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[Doug S]

I dunno. Maybe this is the model we need. But we also all need carrot juice and graham crackers. It's hard to get excited about carrot juice and graham crackers.

You could also easily defend a fiscal point of view where, based on TCO (total cost of ownership), we should all ride Ninja 250s and drive Nissan Versas, or better yet, ride the bus everywhere. Snot a world I want to live in.

That's why I love my 2014 Zero SR so much. It's about as fun and exciting as any street vehicle I've ever driven/rode, very reasonable TCO, and extremely friendly to the environment. Where else are you going to find that combination?

[princec]

In an SR/F, but more of it

Cas

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

The above replies are all sensible, and I only want to comment on specific aspects:

For the Australian market and other more-equatorial markets, liquid cooling is less about the quantity of waste heat than it is about relieving it efficiently enough to keep the equipment operating in its best conditions. This is one area where Zero's set of powertrain tradeoffs could legitimately improve.

The cost question right now is a matter of battery pack quality vs benefit. Zero's pack and powertrain is too expensive for this application. But the powertrains being fielded for the low end of the market right now concern me in terms of reliability/durability. That's just my sense of the equipment I've seen. I think there could be better that hits the right price point.

[Crissa]

GM announced their new EV platform and battery formulation this week.  They're claiming such a low price on batteries as to reduce the cost of a Zero by $4-8k.  That's a big savings that ideally will bring electrics down towards cost parity with ICE vehicles, before looking at fuel/TCO.

-Crissa

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Car batteries are cheaper than motorcycle batteries because of scale, but also: they don’t fit on motorcycles. What they’re accomplishing isn’t some automatic benefit to our market.

[Crissa]

That seems nonsensical, Brian, since the batteries in Zeros share the formulation and density with the batteries in a Bolt.

Yes, we don't get all the advantages of scale.  But the thread is clearly about what would be optimum and not just what has happened so far.

-Crissa

[gregj]

One thing that seems to get forgotten in the car/bike battery question is the amount of energy used to move the rider ( the actual concern) versus the amount needed to move the entire vehicle AND rider.
The ratio of the weight of car to payload is just ridiculous. That was just bought home to me  when I looked at the GM car in the new battery announcement. It is ridiculously HUGE!
Even allowing for the greater relative higher drag of bike/rider ( even the best faired street capable bike) and pretty much any car, the extra weight carried around by a car is gigantic. Most of it doesn't actually do anything. Any weight of battery will at least not be carrying unnecessary extra.
Doug S. Some of us like the carrot juice approach. I want a bike I can use smart, not a show piece with masses of power I cannot use without losing my licence. If I want speed and ultimate handling , I want range as well. That means ICE for the time being. I have an MT07 for that. I don't want to live in a world that is ONLY carrot juice and kale. But I need them ( OK NOT kale, it's aweful). In a revised Mazlow's heirarchy of need , a supercommuter is above a sports electric bike in my case. For me a supercommuter is a tool, and a superbike a toy to play with.
My need is a need. A bike that can carry me into town and back. Starting and finishing at 100kph, and the rest at town speeds. I can charge it from my solar array during the day for power. And one I can afford, which means made in China or India or Thailand, I would think. Anything made in the USA will be way overpriced once it hits Australia. As Zero found out, selling in Aus is just too costly.

[Doug S]

Doug S. Some of us like the carrot juice approach. I want a bike I can use smart, not a show piece with masses of power I cannot use without losing my licence. If I want speed and ultimate handling , I want range as well. That means ICE for the time being. I have an MT07 for that. I don't want to live in a world that is ONLY carrot juice and kale. But I need them ( OK NOT kale, it's aweful). In a revised Mazlow's heirarchy of need , a supercommuter is above a sports electric bike in my case. For me a supercommuter is a tool, and a superbike a toy to play with.
My need is a need. A bike that can carry me into town and back. Starting and finishing at 100kph, and the rest at town speeds. I can charge it from my solar array during the day for power. And one I can afford, which means made in China or India or Thailand, I would think. Anything made in the USA will be way overpriced once it hits Australia. As Zero found out, selling in Aus is just too costly.

All I ask for is a machine that can do all of that. Provide cheesecake thrills and carrot juice abstemiousness, with only one bike taking up space in my garage and wasting my insurance/registration/maintenance dollars. I don't think it's impossible, and I think the existing electric motorcycles come very close to the (at least my) ideal. Okay, MAAAAAYBE you could half commuting expenses again with an ultra minimalist approach, but we're already so far down in the mud I don't think you're really going to benefit much.

[Richard230]

Did someone mention kale?  Here is a kale cooking tip. 

[togo]

> ... but also: they don’t fit on motorcycles. ...

https://www.google.com/search?q=nisan%20leaf%20motorcycle&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=lnt