Some Knowledge

The problem with electric cars is that they have limited range.  Long range electric vehicles need a source of power.  People could embed power rails in the right lane of the freeway that small contact wheels on the underside of the vehicle could ride on to suck up power from a power plant.  All you would have to do to recharge your electric car would be to drive it on the freeway.  If you wanted to drive from New York to LA all you would have to do is drive on the freeway and you would never have to stop and you would get where you are going with a full battery in your car.

The only problem I can see with this idea is that it would cost money to implement and how would you charge people for the power?  You might have to place a meter on every car that uses the freeway power and have that meter communicate with a system on the freeway of wireless data transfer that could bill people for the power they use while they are driving.  You would drive and drive all you want and at the end of the month get a bill from the freeway power company for all the electricity you had used.

Electric rails in the freeway would cost a bit of money to install.  It would take some time for the electric freeway vehicles to be manufactured.  Still, it wouldn’t be much of a hazard.  The freeway is already a dangerous place.  You don’t get a lot of people walking around on the freeway.  You might have an occasional person walk across the freeway and get jolted by the power in the exposed rails, but if you keep the voltage low and supply power from substations along the freeway it would not be too deadly.

If I was a greedy person I would keep this idea secret and patent it or something.  There’s no reason people have to be restricted to using fossil fuels for transportation.  A simple system of copper rails embedded in the freeways could power all the cars that are electric for any amount of distance.  It is only a matter of time before such a system is built, providing society doesn’t collapse from lack of fossil fuel.  Besides, anyone who ever looked at a slot car could easily get the same idea.

With higher prices for fuel, I wonder if public transportation will come back.  Sure, there are still some bus lines and a few subways in this country, but in general, there is little in the way of public transportation.  We live in the age of the automobile, and people want to drive themselves anywhere they go.

In a way, it’s very wasteful to have a road filled with cars, all with one person inside, all going in the same direction and basically to the same place.  You can have a freeway all choked with cars any rush hour and wonder why they don’t just put in an electric train down the center of the thing to carry lots of people at the same time without all the excess weight of the cars.  It would be 100 times as efficient to put 200 people on a train and save 200 cars worth of gasoline.  Of course, the thing is, people are not really all going to the same place.  They don’t live in the same place and they don’t go to the same place.

I’ve used the bus for commuting before.  You have to plan ahead.  It’s annoying to have to wait at the bus stop in the rain or in the cold, and you have to usually walk a bit further to where you are going.  Still, you don’t have to park and you don’t have to buy gas, and a bus ticket is only about a dollar.  Maybe somebody should design and build a nice efficient electric bus that can travel silently and put lots of them on the road and make a profit off selling tickets to people who don’t want to drive.  Maybe they could have bus service between cities and the suburbs that will make it less of a mess in the morning to drive in traffic jams.

Mass transit is more efficient than single-user cars.  The problem is that it takes a lot longer to get anywhere on mass transit than it does to drive someplace.  You would have problems if you had to wait for a trolley to get anywhere in an emergency.  You would have a long waste of time and a lot of extra miles to travel if you wanted to go somewhere that was not directly on the bus line.  Maybe if cities and communities were better organized mass transit would be a more workable option.  Maybe if the price of gas gets higher, more people will start thinking about taking public transportation and save their cars for weekend trips to visit friends.

The Aptera three-wheeled motor vehicle is scheduled to go into production soon.  This car looks like a wingless airplane.  In fact, the name is Greek for “wingless flight.”  There are two wheels in front inside fairings for steering and one wheel in back, with a belt drive much like a motorcycle.

The production model of the Aptera is said to have a top speed of 85 mph.  The vehicle has a very aerodynamic shape and looks to have a low drag coefficient.  There is an all electric model and a plugin hybrid gas-electric model.  The hybrid is said to get 130 mpg in long-range highway travel.

The Aptera is supposed to have a reasonable price.  The numbers on the website are between $26,000 and $30,000.  The vehicle will only be for sale in California when production starts in late 2008.

Aptera is working on crash-testing this vehicle.  It is supposed to be more safe than cars, in that it has improved strength and rollover ratings.  The vehicle is totally enclosed and can carry two people, a child seat between them, and several articles of cargo in the hatch.

Looking at this vehicle, it seems to be of an efficient design.  The range on electric power is limited to a little over 100 miles.  I’m not entirely convinced that three-wheeled designs are optimum for a motor vehicle.  It seems to be a common dodge for alternative vehicles to get around the stricter laws and standards for automobiles.  Technically, a three-wheeled vehicle is considered to be a motorcycle, so the rules affecting it are different from the rules for cars.

