... if you were willing to stop that often and wait to recharge.
Duh. If you can't make it to the next charging station it doesn't matter if you are willing to wait 30 seconds or 30 hours to recharge. If there are lots of charging stations then even with a small battery you will make it to the next station and you wait while your bike charges...regardless of how long that takes.
recharging in the same minute or so that it takes to pull up, slide a CC and refill the tank
Talk about misleading....I have never filled up an ICE vehicle in 60 seconds in my life! In fact...the EPA limits the maximum flow rate for gasoline in the U.S. to 10 gallons per minute (GPM). Most stations are somewhere between 5-10 GPM. Theoretically you could fill a motorcycle tank in 60 seconds but if you think it can be done then you have never filled up an ICE motorcycle in your life. I never just stick the nozzle in the tank and set the autofill and walk away. You have to stand right there and carefully fill the tank to keep gas from splashing all over the tank and you can't actually fill at the max GPM. For a motorcycle you are probably closer to 2-3 GPM...granted some motorcycle tanks are that small but VERY few people would ever even try to take the kind of trip where this becomes relevant on that kind of bike. All other things being equal...pulling up...putting down the kickstand...turning the bike off...whipping out the credit card etc....and just counting from the time gas starts flowing to the time it stops flowing you are realistically going to take 3-5 minutes. But all things aren't equal...because once I start charging I don't need to stand next to the bike. I can walk away and use the bathroom or get some food or just stretch my legs...all things I was going to do on the ICE bike too but I had to wait to finish filling the gas tank.
unless you're talking about recharging in the same minute or so that it takes to pull up, slide a CC and refill the tank
Minute no...in a reasonable time... yes...of course...which is why I said
if the charging infrastructure was solid enough
I didn't say if there were enough charging stations or they were spaced closer together or in the right spots next to major roadways...solid enough...which was deliberate because there are multiple factors...like distance between stations, station location and charging speed...all of those things have to come together to make it "solid".
EV batteries being sold today can handle much higher charge rates than the infrastructure is providing. The batteries used by Zero, for example, could handle at least 5C (yes, currently limited to 1C). For a 10kWH battery (nominal...not max) that means 50kW and the pack can be charged in 12 minutes and I can go take a leak and buy a sandwich or a bag of chips while it's charging.
I can go from Charleston,SC to Dallas in a day on an ICE. Doing the same with an electric is impractical.
And yes everyone will reply thats "extreme" and silly... but thats what people do with sport touring bikes sometimes.
OK? So were talking Iron Butt (i.e. greater than 1K miles in a day) and somehow my statement about being able to go anywhere in the country if the charging infrastructure is solid enough has turned into a comparison between ICE and electric? I didn't say "ALL we need" is more chargers to be just as good as ICE....I didn't even mention ICE at all...or the amount of time it would take you to "go anywhere in the country".
But fine... you like your ass hard and anything but a nice hard ass just doesn't do it for you
Well...in that case...it's not a bigger battery that's needed...a battery that is more energy dense is needed but more importantly you need better aerodynamics. You didn't say it but you are clearly using Zero as the benchmark when you talk about going 85 mph fully charged etc...everyone on this site does....and why not since they are one of the most (if not the most) serious players in the game right now and the site is dominated by Zero riders. In that case, it's not a fair comparison to pit a naked commuter bike to a touring bike with a fairing. Zero could make a bike that could give you the hard ass you crave but it would be expensive and you would still need the "solid charging infrastructure" to do it. Even with a battery and aerodynamics that can take you 300 highway miles on a charge you still need the solid charging infrastructure because if it takes 15 hours to charge you still aren't gonna do those 1K miles in one day. But even with the current infrastructure (1 year ago infrastructure actually) @Electric Terry has already proven that Iron Butt rides can be done on an electric bike with the right aero. And @benswing is pulling 500 mile days this year without any improvement in aero aside from the commuter windscreen.
More charging infrastructure with faster charge rates is what will turn the tides. Range anxiety needs to be dealt with first (i.e. the fear that you won't make it to the next charging station). Once that is cured we can start to work on minimizing the time the trip takes...actually they need to happen in parallel. If the charging infrastructure was solid enough then Zero would be more inclined to build that touring bike and people would buy it even if it was more expensive than an ICE touring bike.
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Topic: Good News For Electric Motorcycle Touring (Read 1498 times)