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[machone]

I'm expecting the delivery of my S and I have already started fielding questions/attacks on why?!!...

One of the difficult questions to answer is the one that everybody first thinks of as a reason to buy an electric bike and it's this:

How green is your bike, actually?


Ignoring the running costs, many people quote the many Toyota Prius comparisons made by Jeremy Clarkson:

3m35sec in


They say that because of the Lithium or nickel processing and parts/product transportation costs, these bikes are having a much bigger impact on the environment than a locally produced gas bike would. At minimum my S is part of a container load on a high carbon use vessel across the Atlantic but I suspect the transportation impact is even higher than that.

My argument is that gas bikes are nearly all produced at least in part, in countries where labour can be exploited to reduce cost and so there is very little difference in green production cost.  This doesn't always hold true, and is a little weak.

Has anybody done a green impact study on the production of a Zero? Is it just the 'investment in future tech' that will eventually lead to green production and running costs or are there better green arguments out there?

 

[NoiseBoy]

I always make the point that i didn't buy my Zero to save the planet.  I bought the Zero because its a bloody brilliant bike to ride and I love the power delivery, lack of maintenance, handling etc. etc.  The green and money saving thing is a welcome bonus.   Nobody has ever had a negative comeback to that.

[kcoplan]

Well . . . I did buy my Zero to save the planet (or at least to avoid personal responsibility for wrecking it).  Plus, it is the most thrilling ride I have ever owned.

Noiseboy, you raise a really good question.  Anti-green vehicle folks are always pointing out the extra environmental impacts involved in making extra green vehicles.  I don't know a definitive answer, but I suspect that the carbon impacts of transporting Zero components is pretty quickly offset by the near-zero carbon emissions of a Zero in operation.

Back of the envelope - according to a Wikipedia article (caution: "disputed"), the carbon impacts of transporting one ton of freight one mile by container ship is .04 kg. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_transport

So, figuring that the Zero components for one bike are about 0.1 ton, and they travel 10,000 miles from the Far East to Long Beach, CA,  that works out to about 400 kg, or about 1,000 pounds, of carbon emissions for the transportation.  Incidentally, the same Wikipedia article says truck shipping is about .167 kg per ton mile, so the carbon emissions of shipping a "local" bike (whatever that is) across the country by truck are equal to the carbon impacts of shipping the same weight from the Far East by container ship.

At 20 lbs of carbon per gallon of gasoline, and figuring about 50 mpg for a comparable ICE bike, your carbon "break even" is probably somewhere around 2,500 miles or so.

Of course, this is not taking into account local environmental impacts of mining the battery elements, or whatever carbon  impacts are involved in battery manufacture.  I don't  know what those numbers are.

So whenever anyone says, "Oh yeah, your electric motorcycle had carbon emissions in manufacturing it that are more than the carbon impacts of making an ICE bike" ask them to quantify those "extra" carbon impacts in the Zero, divide by twenty pounds of CO2 per gallon of gas, and you figure out how quickly your gas savings pay any extra impacts back.

Karl

[kcoplan]

Also, here's a link to a study of the impacts of Li Ion EV batteries:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es903729a

Bottom line:  Li Ion battery manufacture has very small environmental impacts as very little lithium is actually needed.  The biggest environmental impacts of EVs is the impact of the electricity  generation used to power them.  So, if you can use renewable energy, you can nearly eliminate these impacts.  Plus, with a 500 mpg energy equivalent efficiency, a Zero will do better than pretty miuch any other EV or ICE out there other than another electric bike.

Karl

[machone]

Thanks for the links. It's difficult to find info on the actual environmental impact or by-products of lithium or copper mining.

I must admit I'm not buying a Zero for the greenness, but it would be an added bonus if it helped.  It's a pity there's not an overwhelming green argument for buying a production ev as there is with a 'recycled' home grown electric bike.
Like all things green, it's a complicated issue and difficult(but not impossible) to quantify the relative production and delivery emissions. It is possible in parts of Europe to pay additional cost for 'green' energy from renewable sources. When available here in Holland I will be doing it and eventually will sort out my own solar and wind generation(the landlord wouldn't be happy where I live now!). This has all got to help. I would have thought it would be in Zero's interest to publish the carbon cost of producing one of their bikes compared to the ICE equivalent?

