[ViBiker]

E-Zip Mountain Trailz 1 year 1600 miles - report. EZIP - www.EbikeForum.com

[I70Lightningbike]

Here is an interesting trike I use it for parts runs for the other bikes and kits I build. I do have a van but I filled the van up 3 months ago and it still has plenty in it. This bike is a godsend for those short 2 to 5 mile trips for parts. And I can make the long haul with it since it's downright comfortable. It's nothing to make a 15 mile trip, go to the back up batter pack for another 15 miles and still have a couple or three miles in reserve.

The difference is, it's a trike that can carry the full sized 36V 12 AH battery packs. Don't carry more than two. Plus it has room for junk in the trunk.

Unlike the bigger taller 26 in trikes, this one does not have a roll over problem and if the road is slanted, it feels more solid. I hate the feeling that one is going to fall over when you are on a 26 or a 24 in trike.

It has 600 watts of 36 V power. This means, go easy on the throttle taking off. Wheel spin feels nice but it really doesn't accomplish anything. It reaches 15mhp in about 30 feet. Pedaling on this one is just plain silly. Top speed pedaling your keister off is about 7 mph. It does that in the first 10 feet without pedaling. At 15, FOGADIT!.

My regular bike is down with a bent wheel so I don't have pictures of it. It's a 26 in MB with the same kit on front on the 26 in wheel. No wheel spin there but it tops out at 20+ and goes for about 20 miles per charge. Sorry, no extra pack on this one. No room for junk in the trunk.



You can see the kit at Low Speed Electric Bicycles

[ViBiker]

Originally Posted by eldrijt;

I agree this country needs to get off oil. National security and environmental reasons. But a gas bike saves a ton of gas as well.

I prefer electric over gas because of noise and smell. I can ride on greenways with electric too. But gas has a HUGE range, cost and speed advantage.

Jim

65% of US used oil-gas is imported. Minimal target saving should be 65%, to be effective!

A motorcycle might provide 40 - 60% saving, still short of target, unless you go riding with a buddy then you're using more than a car.

Gas motor assisted bikes, scooters too, typically advertise between 100 -150 mpg, a 66.7 - 80% saving, well within target. If all traffic could match, this would be ideal. Unfortunately, trains, buses, trucks etc. have no possibility of similar compliance, putting a much higher burden on personal transport.

Let's view a worst case scenario of a complete cut off of oil imports!
Possibly 50% of gas-oil is used by essential services, trains, trucking, buses, public transport etc., if necessary a 20% decease, of these services, might be feasible on an immediate basis. Unfortunately, that leaves only 10% of usual for all personal transport! That translates to requiring 250 - 300 mpg as opposed to a present 25 - 30 mpg! ... ???


Instead of, a typical, 10 gallons of gas per week, at $4 per gallon, the average family might be rationed 1 gallon per week, at $40 per gallon.

Electric powered vehicles are the sole, for the foreseeable future, possible solution. At present the main obstacle is the cost of electric storage - efficient batteries. Ebikes are the ideal testbed for research and development - "The first tentative step towards energy independence." When demand requires mass production, this cost will drop dramatically, and noticeable progress will occur!

[ViBiker]

Originally Posted by eldrijt

But if this worse case scenario did occur and IF everybody could magically instantly buy electric vehicles, we couldn't produce enough electricity to meet the new demand. IOW we'd be totally screwed. ...

Jim

"Enough electricity" might be the easiest problem to fix!

Los Vegas is widely assumed to be the worlds worst energy waster. They use 23,000,000mwh = 23,000,000,000kwh annually (2008 figures - using, much more, every year!). That is enough electricity to power 115,000,000 EZips for 400 charges, each, per year.

"Accidentally" nuke Los Vegas, (must have been terrorists), and we have enough extra electricity to power an EZip, maybe 2, for each and every US family!

Most people can't understand how efficient EBikes are, or possibly how inefficient other household appliances are.

Running a typical air conditioner, for 24 hours, uses enough electricity to, daily recharge an EZip, for 2 months!

Give up a week of AC to provide 1 full year of power for your personal transport, (EZip).

[ViBiker]

Originally Posted by eldrijt

Ah so! Actually I assumed we'd replace gas cars with e-cars not e-bikes. Hard for my wife to do an art show using an e-bike! Or haul my 84 yr old Dad around. :-)

Also, Vegas electricity is from Hoover Dam so we'd need to get that power to the rest of the US. Maybe that infrastructure is in place.

Jim

As noted earlier, I classify ebikes as "The tentative first step into the realm of energy independence". Ebikes can be the testbed for efficient, batteries, motors, control systems etc. As this market expands, technology development and mass production of components will push down the prices, making Ecars more feasible and affordable.

The Los Vegas example was merely to illustrate that eliminating one small bit of waste can go a very long way! Providing enough electricity for electric cars is the smallest part of the puzzle of switching to electric vehicles. As a desperate measure, we could take the oil required to run 100,000 gas vehicles, burn it in some of the idle oil powered electrical generation plants and produce enough electricity to run 500,000 electric cars. Yes! ... The internal combustion engine is that inefficient!!!

Gas vehicles rated at 15% efficient, electric rated at 90% efficient!

Internal Combustion Engines Are Still 85% Inefficient

The main problems are the need for:
Cheaper or more efficient batteries.
Infrastructure of charging stations.
Taxation of gas and gas powered vehicles ... to make ecars more attractive.

[photosbymark]

If you can't make an electric anything without taxing existing technology to give the electrics an unfair competitive edge in the marketplace, then you have accomplished nothing. Electricity may be more efficient in using energy, but gas is a far better an easier way to store it. Cheaper and better batteries would help, but that's been worked on at least for 30 years. I remember the EV1 was going to revolutionize transportation. Hmm how many of those are on the road? IF it made economic sense, charging stations would be there. Trouble is that how long would it take to charge a battery? Way too long for any sort of cross country transportation. Swapping batteries could work if they were cheap, but are you going to swap a battery pack that cost 20 grand? I don't think so. You never know the condition of the pack you are getting.

