Electric bikes have your say!

[barton11]

Hi

I'm a product design student currently in my 3rd year of uni and I'm designing an electric motorbike for my personal project. I hoping some of you can help, I'm trying to gather information so I can make this bike appealable to most people. I want to get a real understanding of what motorbike users think and how they feel about the future of motorbikes moving towards electric powered motors as it seems to be modern and progressive.

Whether you use your bike to commute, race, cruise or travel? on road, off road, your opinion matters!
let me know if you can you see any benefits?
or what would you miss from a combustion engine?
why do you ride?
why do you choose to ride instead of driving?
Are there any problems you face while riding or is there anything you think could be better to enhance your riding experience
Are there any features you think should be added to a motorbike or even removed
I want to get a full understand, so I can Taylor my projects to people that use them.

Thanks, I look forward to reading your replies!

[G]

[The Artist]

Whether you use your bike to commute, race, cruise or travel? on road, off road, your opinion matters!

Commute

let me know if you can you see any benefits?

I commuted on an electric pushbike for a while. It was fun but to match even a 125, it needs to be quite powerful and have large expensive/dangerous batteries.

or what would you miss from a combustion engine?

The noise, the feel, the smell, the power delivery.

why do you ride?

Cheap and more fun than a car for the most part.

why do you choose to ride instead of driving?

See above

Are there any problems you face while riding or is there anything you think could be better to enhance your riding experience

Car drivers are a big problem. I propose we exterminate them all.

Are there any features you think should be added to a motorbike or even removed

Blow up doll?

I want to get a full understand, so I can Taylor my projects to people that use them.

Who is this Taylor you speak of?

[ackack]

Noise. A lot of what I love about bikes is the noise.
Even if I could save a few hundred quid a year running an electric bike I would still use the ICE for rides. I would happily drive an electric car but not a bike unless I was forced to.

[ScaredyCat]

Electric bike needs to be as cheap as a normal one, have at least the same range, be as quick to charge as it is to fill a normal bike. Like a Zero, but without the price or limited range.

If you can get those parameters sorted, I'll buy one.


I commute on mine, it's quicker than a car.
____________________
Honda CBF125 ➝ NC700X
Honda CBF125 ↳ Speed Triple

[Andy_Pagin]

[G]

Forget if I said, but it did ok towing some quite heavy stuff at Glastonbury by the way.
Hopefully next year won't be nearly as muddy, but might actually get around to adding a couple of geared hub motors to the trailer too .

[Rogerborg]

No surveymonkey?

Most of your questions are duplicative or irrelevant.

Nothing you design will have any chance of making it into production. Even if it did, I wouldn't buy it because it would be off-marque and therefore unsupported and worthless.

If you really insist, then your remit should be to "design" an electric motorcycle that looks exactly like a normal motorcycle, has a 30+ mile range, and most of all, is affordable.

No Tronbikes, no trick components. Just make it look and act like a regular bike.

Zero have sorted the looks and the range, but £14K for the basic S model is ludicrous.

This is what you should be "designing":

https://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/new-bikes/2016/september/the-tork-t6x-is-indias-first-electric-motorcycle/

Spoiler: it's already been designed.
____________________
Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike

[trevor saxe-coburg-gotha]

[stevo as b4]

I suppose generally speaking, when you can build an electric HGV that can tow 44tons 300-400miles a day on one charge, and be as cheap to buy as a diesel one, then making an electric bikes to suit everyone will be easy.

I love the sound and smell of my silly little two stroke, but I'd still ride an electric bike if I had one and it was affordable and fun.

For your project, you should try looking at the city commuter market and the track day and MX/trials markets to try and get electric dominance which will come and is achievable.

No one can make an electric adventure bike or long distance fully loaded tourer work yet. And there are some sportsbike riders (probably not that many though) that want to do more than 100-150miles on a sunny Sunday. For those there is too not yet a bike that can do it or a way of replenishing the charge quickly enough to allow such distance to be easily done in a day with full performance available all day long.

[Baffler186]

[Ste]

[ScaredyCat]

[Derivative]

The main issue I have with electric cars and bikes is that they're firmly luxury products not due to direct cost but indirect cost and practicality in a city.

For me to own a Zero or a Model S I'd need a garage or at least a garden with a power hookup.

So that means either:

buy a flat and politick with the local council to get charging points installed
rent or buy a house with a garage

Both of those are hilariously expensive compared to the amount I'd spend on the electric vehicle.