Purely from a cost saving perspective I worked out it would take roughly 50000km for my bike to 'pay for itself' but that's very rough. That's a lot of km but still a fraction of the battery life. An efficient petrol car over an inefficient car would take a lot longer than that.

The reason I ordered my Zero was for the 'feeling' of not being tied to the petrol pump and lack of maintenance for my commuting tool. The 100Euro or so I hand over for going back and forth to the pump hurts and I look forward to not having to do that. I'm still not convinced by the performance arguments and I hope I'll be converted by the 2013. Until people start posting drag races against 600 and up ICE bikes or I experience it at the lights myself I won't understand the 'linear power delivery' arguments.  I rode the 2012 and felt it was like a powerful scooter, but that's a personal thing....Why are there no drag race videos?

[NoiseBoy]

The buying a Zero isn't green argument doesn't float for me.  On average I change my bike every 2 years, usually second hand but as I was recently promoted if I hadn't bought the Zero I would have bought a new ICE bike so the production of the raw materials is nullified.  You don't buy an ICE bike and keep it forever.

Re: Performance: if you want to drag race you bought the wrong bike.  Eventually electric bikes will be faster but for now it is the rideability that matters.  It may not feel as fast but I bet if you timed yourself over a twisty route you would be quicker on the zero.  No botched gear changes, no waiting for the power or being in the wrong gear and having to change down mid corner etc.  Swing through the bends rather than pointing and squirting like most ICE riders and the turn of pace is surprising.  The thing that stuns me on the Zero is how with the lack of vibration from the bike itself you can feel exactly what the road surface is made of and what the tyres think of it,  Hence I can push the zero on its crap OEM tyres much closer to its limit than I would ever do on my race-wet shod supermoto.

Bikes should be judged not by how fast they go but by how fast you can ride them.

[ColoPaul]

Ignoring the running costs, many people quote the many Toyota Prius comparisons made by Jeremy Clarkson:

The Jeremy Clarkson video is pretty lame.   The Prius was designed to excel in high-traffic stop-n-go city driving situations.   To put it up against a BMW on a race track ostensibly to make a 'real life comparison' of gas mileage is total crap.   But them in a real-life city driving comparison and the prius would have 3x the gas mileage of the BMW.

His premise that "it's how you drive, the car has no bearing" is at best a half-truth.   I hate to see videos like this because 90% of the population will take it as fact and go out and buy a giant SUV, smugly thinking that by not driving it like a Lamborghini they're doing just as well as someone driving a prius.

[benswing]

Obviously, the "Prius is less environmentally friendly than a hummer/range rover/etc" is completely baloney.  You would have to ignore almost everything commonly referred to as a "fact" to believe this.  Here is a slate article that concisely debunks the original "Dust to Dust" Pruis vs Hummer study.  

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2008/03/tank_vs_hybrid.2.html

An example of the ridiculousness of the study:
"claiming that a Prius will last only 109,000 miles, well below the stated "industry straight average" of 178,739 miles—not to mention the whopping 379,000 miles ascribed to the Hummer H1."

Have you ever heard of a Hummer that lasted almost 400,000 miles?  Really?  

Also, most of their other assumptions are in the absurd to factually untrue realm.

Since we all have heard this bogus claim, here's my short answer "Do you really think that mining lithium for 1 battery is worse than drilling for oil to fill up your tank every week?"  

[protomech]

On the Prius vs m3 comparison.. pretty obvious that the m3 was drafting. I would also wager that the m3 's grippy tires, while a economy loss in real world driving, are a win on the racetrack because you can coast around the corner instead of powering through, slipping the whole way.

Regarding "it's not what you drive, it's how you drive it":
http://www.fuelly.com/car/bmw/m3/2008
16.6 mpg average. 18.3 mpg best. 19 mpg imperial = 23 mpg US.

http://www.fuelly.com/car/toyota/prius/2008
45.4 mpg average.

If we assume Clarkson's claim is accurate and a reasonable representation of on-track economy, then it's very much about what you drive.. because the m3 gets worse economy in real world driving than it does in some spurious show test.

[ColoPaul]

Obviously, the "Prius is less environmentally friendly than a hummer/range rover/etc" is completely baloney.   

