There hasn't been much progress since the milk float?
I don't understand that. Nothing much happened early on because nobody was interested, petrol was cheap, that isn't the case any more.

There are even electric aircraft. I worked on projects developing military RPA and semi-autonomous UAV. If you called any of those a milk float to its face it could make your day go very badly indeed. Technology is moving on.

On the road-
Tesla Roadster (0-60 mph in 3.7 seconds, standard range 240 miles per charge, best range 311)

GM EV1 etc. etc.
Definately not milk floats

There are a lot of people going to work every day on Electric bikes

Not sure about the trolly bus idea either. If you are generating current for it you need to produce it all the time and at maximum levels, even if all the trams are stood still.

Range and infrastructure, standardisation or the biggys I think. There are issues over which technology to choose too, plus the oil/car manufacturers will lose revenue so they are fighting it all the way (needs fewer parts/servicing) and public acceptence too - most bikers want showy and noisy.

as a petrol head myself, i always prefer the sound of an engine to it's economy. there might come a time when the fuel prices become prohibitive enough for me to go for an electric vehicle but i sure hope that time is far far away...

Also, for cars the current technology can almost be called viable, with the battery sizes and charging times decreasing while their range keep increasing, but for bikes it's a totally different matter. Mass of a motorcycle can only take a certain amount of battery, whereas a car can always sacrifice from boot or rear space. There's so little play on a motorcycle if you're hunting for space to put batteries in.

The current motorcyle engines are not as efficient as they could have been either. Even with that in mind, they are still far more economical (and cleaner) than most car engines, therefore there's still a lot of improvement to be made on the petrol engines on motorcycles before thinking of going electrical.

In the current climate, the only way an electric motorcycle would sell better is if they were not heavier than their petrol counterparts with similar range and very short charging intervals and similar boot space.

Bluebottle wrote:There hasn't been much progress since the milk float?

Correct.
Electric vehicle usage is virtually nil.
If there were any genuine advantage for autonomous electric vehicles there would be many more of them on our roads.
There isn't and they're not.
And I don't see that changing any time soon.

Nil? There are over 500,000 electric scooters on the roads of just one city, that is one city not country.

Said to Henry Ford's lawyer by his banker:
"The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad"

@ Halfabusa, I think that is going to be most peoples response, "I can see the advantages but they aren't the ones I want and they aren't sexy" which I can fully understand.

As I saw for myself, in Beijing most scooters are electric. And there are a lot of scooters there

Bluebottle wrote:Nil? There are over 500,000 electric scooters on the roads of just one city, that is one city not country.

One city, but very definitely nowhere near being all cities and they're still useless in the counties.

Bluebottle wrote:Said to Henry Ford's lawyer by his banker:
"The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad"

He may yet be proven correct.

Beijing must be in millions, I remember China as a whole reaching 100 million some time ago.
That was just for electric scooters and didn't include electric bikes, cars or vans

A lot of the chinese electric designs are clones of existing scooters, one of mine looks like a Honda Joker. I don't know if they are under licence or copyright infringements or what but the body panels on the better ones seem to be made from the original moulds and fit together well. The smaller trim parts are often brittle though. The paint and chrome on metal work always leaves a lot to be desired on cheap chinese scooters.

I would be interested to take a look at their premium product.
The motors and control boxes seem to be pretty good, the quality control problems tend to be with the bodies that these parts get put into.
As Haslfabua said, housing batteries isn't easy in pre-existing designs, something purpose built could accomodate them better.
I would like to take the motor/controller from one of the better performing models and design a body around it with decent efficient components (replace bulbs with LEDs, recover energy from the suspension movement and braking, selected tyres/bearings and minimise weight.

I am sure BMW can come up with something better than me but I enjoy messing with this stuff and sometimes a one off can fit your needs beeter than mass production stuff.

As I see it the major problems with electric bikes/scooters is that they cannot store enough energy and the energy cannot be transferred to them fast enough.
When an electric scooter is available which will sit at a constant 75mph for 150 miles and can be fully recharged in under an hour.....
Ah well, a chap can dream.

gn2 wrote:When an electric scooter is available which will sit at a constant 75mph for 150 miles and can be fully recharged in under an hour.....

Your PCX can't do that.
Criteria and purchase don't link up.

Bluebottle wrote:Your PCX can't do that.
Criteria and purchase don't link up.

You're quite correct, it can't and never will.
My criteria were different when I selected the PCX, I have moved house and changed job since I bought it.
I now have a 54mile round trip commute on major A-roads, half of which is 70mph dual carriageway.
Previously my commute was mostly on rural back roads.
Anyway, is there an electric scooter which will sit at 55mph for 120 miles which can be recharged in less than five minutes...?
So my PCX still wins over electric.
What I set out was my current wish list for an electric scooter.
As no such (affordable) electric scooter meeting those criteria will exist when it comes time to trade the PCX, it will probably be a 250-400 petrol job.