It would be nice to see a car manufacturer pay this much attention to aerodynamics and efficiency.  It seems the auto manufacturers have been in league with the oil companies to sell more gasoline.  Perhaps if more emphasis were placed on efficiency and conservation of resources, as well as on alternative power sources for vehicles, energy would not be as expensive as it is these days.

The Optibike is a custom-made electric bike.  As you can see from the website, it tends to be orange and is made out of composite materials.  It is billed as going three times as fast as a normal bike, and the standard models are supposed to have a range of around 50 miles, with pedaling.

I checked out the prices on an Optibike.  The top of the line model has a base sticker price of almost $13,000.  The next model sells for almost $9,000.  At these prices you could buy a car.  Even if they are custom made by hand in America, I don’t see as there is any justification for such a high price on a bike.  Still, it is interesting to see companies trying to sell high-performance electric vehicles for transportation.  Maybe if I ever win the lottery or make millions some other way I will buy one of these.

The evDaytona is a high-speed advanced electric motorcycle.  It is supposed to be capable of going from 0-60 mph in 2.7 seconds.  It has a top cruising speed of 97 mph and in economy mode, it’s range is 104 miles.  The evDaytona uses high-tech lithium iron phosphate batteries and is styled for speed.  The vehicle sells for $77,770 plus shipping.

I find it interesting that a small company has developed such an advanced technology when major manufacturers are not even involved in electric motorcycle research.  The high price is surely indicative of a low production volume.  Perhaps in future when battery technology becomes more advanced and more interest is placed on efficient vehicles, electric cars and bikes will become more widely available.

I wonder if Jay Leno has one of these yet.  I’ve seen the man riding his gas turbine powered motorcycle on TV so I know he collects these things.  Maybe I should dig up his email and send him a link to this site.  It looks like interesting technology, and if it happens to be efficient and better for the environment, then it’s even cooler.  I think I like this ev bike better then the Japanese SUMO that I reviewed a few days ago.  Perhaps this company will catch on and we will all have access to such interesting toys.

Axle Corporation of Japan has designed an all-electric motorcycle that has a range of 112 miles and a top speed of 93 miles per hour.  A video of the bike can be seen here.  The motorcycle has a faired body and rear wheel that incorporates an advanced permanent magnet motor.

While Axle Corporation is not manufacturing the motorcycle version of this vehicle, they are planning on marketing a scaled-down scooter incorporating the same technology.  It should be interesting to see where this vehicle leads.  With the price of petroleum in an upward spiral, electric vehicles may become more cost effective to operate.

Here is a site which describes and has a photo of an electric quadricycle.  This vehicle looks like a little green automobile, has windshield wipers, and headlights.  It is supposed to have a range of 150 km on a charge and can reach speeds of 60 km/hr.

The electric bicycle seems to be a big idea in China.  I don’t think I have seen too many American made electric bikes.  There are a few places like Harbor Freight where you can get small electric bikes with limited range.  Looking over the zipped catalog I got for the Jin Feichi Electric Bicycle Company, I could see they make many different models.  The bicycle has always been a major form of transportation in China.  It is probably no surprise that the electric bicycle would also be popular there.

I haven’t found any distributors for this quadricycle yet, so I have no idea what the price is.  The factory has a minimum order of 50 units, and I imagine shipping on a large item like this from China has got to be pretty steep.  I have no idea whether these things would be street legal in America.  I’m guessing the price has got to be less than the $32,000 minimum on a Twike, as in the last post.  It might be interesting to see about opening a dealership for these things now that gas is pushing four dollars a gallon.  The quadricycle has a four passenger capacity, which is twice as many people as you can cram into a Twike.

It’s always interesting to see what different companies are developing in different parts of the world.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see something like this becoming popular in America in the coming years.  There are many advances that have been made in electric vehicle propulsion in the last few years.  Perhaps the time has come for a different modality in transportation.

Twike is a pedal-electric hybrid vehicle.  It is a three-wheeler and has a top speed of 53 mph.  According to the manufacturer it has a range of 90 miles between charges without human assist.  With two people pedaling it is supposed to have a range of 135 miles.

The Twike is not cheap.  At the moment it is sold out in North America.  A basic Twike sells for $32,000.  The luxury version can be a lot more expensive.  The website for Twike is at Twike.com.

