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[tyzbit]

I'm not even at a half a tonne yet! Still got far to go.

[flattetyre]

Let me start my car and idle it for a while to make up for that. I'm here cuz electric bikes are awesome not to bullshit myself that I'm saving the environment.

[tyzbit]

Let me start my car and idle it for a while to make up for that. I'm here cuz electric bikes are awesome not to bullshit myself that I'm saving the environment.

Considering how childish that sounds, it seems you may also need a reminder to leave the garage door open or else you'll hurt yourself trying to prove a point

There are many reasons to want to ride an electric motorcycle.  You don't need all of them in order to justify why you ride.  Being better for the environment long term isn't even in my top 5 list of reasons why I ride a Zero, but it's a cool, fun side benefit.  Some people take the environmental aspect electric vehicles much more seriously.  Their reasons are valid too.

Gatekeeping or childishly kicking over someone else's sandcastle is immature and mean.

[Fran K]

I wish to stay away from the saved doing a instead of b.  How many pounds of carbon dioxide are produced burning a 7 pound gallon of gasoline in  a modern 4 stroke mc?  It likely is more than 7 as oxygen is heavier than hydrogen.

[Richard230]

Let me start my car and idle it for a while to make up for that. I'm here cuz electric bikes are awesome not to bullshit myself that I'm saving the environment.

Considering how childish that sounds, it seems you may also need a reminder to leave the garage door open or else you'll hurt yourself trying to prove a point

There are many reasons to want to ride an electric motorcycle.  You don't need all of them in order to justify why you ride.  Being better for the environment long term isn't even in my top 5 list of reasons why I ride a Zero, but it's a cool, fun side benefit.  Some people take the environmental aspect electric vehicles much more seriously.  Their reasons are valid too.

Gatekeeping or childishly kicking over someone else's sandcastle is immature and mean.

On the other hand, perhaps flattetyre was just trying to be funny and making a point that riding an electric motorcycle doesn't really do all that much to save the environment when you have the guy down the street running around in a F350 diesel being used as a commute vehicle. To say nothing of the areas in the world where electric power is being generated by coal-fired plants.  If nothing else, his sarcastic comment resulted in a response regarding the issue, which I think is worth discussing, or at least thinking about - even if he did kick over a sandcastle or two. 

[tyzbit]

I wish to stay away from the saved doing a instead of b.  How many pounds of carbon dioxide are produced burning a 7 pound gallon of gasoline in  a modern 4 stroke mc?  It likely is more than 7 as oxygen is heavier than hydrogen.

It's not a scientific measurement, for sure, but a fun little way of playing "what if" scenarios in our heads.

On the other hand, perhaps flattetyre was just trying to be funny and making a point that riding an electric motorcycle doesn't really do all that much to save the environment when you have the guy down the street running around in a F350 diesel being used as a commute vehicle. To say nothing of the areas in the world where electric power is being generated by coal-fired plants.  If nothing else, his sarcastic comment resulted in a response regarding the issue, which I think is worth discussing, or at least thinking about - even if he did kick over a sandcastle or two. 

We all behave according to our own beliefs about how we ought to behave, so saying you'd change your own behavior to counteract someone else's isn't a discussion starter or a silly joke, it's a schoolyard taunt.  It's like saying "You decided to stop peeing in the pool so I'm going to pee in the pool twice as much".  I think a discussion on the actual environmental effects and benefits of Zeros would be awesome; when I started this thread I searched for CO2 and found no threads so I think it would be an interesting topic for this forum to cover.

I'd love for people to continue to post pictures of their Zero app in this thread but since it's been touched on, let's dive into the environmental impacts of riding a Zero compared to riding a gasoline-powered motorcycle, shall we? 

Environmental Considerations for Riding a Zero Motorcycle

Before we even begin, the best thing carbon-wise is for you not to build a new motorcycle of any type, period. Furthermore, if it's gasoline powered, don't ride it at all. So at least in the short term the best thing for you to do is to use whatever's already manufactured as the carbon costs are already sunk.  But let's assume you are guaranteed going to ride anyway. 