By contrast an ICE bike can live anywhere (subject to theft, which an electric bike would be too) and petrol stations are ubiquitous.

So either we need far more supercharger stations and a way of charging within 10-15min, or a big rollout of charging points.

It's already enough faff to find free/reasonable parking in a new place you haven't been before, adding the constraint of 'must have a charging point' is lunacy at this point.

[stinkwheel]

Whether you use your bike to commute, race, cruise or travel? on road, off road, your opinion matters!

Most of my riding is sports touring.

let me know if you can you see any benefits?
The potential performance benefits are significant.

or what would you miss from a combustion engine?

I like tinkering with them.

Range and refuelability. Most of my rides START with a 130 mile ride to meet up with my mates, splash of fuel then do another 3-400 miles over the rest of the day. Electric can't do that. Couldn't even do it with charging points where I need them (and many of my Highland destinations struggle for petrol stations).

why do you ride?
I'm a dick. An impatient dick. I don't like sitting in queues.

why do you choose to ride instead of driving?
See above

Are there any problems you face while riding or is there anything you think could be better to enhance your riding experience
Other road users are the main problem. There are too many of them and they are driving too slowly. Of course, if they pass me, they are driving too fast.


Are there any features you think should be added to a motorbike or even removed

Missile launchers.

Nah. How you going to make the wheels turn? Chain drive is a total pain in the arse, it's messy and maintainance intensive. Shaft drive is heavy, saps power and causes torque reaction. Hub mounted motors have high unsprung weight. For me belt drive is the way forwards but it has a poor reputation (undeservedly I think).

You going to go 2WD? You can do crazy shit with a 2WD sports bike. Powerslides and such.
____________________
“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Derivative]

I mean, put it this way:

Imagine that only 30% of the population had electricity in their home.

Would smartphones be doing as well as they are if the only way to charge them was to use those 'phone lockers' or go to a mate's house for a few hours?

That's the problem with electric vehicles. The infrastructure isn't there.

You could give me a Zero for ~free and running a 25m extension cable out of a window would still be enough to turn me off. Sure, I could live somewhere else, but then I've lost all of the savings (and probably more).

[M.C]

Issues with electric motorbikes:
- they're heavy and expensive
- the lack of noise... from a safety perspective and enjoyment
- practicality of charging the thing, not everyone has a garage

The main reason I ride is not having to sit in traffic/quicker journey times, and that it's a lot cheaper to run a bike than a car (for me at least).

[CaNsA]

[Suntan Sid]

themotorbikeforum, is that were BCF'ers go to die?
____________________
"Everybody needs money, that's why they call it money!"

[G]

[Rogerborg]

[stevo as b4]

Also there is nothing to stop you diy'ing and electric motorbike or car. A bike is harder go get a good result from as you need a decent substantial enough chassis to cope with the Weight increase you will end up with from fitting batteries.

If you started with a 250cc sports bike weighing say 130kg, it would be heavier and less powerful once you convert to electric, especially if you were trying to get a reasonable range from it.

I think that's why electric bikes for general purpose every day use tend to be purpose made designs with some composite materials and a sort of half way house between MTB and motorcycle suspension and brake specs etc. Then again as G and others might say a modern MTB if you keep it light enough probably has a chassis and brakes/suspension capacity for around 15bhp, so they take electric power well, if you don't add too much weight.

Cars well new designs tend to be best and most efficient if they look and are nothing like ICE cars in terms of parts and design. You don't need a fuel tank shape pressed under the back seats, but you probably need a long low space like a really long draw from a tool chest right down the middle of the car where your transmission tunnel and exhaust pipe would have been.

Saying all that I bet if you could get good lithium batteries cheaply enough you could convert an old Micra, or Metro to electric power and still have a much lighter car than a new Nissan leaf or a Prius etc.

[G]

I wouldn't be buying new in such a situation.

But something like maybe £650 for the motor, same again for the controller at a guess? Even less up on how many wh you need a full size bike, but for me 25 miles would be pushing my 'in town' thoughts a bit.

Decent deals do pop up second hand if you keep an eye out. I'd also consider a chain drive to the front wheel with a motor mounted ontop of the forks - can then go for what will probably be a fair bit cheap unit and don't have to worry about bearings and pot hole issues.

I get about 10 miles from The Artists old bike at a reasonable clip. (Cells alone cost around £150 I think.)
My mum got a good proportion of 10 miles and used under a quarter of the pack, but was peddling a lot.

[Derivative]

[Wonko The Sane]