I saw a video of this little vehicle in operation on the net.  It seems to be quite effective at zipping around the city environment.  Although it is only a two seater, I imagine this vehicle would be quite good as a commuter car.  It is an enclosed design with windshield wiper and running lights, so it should be relatively safe.  An accident with even a small car would be likely to destroy this vehicle, so some caution should be used in driving it.

I can imagine that small, efficient vehicles for the daily commute will be more prevalent in the future.  It makes no sense to spend thousands of dollars a year on gasoline if this is not necessary.  When the price of fuel keeps going up, I imagine more people will be inclined to give these alternative vehicles a try.  For now, if you want a Twike, it is sold out.  I guess a lot of people have already decided that even though it is a bit expensive, it is better to drive an efficient vehicle than a gas guzzler.

For several years my main mode of transportation was a bicycle.  It did not help the daily commute much that I lived 12 miles away from where I worked.  It took an hour to ride into the office and an hour to get home.  Sharing the road with cars and trucks was a constant source of concern.  There were, however, some benefits to all this physical activity.

I got a good deal of exercise back in those days.  Anyone who spends two to four hours a day on a bike gets a good deal of healthy exercise.  It didn’t cost me anything for gasoline.  My use of petroleum was only slight, since all I used was a few drops of lubricating oil each week.  I always seemed to have a good time on my rides into work or into town for entertainment.  Perhaps this is because I was always listening to my Walkman.  There’s only so much loud traffic noise a person can stand.

Aside from traffic, my main problems with the bike were weather, wind, and the occasional flat tire.  Because I did not carry a repair kit most times, and did not have an air pump, flat tires meant I had to walk a good long way.  Luckily, flat tires are not that common with fat mountain bike tires.  It was a different story when I rode the ten speed.  Still, I did not spend a lot of time walking when I was on the bike.

The weather was my main enemy.  A little rain means nothing to a person in a car.  On a bike, it means you get wet.  If you are on a dirt road and it starts raining, it means you get wet and muddy.  Rain is not much of a problem in winter.  In winter, the problem is the cold.  You need to have warm clothes, good gloves, warm boots, a good hat or hood, and a very warm coat.  Long underwear is a necessity.  Cold is nothing to fool around with.  Frostbite can creep up on you and do its damage and you will barely feel it.  Keep covered and stay safe.  One night I remember I went out and it was 17 below F.  I wore a full face motorcycle helmet to keep the cold off my face, and a snowmobile suit.  That ride went fairly well with no problems.

If you are using a bicycle for any kind of transportation, like getting groceries or going to school, you will need something to carry stuff in.  Saddlebags, panniers, anything that attaches to your bike is useless in my opinion.  This is because you can’t lock up a saddlebag.  You will need a good bike lock.  Bicycle theft is pretty common.  Get a backpack to carry your stuff.  This will isolate your goods from road shocks as well.  You will not be able to carry a lot of stuff on a bike anyway, so get one that you are comfortable with and keep it in good repair.  That way you can lock up your bike and carry your goods along with you wherever you go.

One thing you will not need if you commute on a bike is all those ridiculous bike clothes.  Spandex shorts will get you nowhere with your boss.  A yellow numbered jersey is not a fashion statement.  Wear some good bluejeans so that if you fall because of some junk in the road that fell off a car you will not scrape up your legs.  A pair of riding gloves also helps save your hands in a fall.  Road rash is painful and takes a long time to heal.  Cover up and you will avoid some potential problems.

One of the hazards of riding a bike is dogs.  Dogs will chase you if you ride a bike.  Usually they just run up next to you and bark.  I have no idea why anyone would let their dog run around loose in the streets, but they do.  If you run into a dog that’s actively trying to bite you you can do two things.  You can get off your bike opposite the dog, holding off the dog with your bike and yelling “NO!”, or you can boot the dog in the head with a nice steely toed boot, right under it’s lower jaw so it bites its own tongue and thinks better than to bite you.  What I usually ended up doing was just to ride fast and out-distance the dog.  I once had a greyhound run alongside me for almost a mile, but he was non-aggressive and just having fun, plus he was a good distance off to the side.  Even that dog finally gave up the chase.  Dogs do not have the endurance of a man on a bike.

If you want to save some money on gas and don’t live too far from work, and the traffic is not too bad, and the weather is nice, and you are in reasonably good health, there is no reason you can’t commute to work on a bike.  If it’s been a while since you rode, head out to the park and get some practice on the bike trails.  Who knows, if the price of fuel keeps going up, maybe more people will come to rely on this more efficient mode of transportation.  Someday, maybe the government will put in dedicated bike paths for people who like to ride.