Modern Vespa

Oh absolutely! But eventually there'll still normally be a surplus at night apparently, as about the only renewable that can be switched on for sudden demand is Hydro - and there's a limited amount of that. Gas-powered stations fill that gap at the moment. Wind and tide will just chug along 24/7 providing most of the normal daytime demand, solar coming in second overall.

Of course we'll have fusion in 30 years...

Remember, I live in the Pacific NW where hydro is our primary source of electricity . I used to work for the Corps of Engineers (the primary hydro operator around here) and admit that hydro is much more shapeable by hours of the day and days pf the week than most other generating sources. The one catch is peak runoff during snowmelt in late Spring / early Summer. But then we fire up the NW-SW Intertie and sell the surplus to you guys at an attractive rate, so it all works out.

For which we are very grateful! Looks like we'll be getting loads of offshore wind in a few years though.
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/05/25/california-announces-historic-agreement-with-federal-partners-to-advance-offshore-wind-development/

https://www.quattromania.it/2021/08/08/camper-cinese-piu-piccolo-economico-mondo-vera-casa-4-000-euro/

The smallest and cheapest Chinese camper in the world: a real house for 4,000 euros

August 8, 2021

Its electric motor is powered by a small 7.2 kilowatt-hour battery. This tiny house on wheels is a real escape.

Three-wheeled camper made by a niche Chinese vehicle manufacturer called Henan Xinge Motorcycle Company. Xinge makes a plethora of three-wheeled vehicles ranging from personal transportation to toilet trucks, but this tiny house on wheels is a real escape. It is the key to self-isolation and at the same time fills your emptiness to travel.

The exterior looks like a mashup of a traditional camper and a Tuk Tuk. Although there are several versions of the camper from the same company (one squarer than the other), they all have similar characteristics: three wheels, the aerodynamics of a concrete block and a paint in traditional RV beige with extravagant decals on the sides. Some even have solar panels installed on the roof to generate power.

Xinge says his 1,400-pound RV is fully electric and is capable of traveling at speeds of up to 25 miles per hour.

Why do you all think that the Harley Davidson Livewire failed, good though it was ?

Too expensive, too soon or just too much of a novelty ?

HD Livewire has not technically failed, the goal has been achieved but the HD clientele is very conservative. With the same money he buys much more iconic models
The price? Zero Motorcycles makes electric motorcycles even more expensive and yet sells, rather it is that the range of customers is still very narrow.
Why does it produce it? It has to, it's marketing and then sooner or later we'll get there.

Well it has failed. It sold 400 units. That was a failure on any scale.

Zeros flagship model was roughly half the price of the Livewire when it was first released.

Update

It seems that now the Livewire product has now been cast off from Harley Davidson but somehow they have lowered the price and increased the range.

It's was within around £3000 of the top line Zero model who in turn dropped their price by £2500.

Capitalism.

It's hard to say what HD was really expecting from Livewire. At least it gave them some experience of electric vehicles - as you say, it has ranked well, at least techically and by features if not price, comparisons also outside US, which is not always the case with HD products.

Looking at car electrification rate in Europe, and having been following this saga with interest for years, I have a feeling the roller coaster is about to seriously speed up. New car sales in Europe will fast take a dramatic turn towards full EVs, says my crystal ball😉, small bikes/scoots are already on the way - new motorcycle sales will follow at some point.

There's a catch though - how the electrification impacts to preferences is not easy to predict. Also, I have no doupts some of the globally big manufacturers, say Honda or BMW, may come up with things making life with an electric motorcycle just that final tad easier and desirable - and push the cart over the next (final?) hill for the longer range 2-wheelers.

It's a bit like the other environmentally big thing, going away from meat. As long as the mamufacturers thought they have to replace meat with fake meat, say vegetarian sausages etc., they were just stuck in between the past and future. By creating some genuily new vegetarian offering the sales has started to boom

So I'll guess as long as longer-range motorcycle manufacturers are just replacing the hole left from IC engines with batteries, they continue to struggle.
The case within city limits/short range is so obvious for the benefits of electrific vehicles, that there everything goes and price competition is already going on.

Zero's strategy of pushing up from 'the obvious market' rather than descenting down from the more cloudy top end market seems to be working quite OK.

You do talk a lot of sense I have to say.

I've always thought HD should have bought a big stake in Zero or bought them outright and avoid screwing it up. Then leverage zero technology in other Bikes. Zero headquarters is about 10 miles from me. I see their bikes all the time.QUIET. Nice!!

Miguel

I bought a NIU electric moped around this time last year.

My Silverwing 600 was really too cumbersome for the 5-minute journeys down to church and the seaside several times each week.

I'm loving it.