On the Prius vs m3 comparison..

Of course - but you guys have a brain.  What about the other 90% of the population and their inability to see through the showy-made-for-ratings-crap like that?   Clarkson does the world a disservice.  He should be ashamed.   Hopefully his true motivation was sensationalism and ratings; and that he wasn't taking kickbacks from the oil industry (or BMW) under the table as well.

[Richard230]

Obviously, the "Prius is less environmentally friendly than a hummer/range rover/etc" is completely baloney.   

On the Prius vs m3 comparison..

Of course - but you guys have a brain.  What about the other 90% of the population and their inability to see through the showy-made-for-ratings-crap like that?   Clarkson does the world a disservice.  He should be ashamed.   Hopefully his true motivation was sensationalism and ratings; and that he wasn't taking kickbacks from the oil industry (or BMW) under the table as well.

Now really, Clarkson works for the BBC and we all know that the BBC never takes kickbacks or bribes and is entirely above-board and honorable when fishing for news.   

[protomech]

I often visit bbc.co.uk for news from a non-American perspective. Are there incidents where BBC reporters have taken kickbacks or bribes?

[machone]

It's a hot topic in the UK at the moment. Although I'm sure there are cases of kickbacks and bribes I can't think of any offhand. There has been inaccurate reporting and the reason the topic is hot is because a very well known BBC celeb named Jimmy Saville now deceased has been thought(not yet proven, but loads of accusations) to have been a serial child abuser and worse. Many people were thought to have, at the least, suspected this but a BBC investigation was shelved because, in part, of the amount of money he raised for charity. It was thought he used this as leverage many times.

At the same time The http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/ has just concluded an independant press complaints commission should oversee the press in the UK for reasons mentioned above. Comparing with Sky, RTL or Al Jezeera I'll take the BBC every time, thanks!

Back to the topic :

I don't agree with the Cradle to grave Prius vs Range Rover argument either but it would be nice to know a little more fact. Every consumer product has an impact of some sort but you can't ignore production environmental cost any more than you can ignore running environmental cost. A friend has a convincing argument that I should buy a second hand Kawasaki 1000 at less than 1/3 the price and it will still produce less CO2 than my car and will pay for itself compared to the car in less time and also prolong the life of that kawasaki saving the world that way. It's all about relative cost with vehicles isn't it?

I've never been in a position to change a vehicle every 2 years and this seems normal to some people, is there a higher environmental cost in doing this than keeping an inefficient 'old knacker' running for 20 years? Where's the break even point?

I've emailed Zero requesting more information on their energy usage and production impact, purely so I can give as close approximation to factual answers as I can manage and not just join the partisan flag flying game. I cannot believe that buying a new zero is less 'green' than buying an old Kawasaki 1000 but I really don't know - how costly was the kawasaki to build in the first place, how do the mining practices of the metals in the kawa compare to those in the zero? How bad are the conditions in the Kawa factory to those in the Zero parts producers.

The bottom line for me is it would be nice to know fact which only Zero can provide and I am pretty confident that the facts would be strongly in favour of Zero, as they are 'environmentally aware', probably more so than the ICE bike competition. Without the fact the argument I can give is almost as lame as the Clarkson camp.  

[NoiseBoy]

On a sort-of sidenote.  A 1000c motorbike will probably cost more than a car to run aside from fuel, oil changes every 6k miles, tyres every 3000, chain every 12,000 and so on.   Bikes with powerful engines cost a fortune to run (unless they are Electric).

[machone]

My Triumph triple(995) didn't. I had it when I wasn't paying too much attention to the economics of it....oh how I miss those days!

However, I did lots of miles, changed the tires and oil a couple of times and I remember at that time a tank would cost about 15-20Euro to fill up. Can't remember how many miles I did but lots of touring and commuting, it was my only transport. I never actually thought of the maintenance as a pain - cleaning and lubing the chain, oil changes were all part of the experience which is very much rose tinted now but still a good one. A good bike. I'm hoping the Zero will give me at least as much pleasure and for the commuting I'll be doing the low maintenance is a bonus.

The environment issue is a side issue but it's something everybody I speak to about it talks about so I'd like to be better informed.