So with that in mind, let's do a thought experiment.  Imagine I own a Honda CBR600RR (which I did) and I wanted to sell that and switch to a Zero motorcycle (which I did).  At what mileage do I recoup the carbon cost of building a brand new motorcycle rather than using my existing one?  It's at this mileage that I can start to say I've made a positive impact at all.  This ignores the original carbon cost of manufacturing the CBR, and we will also assume the Zero is charged by a zero-emissions power source such as solar or wind, so this is best case scenario for the Zero, and gives the CBR a break as well.

The New Zero's Carbon Cost

The biggest source of carbon generation when manufacturing electric vehicles is the battery so first, let's figure out the carbon cost for making the Zero's battery.  I'm sure the figures vary wildly but Popular Mechanics has an article saying that manufacturing a 100kW Tesla battery produces 17.5 tons of CO2. That's .175 tons of CO2 per kW or for a 14.4kW Zero battery, 2.52 tons of CO2.

The Carbon Cost of Continuing to Ride the CBR

Lets figure out how many tons of CO2 per mile the CBR emits.  1 gallon of gasoline is 8.8kg(or ~20lbs) of CO2 out the tailpipe, and the CBR gets 45 mpg, so .44 lbs of CO2 per mile.

Now the easy part.  2.52 tons (or 5,040 lbs), which is the carbon cost of the Zero's battery, divided by .44 lbs of CO2 per mile of the CBR gets us 11,454 miles before the Zero has won back the carbon cost of its battery compared to riding the CBR.

Going Further

Since this is me we're talking about, let's figure out how much longer I need to ride in order to be in the green.  I got my Zero on March 16, or 38 days ago, and I've gone 1300 miles.  That's an average of 34 miles per day.  So in order to reach 11,454 miles and start saving on CO2 costs, it will take me 334 days of riding or about 11 months.  Good to know!

Things I glossed over:

• Zeros are not Teslas, we don't know how much carbon the manufacture of a Zero battery actually generates
• We didn't calculate any of the other parts of a Zero, which definitely are not carbon-neutral to manufacture
• I'm riding a lot now, but I might not keep up this pace so it will probably take longer to win back the carbon costs, especially considering the weather
• The EPA's estimates were for an average vehicle, motorcycles emit less carbon (but more of the other pollutants) per gallon of gasoline than a car
• I charge virtually entirely at home and purchase green credits from my power utility, so saying I ride emissions free is actually partially accurate

Sources are listed inline, but much of this post is inspired by about the carbon cost of electric vehicles.  He gets into real-world scenarios of electricity generation (interesting tidbit: EVs are worse for the environment in West Virginia than gasoline powered vehicles because WV is primarily powered by coal) so if you liked this post, his video is even better.

[flattetyre]

I think it's just ridiculous. It's a slight novelty knowing how many gallons of gas I've saved, since I still have gas powered vehicles and can relate to the quantity but lbs CO2...how many years ago did I last fill a paintball tank? That's about my experience dealing with CO2 in lbs. The metric just is not relevant to my life, and on a personal level it is particularly irrelevant to the environment (to make some reasonable assumptions about your means and footprint).

Counting your personal CO2, you feel good because you're helping the environment, right? Wrong, and you should feel ashamed for getting off on a token effort and suggesting others do the same.

[hiposw]

How do you know it is a token effort? I realize that riding an electric motorcycle is not going to save Earth. It is just one of many things I do to try to lessen my impact on the planet. All combined I hope I am making a difference. As a bonus, riding my Zero is the most fun I have ever had on a motorcycle.

[Doug S]

It's not the savings by a single vehicle. That's entirely insignificant in the scheme of things. I look at is as being an early adopter in a technology which will, in time, have a major, very large effect. The more of us who support the technology now, the quicker it will happen. You're an early snowflake in the snowball.

Do you vote? I'm guessing you're one of those "my vote doesn't matter" people. It's a shame, because your vote matters very much, to you if nobody else. If you don't vote, you don't have any right to bitch about anybody in office you could have voted against. You didn't do your part, so you're stuck with who everybody else DID vote for. Don't be that guy. Reserve your right to bitch about the people in office.

[tyzbit]

I think it's just ridiculous. It's a slight novelty knowing how many gallons of gas I've saved, since I still have gas powered vehicles and can relate to the quantity but lbs CO2...how many years ago did I last fill a paintball tank? That's about my experience dealing with CO2 in lbs. The metric just is not relevant to my life, and on a personal level it is particularly irrelevant to the environment (to make some reasonable assumptions about your means and footprint).