Much of the electricity in the country comes from coal. You couldn't get a dam for hydro power approved without enough paper to burn in a coal fired plant that would create enough electricity to power all the cars for 10 years. Oil in a power plant or oil in a car tank. Either way its burning oil. The only way to effectively make an electric car any sort of traveling machine is to have something like a third rail to provide power. Then who pays for it?

One last point is that electric cars are already getting huge tax credits to make them look more viable than they actually are. Why should anyone be forced to help pay for someone else's car???

Is there a better way? Maybe but it will be the tinkerer in the garage not the college professor that figures it out.

[ViBiker]

Originally Posted by photosbymark

If you can't make an electric anything without taxing existing technology to give the electrics an unfair competitive edge in the marketplace, then you have accomplished nothing. Electricity may be more efficient in using energy, but gas is a far better an easier way to store it. ...

Alternative energy sources must be, actively, developed for the economy to survive!

[I70Lightningbike]

1. There are more ways to make electricity than burning coal. Nuclear, Solar, Hydro, wind. Colorado is mandated to run 20% electricity state wide using renewable resources. Already, the wind farms are being installed to meet that criteria.

2. The EV1 was collected up by GM and destroyed. It had nothing to do with whether it was a failure or not. People leased them and GM didn't renew the leases. People liked it. And for Southern California, you didn't need a heater so it had maximum range.

The batteries 30 years ago were clunky Lead Acids. These are ecological disasters since they can only be used for about a year and have to be replaced. Today, they are moving towards Lithium which isn't any better off when you have to change them out for the ecology but you don't change them out for 7 to 10 years and they weight 1/5th the weight. Meaning, you can carry more and get more range.

Let's say you have a battery pack that you have to change out every 10 years. Okay, but the car is a 10 year throw away without that being considered in. Today, they don't expect the cars to last any longer than 10 years. Unless you are spending some pretty good bucks for a good one like a top of the line Mercedes or a BMW. Lease it for 10 years and crunch the whole thing back into the basic materials. No big deal.

It may not be in my lifetime but oil is going to become expensive in the US. We have only used 40% of the available oil today. Sounds pretty good that there is 60% left. When you figure most of that has been consumed in the last 30 years, it's not such a good thing anymore. Another 30 years and we will be down to 10 to 20% left. Do you know what the price for a gallon of gas will be then? Certainly not 2 bucks a gallon. More like more than most can afford. In 30 years, an alternative MUST be in place.

[ViBiker]

Originally Posted by photosbymark

If you can't make an electric anything without taxing existing technology to give the electrics an unfair competitive edge in the marketplace, then you have accomplished nothing. Electricity may be more efficient in using energy, but gas is a far better an easier way to store it. ...

Unfortunately, gas is not a way to "store" energy, "gas" cannot be created, it is a limited resource that contains a non-renewable energy content.

Originally Posted by photosbymark

Cheaper and better batteries would help, but that's been worked on at least for 30 years.

Yes! Great strides in batteries have been made in the last 30 years.
We have gone from SLA (Sealed Lead Acid), to Nicd, to Nimh, to Li-ion, to LiFePo4 and beyond.
SLA to Li-ion represents a tenfold increase in energy density with a dramatic increase in usable lifespan! High price, due mainly to limited production, is the major restriction!

Originally Posted by photosbymark

... One last point is that electric cars are already getting huge tax credits to make them look more viable than they actually are. Why should anyone be forced to help pay for someone else's car???

Is there a better way? Maybe but it will be the tinkerer in the garage not the college professor that figures it out.

What most people avoid looking at is the inevitability of alternate fuel sources. Oil will not last forever! Present predictions forecast severe shortages combined with greatly inflated prices, within 10 years.
Why?
At present rate of consumption, it is estimated that, globally, all oil will be consumed within the next 30 - 47 years! Of course, before that happens, the demanded price will jump, drastically, and often! The only way for economies to survive will be to find alternate energy sources. Countries that get the best "head start" into this field will become the worlds economic powerhouses, for many decades to come!!!

[photosbymark]

Gas as in gasoline not as in natural gas is a lot easier to store than electricity. Though natural gas maybe the most practical clean solution on the horizon now. A tank full of gasoline is going to give you at least several hundred miles of range, and you can fill up anywhere in minutes. Ethanol is an option, but not the way we make it now.

Electric cars with all the advances in batteries you correctly point out still have a 40 mile range. Granted that will get you to work and back, but its hardly a practical car for most people. Recharge times are still in hours and the prices are still high enough that it makes no economic sense. Scale and production size isn't the total problem. Cost to manufacture and using many of the exotic materials necessary in modern batteries is more of an issue that scale. The US doesn't have many of the raw materials needed and they must be imported just as we do oil, and after their useful life is over they are far more of a problem to deal with.

Id be curious to know who's predictions you site if you remember because most of these types of claims are created out of male cows. First of all we don't even know how much oil exists in that occasionally we find new fields. Oil can be made from coal and in the US there is claimed to be well over a 100 year supply, but again its those crazy numbers that are often just pulled out of thin air. I don't remember where I saw it and I just remember a huge number. I don't buy that one any more than I bought the oil exhausted in 30 to 50 years.

That doesn't mean oil is the end all be all. But our economy is in far more risk from over spending than it is from running out of oil. The country that does find a new, practical and cost effective replacement will have a huge advantage, but that still I would predict would be at least 20 years out if not further. Alternative energy is something the marketplace will decide.