It has a range, allegedly, of up to 100 miles but wouldn't get anywhere near that in the quickest mode which gives a top speed of 45 MPH. However, as I use it for relatively short trips, that doesn't matter. The middle mode gives 31 MPH.

It is registered, taxed and insured for road use although, of course, road tax is zero.

I find myself simply going for a ride on it in the same was we used to aimlessly go out on our bikes when we were children.

All the details are in the link.

https://urbanebikes.com/collections/electric-mopeds/products/niu-n-gt-45mph

They are also making much better meat analogs as well. My wife and I have two vegan daughters and we have been moving more and more in that direction. Our latest discovery were vegan "crab" cakes. Quite tasty.

Screwing up purchased companies is HD's core competency.

That's true with most large companies
Miguel

The Livewire was probably the best of the larger electric motorcycles. But at $30,000, it was somewhat overpriced and who knows what kind of support you would have gotten from HD when it did need parts/warranty/labor work done. They (HD) treated the Buell motorcycle like a red-headed step child - no respect, no parts - and then it even got worse after they bought Buell out. At least that was my experience when I owned a Buell. Zero's top of the line scoot is around $21,000, with some of their other models starting around $10,000. Energicas run about the same. Zero's advantage is that their largest customer is the US government supplying the armed forces and other branches. I have ridden the DSR Zero, and it was a blast! The start up torque of a Harley, with the quickness of a liter bike. Top of the line components from suspension, brakes and seats. Downside is local dealer support. Local one near me is dropping them after 5 years, not enough sales and they sell high end bikes - Ducatis, MV Agusta, Aprilias, etc,,,, Other downside is parts can be very expensive and usually have to be dealer installed. When you buy one, you are supporting the electric future, while using it in the present.

Using cars with small, less polluting engines would also help electric traction.

A longtime friend of mine worked for Alta Motors on the Redshift.

So, he has another job now. There was a lot of excitement when HD got involved. Didn't take long for that to change.

The Livewire is still very much a product of Harley-Davidson. It's just being marketed differently. It's too soon to tell if the reduced price, and selling it under its' own brand name "Livewire" will be successful or not.

Yes it's being marketed specifically as not being a Harley Davidson because it didn't sell when it was a Harley Davidson.

If you brand it under HD and its a failure, it looks bad on them. If you tuck it away and call it something else the failure is a little less obvious.

Especially when you tuck it in the corner of the showroom behind the merchandise which you actually make more money on.

Don't get me wrong I think that it was a really brave effort but much of the "joy" of riding a Harley Davidson is the noise it makes so they were never going to sell anything silent.

I'll leave it there

Loud pipes save …

Oh. Never mind.

The first electrics should've been small model runs anyway. Because new stuff is hard.

Chevy are spending 2 billion recalling bolts to replace faulty batteries. The livewire battery isn't replaceable. Oops.

Now that I didn't know.

I am starting to wonder if we are rushing out electric vehicles to appear to be doing the right thing when they aren't really ready or fully proven to work reliably.

A few years ago some bright spark pointed out that a large capacity truck brought in the US and run to 200,000 miles leaves less of an environmental footprint than a Prius whose battery parts are transported around the world on container ships and when they are finally assembled into the car that gets put on another ship which pretty much deletes any green benefit the car could have had.

At least with the truck the majority of its parts will be manufactured and sourced within the country.

Don't take this the wrong way, but beside noise, what else is/was there...

Speed? Nope
Acceleration? Nope
Fast Cornering? Nope
Comfort? Nope
New technologies? Nope
New Design? Nope
Great Fuel Consumption? Nope
Large Fuel Tank? Nope
Stability? Nope

I give you the look of it, but I can't really think of anything else...

The electric Harley was going to be a serious hit, but poor marketing, wrong targeted audience and a ridiculous price, kill it right at the start..

Good thing that Mustang and RAM are doing extremely well out of the US market..

Maybe the fact that it takes on average 17 metric tons of C02 to make a Tesla and just 7 metric tons to make the equivalent vehicle with an ICE.

Granted over it's lifetime the gas powered vehicle will emit more C02 but unless the EV is drawing it's power from renewable or nuclear sources it's going to get it's charge from natural gas or coal which sort of defeats the object.

An 80kg original Prius battery travelling on a 16gm/ton/km cargo ship from Singapore to LA will add 18kg of CO2 into the atmosphere. So thats about the same amount of CO2 you add from burning 8 litres of petrol.

Cargo ships are incredibly efficient.

Agreed, but why not build the car in the country in which you're going to sell it ?

Problem resolved. No shipping needed.

Trucking across the US is far worse per volume of material moved than shipping across the Pacific, according to an article I read some time ago. Can't find that reference though.

