new electric assist cycling technology

"DougC" wrote in message
...
Tom Keats wrote:

In some jurisdictions that wattage would put such a vehicle
over the threshold of qualifying as a Power Assisted Bicycle,
and into the realm of motor(ized) vehicles requiring licensing,
insurance and registration, as well as other complications such
as street-legal lights.

This is true--certainly in the US, which I have (am) experiencing
first-hand. However-that is a regulatory inefficiency, rather than a
technical one.

True in the UK too. Electric bikes are allowed to assist up to 15mph IIRC,
and there's probably a power limit too. IC engines are out, and a good thing
too IMO.

cheers,
clive

Ron Ruff wrote:
Good comparison... but what about a scooter with cheap lead-acid
batteries? That would be much more economical, since as you pointed
out, the battery cost is the biggest expense.

$155 for batteries for the Ego2... which costs $1200 new.

http://www.egovehicles.com/mm5/merch...gory_Code=ELEC

They say it will last ~10k miles, but even if it is replaced at 5k
miles, it is only 3.1 cents/mile. Since these are standard batteries,
they could probably be purchased more cheaply elsewhere.


Looking around--the figures I get for the eGo scooter are 23 mile range,
300 discharge cycles on a battery that costs about $150, so that's a bit
over two cents per mile. Not as low as the 4-stroke, but pretty close.

The eGo website claims that if you use it for trips of 10 miles or less,
you can get as much as 600-800 discharge cycles on a battery, a figure
which seems comically high in actual use. The mos5t common question you
tend to see posted about ev-bikes is how to get more power & range out
of them, so it would appear that most people are running off the end of
their batteries in actual use.

The eGo has at least two /drastic/ disadvantages however (compared to
both ev-bicycles and gas-engine bicycles) that are somewhat
inter-related: one is that it is HEAVY, 130 lbs. The other is that it
has no means of pedal-propulsion, so you are dependent upon electric
power for it to move at all--and that drastically cuts down on how
useful it is. It's practical range is quite a bit less than 23 miles,
because most people wouldn't want to risk running the thing until its dead.
~

Clive George wrote:

True in the UK too. Electric bikes are allowed to assist up to 15mph
IIRC, and there's probably a power limit too. IC engines are out, and a
good thing too IMO.

cheers,
clive

Why would you think this?
If IC engines cost less to operate, and (I heavily suspect) generated
less pollution overall, what objection would any reasonable person have?

Granted--in Europe it seems more common to see small scooters with
total-loss 2-cycle engines which do run quite dirty, but my discussion
was specifically on 4-cycle engines.

In the USA, total-loss two-cycle engines are already begun to being
legislated out of existence. New marine engines are (for practical
purposes) required to use fuel-injection on their 2-cycles, and some
2-cycle oil-burners imported are required as of 2006 to have catalytic
converters.

I searched for a small suitable catalytic converter for the 4-cycle
bicycle engine I bought, but could not find sources of any. Plus, there
are engineering concerns, best left to the manufacturers to settle
anyway (cat.s make the whole engine run hotter somewhat, so the factory
really needs to be the ones to set the things up).
--------
I fully support spreading less pollution and conserving energy, but it's
very shortsighted to assume that anything electric is better for the
environment than anything that has an exhaust pipe.
~

DougC wrote:
Why would you think this?
If IC engines cost less to operate, and (I heavily suspect) generated
less pollution overall, what objection would any reasonable person have?

Provided that they are quiet and produce less polution, I'd say fine.
They can be reasonably quiet if well muffled, but I doubt very much
that they would be less polluting than an electric... especially if the
electricity is produced in a non-polluting way. Even if not,
powerplants are much cleaner than car engines. Plus, batteries are
recycled.

The huge industry that has developed around the IC engine for 100 years
is what keeps their cost low, plus the low cost of the highly
subsidized fuel. Electrics are inherently much simpler and less
expensive... even if the present prices of the low-volume offerings
does not support that.

"DougC" wrote in message
...
Clive George wrote:

True in the UK too. Electric bikes are allowed to assist up to 15mph
IIRC, and there's probably a power limit too. IC engines are out, and a
good thing too IMO.

Why would you think this?
If IC engines cost less to operate, and (I heavily suspect) generated less
pollution overall, what objection would any reasonable person have?

That's a very big if. Small IC engines are currently mucky beasts, and the
leglislation reflects that - I'm not talking about future leglislation
covering engines which don't actually exist.

More importantly, pollution is about more than exhaust emissions. Think of
the other significant disadvantage small IC engines have...

clive

Clive George wrote:

That's a very big if. Small IC engines are currently mucky beasts, and
the leglislation reflects that - I'm not talking about future
leglislation covering engines which don't actually exist.


I get into this issue on that page. The price of something is
essentially a measure of the resources used in making it--so if an
electric setup costs more to operate than a gasoline engine, then the
electric probably uses more resources, and also more than likely creates
more pollution.

More importantly, pollution is about more than exhaust emissions. Think
of the other significant disadvantage small IC engines have...

clive

Like what?
~

Ron Ruff wrote:
Provided that they are quiet and produce less polution, I'd say fine.
They can be reasonably quiet if well muffled, but I doubt very much
that they would be less polluting than an electric... especially if the
electricity is produced in a non-polluting way.