Counting your personal CO2, you feel good because you're helping the environment, right? Wrong, and you should feel ashamed for getting off on a token effort and suggesting others do the same.

CO2 emission per person is not irrelevant to the environment.  Along the lines of what Doug alluded to, no snowflake blames itself for the avalanche and yet, an avalanche is entirely made up of snowflakes.

No one is thrusting their ecological superiority at you.  No one is saying "All you have to do to save the environment is ride a Zero!".  All anyone is doing when they estimate their impact on the environment is trying to change what they have the power to.  Yes, jets pollute as well.  Yes, oil production pollutes as well.  Yes, 16 supertankers pollute just as much as all passenger cars combined.  None of these facts change the fact that after 12k miles, I have made a positive impact on the amount of CO2 emitted.  I know it's small.  Snowflakes are small.

[Doug S]

Yes, 16 supertankers pollute just as much as all passenger cars combined.

Fascinating article. But the way I read it, he's talking about sulfur pollution specifically. That's because ships are diesel powered, and not the good, high-quality, low-sulfur diesel. Not too many cars are diesel powered (especially after the VW fiasco), and those that are are under strict pollution controls in most parts of the world. Automotive diesel is also refined to be especially low sulfur these days.

I've read that cars cause more than 1/4th of carbon dioxide pollution in this country. That's a big chunk, and it's really one of the best ways we as individuals have to cut back on our personal contribution. I love that fact almost as much as I love my bike.

[Richard230]

With me, I have been riding ICE motorcycles for over 56 years and during those years I never even thought about how doing so was impacting the environment.  On the other hand, my daughter is very concerned about the environment, although she and her husband do own and ride 5 old ICE motorcycles, along with a car and a Zero.  Their two daughters do not have a driver's license, have no interest in motorcycles or cars and it appears that they never intend to contribute to Global Warming by ever driving a vehicle. 

[GaryArt1]

With me, I have been riding ICE motorcycles for over 56 years and during those years I never even thought about how doing so was impacting the environment.  On the other hand, my daughter is very concerned about the environment, although she and her husband do own and ride 5 old ICE motorcycles, along with a car and a Zero.  Their two daughters do not have a driver's license, have no interest in motorcycles or cars and it appears that they never intend to contribute to Global Warming by ever driving a vehicle. 

Yes, it seems every new generation is becoming more aware of the mess the environment is in and of their impact on it because they will be dealing with the consequences more and more.  My father opted to get a V8 truck, not that he needs it for work but likes the power.  I choose to use my truck only when I need, use our 4 cyl. as much as possible and use my ICE bike when the weather is good.  yes I am buying an electric bike partly because of the way it rides but also to give another little contribution to the life of my daughter and one day my grand kids.  If this aspect means nothing to you then you are either don't believe in the mess of our environment or don't care.  Just keep in mind, it is the little contributions multiplied by the many that makes the significant difference. 

[tyzbit]

Yes, it seems every new generation is becoming more aware of the mess the environment is in and of their impact on it because they will be dealing with the consequences more and more.  My father opted to get a V8 truck, not that he needs it for work but likes the power.  I choose to use my truck only when I need, use our 4 cyl. as much as possible and use my ICE bike when the weather is good.  yes I am buying an electric bike partly because of the way it rides but also to give another little contribution to the life of my daughter and one day my grand kids.  If this aspect means nothing to you then you are either don't believe in the mess of our environment or don't care.  Just keep in mind, it is the little contributions multiplied by the many that makes the significant difference.

I'm incredibly thankful I have the luxury of being able to make this small positive change as well.  For most people, they can't afford to radically change their behavior for the environment, and I don't expect them to.  I expect those with the means (cough cough companies cough) and those who make the rules (our government and leaders) to do their jobs and be responsible.

[BamBam]

I'm glad Tyzbit started this thread and created some discussion on the positive environmental impacts of riding an electric motorcycle.  I don't know if Flattetyre was just being sarcastic or not, but I didn't appreciate his comments either.  The environment is in a really bad way and it's not a joking matter.

Every little contribution does make a difference.  There is a new series on Netflix called “Our Planet” that focuses on the effects that climate change is already having on our planet and all living things that inhabit it and the results are grim.  Future generations will look back on this period in time and ask why we didn’t do anything to reverse the effects of climate change while we still had the chance.  And what will your answer be?