I'd be interested in digesting that as I'd love to be proven wrong because for me it would make sense to build a plant in the country that you're going to manufacture and distribute your product.

I'm making the assumption that this is the reason that Tesla are building their Gigafactory in Brandenburg so that they won't have to ship cars in from the US or China.

Oh, manufacturing all parts locally is usually a win, of course, depending on where raw materials come from. One truck carrying one container 3,500 miles vs 20,000 containers over 5,000 miles, albeit with 'dirty' bunker fuel, ... Hmm.

Znomit's post (which can be easily verified) substantiates your statement above. On the other hand, trains are more energy efficient than long haul trucks (about 2 to 5 times more efficient). Electrified train lines are even more efficient, and cleaner.

https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/electrification-of-u.s.-railways-cupcake-in-the-sky-or-realistic-goal

Yup, I can't argue with that one bit. I just wish that the Lithium didn't have to travel from Canada to China to Japan then into the car and back to the USA .

Coming from a logistical point of view it doesn't make sense but then again I'm not in charge of Toyota so what do I know ?

Bah !

Is anyone else following the "don't put your fully charged electric car in the garage" debacle? Apparently electric vehicles burn really well.

When they are fully autonomous they can just spend the night driving themselves around the block. No need to provide residential parking. Which is how it should be. Because garages are for Scooters.

Yes I am. I'm watching it with great interest.

The technology isn't particularly new but mass production is and when you make a lot of something new mistakes will be made.

Once again the manufacturers are so eager to get the product out to the masses they forget to research and develop it properly.

On a cynical note we appear to be mining more of the earth in an effort to save it.

Also the demand for electric motorcycles just isn't there right now. Scooters, maybe but no one is buying bikes because they are expensive, heavy and have a limited range.

I'm going to stick with Hydrocarbons for as long as I can.

Nah, they will be the new 'Uber' - we'll actually make money with our cars while we sleep. Self-cleaning features will probably be more important in the future than the range.

Looked, but didn't see this posted. New e-scooter coming out in India called Ola:
https://electrek.co/2021/08/16/ola-shocks-with-beautiful-high-tech-70-mph-electric-scooters-the-entire-world-needs-to-see/

Perhaps a radioactive isotope battery like those for satellites would be more efficient, with all the waste that nuclear power plants produce would be a way to recycle the waste crap.
Unfortunately in the event of an accident or terrorism it would not be a safe solution. Sin.
Here, ...I said another mine bullshit...(sorry, I've been saying a lot lately).
What other ways to generate automotive electricity are there?

Li-ion batteries don't have any specific tendency to catch fire as such, but when they do, most of them (depending on the chemistry) burn with high temperature, long time, emitting hazardous fumes - to put it simply, they are a bugger to extinguish.

Actually this topic has been studied quite a lot and well, because Li-ion batteries are everywhere. Also the ones that include great amount of individual cells, for example in large industrial electric vehicles. In those applications very large battery packs, even larger than in EV cars, get a lot of physical abuse, have to work in extreme conditions, both hot and cold, get dirty, are often charged in various ways - and yet the % amount of problems is quite small.

Bill Dog has a point though - good quality control, packaging, battery management systems and such do play an important part in the safety.
In industrial settings I've witnessed bad/contaminated battery cells been disgarded after tests before they make it to a battery pack. Without the quality control the faulty cells could have been a potential risk.

Then again, unfortunately, this is also a playground for 'urban myths'.
Like, everyone knows about the large car park that burned down in (...fill in a suitabe location...) because of an electric car burtsted into fire. Except even the recorded cases have typically been completely about something else, just including also EV in the fire - and, as said, those have been a bugger to extinguish. I remember at least one such case in Norway, 'the homeland of EVs', that turned out to be a diesel car catching the fire first....

Well there's also the added fact that a Hybrid Vehicle will give you zero emissions in an urban environment while pushing around the weight of the switched off engine and then later on the open road the engines takes over and drags around the battery like a boat anchor.

Now correct me if I'm wrong but don't both modes put weight on both drive systems when the other is disengaged ?

Wouldn't it just be easier to just buy a smaller car whose emissions and carbon foot print would equate to less than the Hybrid ?

On pure EV's The Nissan Leaf cooks it own battery because it's not liquid cooled, The Bolt catches fire, The Jaguar I Pace is an unreliable rush job and Tesla, which is probably the best EV still suffers from inconsistent build quality so what do you do if you want to save the world ?

Even the Mini and the Honda EV's barely have a range of 140 miles and even less when it's cold.

My Hyundai has a range of 450 miles and cost less than half new than each model which puts it all in context.

You're paying more for less.

Interesting times eh ?