'Green' bikes

[c-m]

I've been seeing a lot of ads these days for 'green' (low emission) economical cars. Ones like the the new 306 that do 66mpg etc...

Cars generally have large petrol tanks and if they now start doing over 50mpg thats a long time before refills.

How is it that a vehicle weighing well over 1000kgs with a larger engine can do more MPG than most bikes.

Do we just have old outdated technology as bike MPG doesn't seem to be improving?

How long until we see more 'green' bikes?
____________________
Motorcycle headlight bulbs and HIDs
Blogging about my bike and trips
https://ridershandbook.com/

[chris-red]

The average bike will make more power per CC than a car you need more fuel for the more power.
____________________
Well, you know what they say. If you want to save the world, you have to push a few old ladies down the stairs.
Skudd:- Perhaps she just thinks you are a window licker and is being nice just in case she becomes another Jill Dando.
WANTED:- Fujinon (Fuji) M42 (Screw on) lenses, let me know if you have anything.

[prawny1]

With bikes being much lighter than cars i would say we could have bikes producing way less emmission and delivering vastly improved mpg if all bikes where made with the environment in mind,

but as many markets do not have emissions tests for bikes, the carbs will be hear to stay for a while longer.

Although carbs are not as precice at metering fuel as injection systems are bikes have improved carbs design way beyond what the car manufacturers did,

As far as comparing bike and car mpg is concerned a method i use is to compare against something 2x the capacity of a bike with a similar purpose.

A carbed bandit 600 will average about 49mpg, and late model multipoint injection twinport corsa 1.2 will average about the same.

Athough the car is pulling more weight and has less bhp per tonne, i think the fact that the bike only has riders wrist controled carbs and the car has a computer controled injection system, makes it a fair comparison, so when you think about it we are not doing to badly realy with our emmissions when you consider what we have to work with.

The mpg counter in my brothers bmw 320 would go down to about 12mpg when he gunned it, i can't imagine a litre sportsbike being that bad if you gunned one.

[Blackwolf]

Ummm most newer bikes are injected most if not all new carb bikes have changed to injection
____________________
Current: Ducati Multistrada 1200s

[Wafer_Thin_Ham]

My CBR will average about 60mpg on a motorway run, that's much better than most cars. My focus will only do about 40-45mpg.

A most 4t 125's will average about 80mpg or something silly.

You have to remember that most bikes are in a comparitively high state of tune compared to your average car.

So compare the mpg of a GSXR1000 against a Ferrari F430 for example, and the CG125 against your corsa.
____________________
My Flickr

[Fnatic]

I did 140 miles on £7's worth of petrol on my RS 50 and the warning light wasn't even on. Still had a couple of quid's worth of petrol left

[Moonie]

I love green bikes
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v79/littleun/zx636-2.jpg
https://www.ema-usa.com/images/bow/bow_john_zx12r_rt_sd.jpg
https://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/Gallery/Kawasaki%20KR-1S%2090%20%205.jpg
____________________
Don't practice it until you get it right, practice it until you don't get it wrong.
Presenting the one and only Chinkmobile

[s44678]

The most efficient petrol cars currently do about 60mpg.
But they only make about 70 bhp and weighs about a ton. So thats 0.07 bhp/kg @ 60mpg.

A 2008 Fireblade makes about 165 bhp and weighs 170kg doing approx 33mpg. So thats 0.97 bhp/kg @ 33mpg.

So the bike has roughly 13.5x the power of the car, and 0.5x the fuel efficiency. Pretty acceptable trade off I think!

Basically what I'm saying is if you found a bike with anything like the same power/weight ratio as a car, the bike would piss all over it in fuel economy.

[Cigaro]

As others have said, it's to do with power. Met a guy yesterday who was telling me about his Enfield 350 that can do about 100mpg, the downside is that top speed is around 60ish.

My 250, on the other hand, only does 50-60mpg, but a lot more power.

It would be easy to put an economical fuel injected turbodiesel in a bike, just that there's no demand for it yet. But fuel cells will be the norm in a few years.

[Him]

I think a large part of it is down to aerodynamics, most bikes have the wind resistance of a brick and use a large ammount of their power to move the air aside. modern cars however are much better designed aerodynamically.

have a look here if you are interested https://news.motorbiker.org/blogs.nsf/dx/ecosse-spirit-frameless-motorcycle.htm

[Coxyzxr]

[Kickstart]

Hi

The commuter bikes doing well on fuel are doing a low speed where aerodynamics are far less important. Even the slipperiest bike has pathetic aerodynamics (much of it is styling to look aerodynamic rather than to actually be aerodynamic), only rescued at all by their small size.

Cars tend to run far higher gearing and are biased towards torque lower down the rev range (power is just torque x rpm). Cars weigh far more which hammers their acceleration but at a cruising speed makes next to no difference to fuel consumption.

All the best

Keith
____________________
Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[c-m]

Obviously you could drop down to a 125cc and get 100mpg, but what bikes that can do 115mph (average car max speed) can get over 60mpg.

GPZ500?
____________________
Motorcycle headlight bulbs and HIDs
Blogging about my bike and trips
https://ridershandbook.com/

[The Shaggy D.A.]

[rotax81]

[thefallenange...]

i'd go with a GS500, CB400 at an absoulte squeeze even a Ninja 250?
____________________
Past - CG125 ,KR1S, SV650s, Street Triple R - Current - Duke 390

[email protected]

[colin1]

[Kickstart]

[Jamie S]

[thefallenange...]

[Kickstart]

[prawny1]

[prawny1]

[prawny1]

[yambabe]