What kind of power are you talking about here? Nuclear?

Even if not,
powerplants are much cleaner than car engines. Plus, batteries are
recycled.

Well firstly--I explained that when you operate an electric vehicle over
the long-term, the MAIN cost is not the electricity itself, but in
disposing and buying new batteries as they expire.

Secondly--I am not too informed on the battery issue, so I don't have
much of an argument on that. It's even more complex because various
countries have different laws about the matter--but as I understood
it--lead-acid battery recycling (vehicle batteries, that is) in the USA
was not based on financial market principles, but it was made a
/legislative/ principle just to prevent lead from entering the
environment. If this is true, then there is money being lost on every
battery that is "recycled", because it would be more energy-efficient to
just toss the old battery in a trash dump and make a new battery than it
is to bother with expending the energy to recycle the old battery.

One perspective we could look at is what are long-term lead prices
doing? Over the last thirty years and adjusted for inflation--have lead
prices gone up, stayed steady or gone down? Because if they have gone
down, then most-certainly we are losing money by recycling lead at all.

The huge industry that has developed around the IC engine for 100 years
is what keeps their cost low, plus the low cost of the highly
subsidized fuel.

And you think electricity production and distribution isn't subsidized?

Electrics are inherently much simpler and less
expensive... even if the present prices of the low-volume offerings
does not support that.


How would you know this to be true, if no current or past evidence
supports it?
~

DougC wrote:

If we assume that the LaFree motor and battery are no more efficient
than what the Bionx uses, then (6.5Ah/8Ah) x (4495 miles x (500/450
discharge cycles)) miles = 4058 miles total, you should expect to get
from an LaFree battery pack over 500 discharge cycles.

4058 miles / $350 battery replacement cost = $.0862 per mile, or 8.62
cents per mile.... Now look at the fuel costs for the 4-cycle engine on
my page; with fuel at $2.50/gal and assuming 200 mpg, the gas engine's
cost is ~1.25 cents per mile.

Not a fair comparison. More accurate would be the cost of electricity
vs. the cost of gas, and the cost of a replacement battery vs. a gas
engine rebuild or replacement. Small gas engines don't last very many
miles between rebuilds (piston rings, cylinder sleeves, crankcase
bearings), but a brushless electric hub motor lasts much longer before
needing a "rebuild" that consists of just two axle bearings.

I think you may be underestimating the LA Free's range because it
delivers motor power only in conjunction with, and in proportion to,
the rider's pedal power. It has a reputation for offering one of the
longest ranges per charge of all electric bikes. I have no direct
experience with the Lite, so I can't personally verify this.

Oh, and purchase price?... That's cheaper too. The LaFree bike cost
around $1300, many places report. A gasoline engine kit costs from $150
up to $600 (for the Golden Eagle kit I chose), plus a suitable bike
(which may be as cheap as $100).

The junky gas motor kits available for bicycles bear a closer
comparison to the junky electric hub motor kits from Golden Motor and
others. To my knowledge, there is no gas motor equivalent to the
high-quality Canadian Bionx and German Heinzmann kits (unless the
Revopower motorized wheel is of substantially better quality than the
other internal combustion offerings).

If you figure matters on a cost-per-power comparison, the gasoline
engine would come out way on top again. The Bionx setup has a high
"peak" output, but that [most likely] is at zero RPMs.

Zero RPM = zero power output. The Bionx might offer maximum /torque/
at zero RPM (and it might not), but its maximum power occurs at about
1/2 of its motor's free speed, if it is similar to other brushless hub
motors on the market.

I'd LOVE to see a electric setup (that is available to consumers) and
that can compete on a cost-per-mile with gasoline...

They all can, unless you disregard the replacement costs of
quick-wearing small ICEs. You also have to disregard the
difficult-to-price externalities of the noise, stink, heat,
maintenance, flammability, pollution, and carcinogenicity of the ICE
versus the electric alternatives.

Small gasoline engines are an order of magnitude worse in exhaust
emissions than automotive engines, on a horsepower-to-horsepower basis.
Compared to electrical generation facilities, they are /two/ orders of
magnitude worse. I guess as long as you are sharing those costs with
others, you don't mind them as much.

Chalo

Ron Ruff wrote:

I doubt very much
that they would be less polluting than an electric... especially if the
electricity is produced in a non-polluting way. Even if not,
powerplants are much cleaner than car engines.

Car engines are in turn /much/ cleaner than small gas engines, such as
the ones being discussed here.

Electrics are inherently much simpler and less
expensive... even if the present prices of the low-volume offerings
does not support that.

Simpler in this case does not mean less expensive. Gas engines can be
made out of mostly cast iron and a little bit of good steel-- cheap
materials on the whole. Electric motors use a lot of copper (a much
more expensive material) and there's not really any getting around
that.

Chalo

DougC wrote:

I get into this issue on that page. The price of something is
essentially a measure of the resources used in making it--so if an
electric setup costs more to operate than a gasoline engine, then the
electric probably uses more resources, and also more than likely creates
more pollution.

The electric bicycle hub motors I know of are assembled and wound by
hand, which I imagine accounts for a large percentage of their purchase
costs.

http://todd.cleverchimp.com/blog/?p=97

Chalo