 hours on a ‘type two, three phase charging point.

And this was a positive article, look at the headlines…

Anyone up for a Norton Electric in 2-3 yearsAnyone up for a Norton Electric in 2-3 years
 
This conversation is pretty interesting and entirely dependent on where you live of course. Australia remains heavily fossil fuel reliant and there has been a great deal of political opposition to expediting renewables, although things are changing - slowly. This is despite having a climate ideally suited to renewables - we have a lot of sunshine, wind, water and waves. Regardless of being such a resource/climate rich country we are currently going through a power crisis on the East coast with talk of blackouts - you have to ask how that can happen!

As a result of this approach we have also been extremely slow, in comparison to European countries for example, to adopt EV technology. There are car options over here but they are relatively few and cost prohibitive for most. Only 1% of new car sales in Aus are EV, Norway is up to 50%.

The added difficulty here of course is the tyranny of distance. Australia a BIG place (I know because I’ve ridden around it - it took me 42 days) albeit that about 90% of the population live in approx 5% of the land mass! The average Aussie would think nothing of driving from Melbourne to Sydney (900 km) but is totally unwilling to live any more than 40 mins from a city centre. So you would have thought an electric commuter vehicle would be a perfect solution. The transition to EV’s is inevitable and despite this Aus has very few targets or policies in place. I suspect we will drag our heels over the line eventually. I note that we don’t even make the list.

6411FDBB-4DE4-4B46-906B-48D0068BF551.jpeg


I have a lot of biking mates and acquaintances and I don’t know anybody that commutes by bike. I’m in a regional area though, I suspect many would opt to do so in the cities to avoid urban congestion. For me though I won’t ride without full protective gear so during the long warmer months the lure of the car aircon is pretty strong.
 
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I think Ewan McGregor proved some of the electrical bike issues. I think they showed some of the charging issues but I would bet that the truck-mounted charging took place more often and more frequently than they really showed.

We service Zero here at the shop. They are a great commuter bike as long as you have some good charging options on both ends. Zero backs up the batteries for 5 years.

The real problem is when you leave them outside in the sun. Even on an 80deg day temps measured on the pack exceeds 95 so parking in the shade helps minimize issues. Zero says anything above 95 harms the packs. So think about riding in 95 deg and then the heat from the pack draining from use.

And remember when you run out of gas you can get a gallon. When you run out of power how many tow trucks are carrying generators to get you going?
 
City Garage said:
Zero backs up the batteries for 5 years.
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Wow, 5 years! What happens them?
If you have to replace the battery after 5 years do they give you a break on the price of new units?
Damn, That could get expensive, think about it, if you drop the bike in an accident and possibly damage the battery.
 
BritTwit said:
Wow, 5 years! What happens them?
If you have to replace the battery after 5 years do they give you a break on the price of new units?
Damn, That could get expensive, think about it, if you drop the bike in an accident and possibly damage the battery.
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Exactly!
Imagine the perception if a manufacture said their IC engines needed replacing every 5 years !?

And what’s the long term environmental impact of this?

As I said earlier, modern IC engines last virtually indefinitely, and when they are scrap, they are 100% recyclable.

I know I sound anti EV, but I’m really not. It’s just that we seem to be being fed a very biased narrative rather than looking at the situation objectively.
 
The whole rush to EV's is being pushed by the environmental lobbyists around the world. There will be a benefit to reducing vehicle emissions of course, but no technology should be rushed into production simply to satisfy activists.

EV's have come a long way since GM in the US introduced an electric car in the 1970's. It was terrible compared to the typical ICE vehicles in use then. Very limited range on lead acid batteries. The batteries were actually car batteries wired together, and weighted a ton, actually a TON. Charging took forever and the mileage was I believe, 70 miles. Of course there were no charging stations back then, so if you ran out of charge on the street or road, you would have to arrange a pick-up to get your vehicle home.

Today the EV's are more capable and charging opportunities are more available, but to my way of thinking, they still have a way to go before they can replace the overall utility of an ICE vehicle. Included in this is our electric grid which will have to be upgraded significantly to accommodate the needs of a fully electric vehicle society. All of this is in the future, and will not happen tomorrow, or next year, or.....

A few years ago I read an article about Porsche proposing to return to F1 racing if the FIA would agree to a rules change that required the use of Net Zero carbon fuels in competition. At the time I thought this was ridiculous because there were no such fuels. Since then, I have read several other articles in Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine about this very topic. Apparently, the aerospace industry has been working on developing economical methods of refining carbon neutral fuels from several types of biomass materials. It has been a joint effort between the Department of Defense, aerospace companies, US commercial airlines, and oil companies. The effort has been underway for over 10 years. The first step is to develop fuels for air transport, and military use called SAF, or Sustainable Aviation Fuel. The next steps are to develop other fuels for internal combustion use such as gasoline, and diesel fuel. All from sustainable sources - which means non-petroleum sources. The materials used are biomass which absorb carbon from the environment as they grow, then when they are processed and burned, the same carbon is released back into the environment, so no net increase of carbon in the environment, it's carbon neutral.

So the point here is that with carbon neutral fuels on the horizon, the reduction of petroleum use and carbon production, may also reduce the need to rush ICE vehicles off the roads in favor of EV's, that are really not ready for the job yet.
 
BritTwit said:
Wow, 5 years! What happens them?
If you have to replace the battery after 5 years do they give you a break on the price of new units?
Damn, That could get expensive, think about it, if you drop the bike in an accident and possibly damage the battery.
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It does get expensive you can be 8k or more depending on battery option, power tank, etc

That's the electric problem, right?
 
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