Electric biking - the future?

[oldtom]

There's an article in the BBC web pages which might be worth a read:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p039d5x9

Tom

 

[Yamdude]

If electric motorcycles do start taking off, they are going to have to add a decent amount of noise to them. An almost silent motorcycle is not something i'd like to ride on the road, although i can see the advantages for electric dirt bikes having a lot less noise.

 

[Gubbins]

There's an article in the BBC web pages which might be worth a read:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p039d5x9

Tom

This sort of thing might just tempt me back... Not necessarily the boy racer "head down arse up" style though.

 

[SteveRuss]

I saw that the other day. Interesting although 120miles max is a little short for what many people would want.

 

[flecc]

I saw that the other day. Interesting although 120miles max is a little short for what many people would want.

If even that of course. The Nissan leaf e-car claims a max of 155 miles, but they also say 90 miles is more typical and admit 60 miles max can happen at adverse times.

In practice a driver trying one with normal driving behaviour ran right out of juice at 72 miles, and that was daylight with no lights, heater, demister or wipers running.

Clearly the maximum range quoted for these e-vehicles is as optimistic as that quoted with e-bikes.
.

 

[SteveRuss]

If even that of course. The Nissan leaf e-car claims a max of 155 miles, but they also say 90 miles is more typical and admit 60 miles max can happen at adverse times.

In practice a driver trying one with normal driving behaviour ran right out of juice at 72 miles, and that was daylight with no lights, heater, demister or wipers running.

Clearly the maximum range quoted for these e-vehicles is as optimistic as that quoted with e-bikes.
.

I think Tesla is my roll model here and should be for newer electric vehicles. Their p90D model is utterly amazing and returns a reliable 250 mile range on average (apparently).

Getting your point though and for many, tootling around town and charging in the evenings is good for many people. For me it's a no go area until they manage a much higher range.

You know more about battery technology than me. What' are your views for the future of battery technology or more to the point, at what point there may there be a substantial increase in the capacity of the cell.

 

[flecc]

at what point there may there be a substantial increase in the capacity of the cell.

I can't see much more from any existing technology Steve. Over the near 200 years of battery development progress has been incredibly slow, as witness our cars still using the ancient lead-acid since it's still the only dependable reasonable cost one over several years.

The lithium advances have depended on optimising the cathodes, and that's largely been completed. We've always known what the theoretical best cathode material is, it's iron, but the only way to use it effectively is in the Lithium iron phosphate (LiFeP04) batteries that we already have. But that's at its limit and we can get just as good results from compound cathodes.

Researchers have tried an infinite variety of compound cathode mixes and they too seem to be at the limit.

So short of an entirely new cell technology I can only see small and reducing increases in capacity. The common 18650 sizes show this diminishing progress:

2200 mAh
2600 mAh + 400 mAh
2900 mAh + 300 mAh
3100 mAh + 200 mAh

There is a 3300 mAh, but they aren't commonly available and Tesla have refused to use them yet.
.

 

[Yamdude]

The claimed range of these electric cars are about about as accurate as car manufacturer MPG claims.
Best to take off at least a third, from battery and MPG claims.