Someone Built an Electric Harley-Davidson Motorcycle in 1978 | Hacker News Reader

Someone Built an Electric Harley-Davidson Motorcycle in 1978

cycleworld.com

24 pointskulu200222 comments

Open articleView on HN

>Someone Built an Electric Harley-Davidson Motorcycle in 1978

But it never caught on because it doesn't make noise.

Where would the fun in that be?

I mean you couldn't use that bike to ride down residential streets at 3:00am and wake everyone up!

I guess those assholes will find another way to be antisocial

The Harley sound is considered sacred.

"Harley-Davidson attempted to register as a trademark the distinctive "chug" of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle engine. On February 1, 1994, the company filed its application with the following description: "The mark consists of the exhaust sound of applicant's motorcycles, produced by V-twin, common crankpin motorcycle engines when the goods are in use." Nine of Harley-Davidson's competitors filed oppositions against the application, arguing that cruiser-style motorcycles of various brands use the same crankpin V-twin engine which produces the same sound. After six years of litigation, with no end in sight, in early 2000, Harley-Davidson withdrew their application."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_trademark

Gimme a break.

They use an outdated engine design, that can only achieve reasonable HP if the engine has pipes on it that let it 'breathe', not mufflers mind you just pipes.

Maybe if either of Mr Harley or Davidson were brought back to life today, they'd probably laugh at the fact that people still use that design and go on to manufacture electric crotch rockets instead.

I have been lead to believe that the modification to produce this "trademark" noise is done at dealerships instead of the manufacturing plant; possibly because this fell through.

This site shows a rare glimpse to what is happening underneath that enables "free" web

[1] -> View List of Cookies Used on this Site

[1] https://www.cycleworld.com/consent.php?redirect=https%3a%2f%...

While it entirely put me off going further into the site, I did look through some of the cookies listed - a few have 68-year expiry dates.

I doubt I'll even be using the same architecture in 68 years, let alone the same laptop or browser!

Ha! 68 years, try 7981! G_ENABLED_IDPS [x3] from disqus.com/pinterest.ie/stumbleupon.com states expiry of 95779 months.

One of the Unclassified cookes _nauid has its expirey set to 1000 years...

Pretty ridiculous I must admit, but what do you propose is the alternative? Micropayments is a utopian fantasy that would never play out in reality and pay walls eliminate what makes the web valuable to so many people.

I would never have run across this (actually pretty interesting) article and information if it was hidden behind a paywall because I don't own a motorcycle.

This kind of serendipitous exposure to a diverse set of viewpoints and information would not be possible outside of a free-yet-cookie-filled internet.

I know this sentiment will be unpopular around here, but personally, my concerns around privacy begin and end with governments. X profit motivated company wants to track my browsing activity to sell me consumer products in exchange for paying their (already barely paid) writers? Go right ahead. If you annoy me enough I'll just turn off cookies.

You know, if it was restricted _purely_ to advertising, I suspect that most people could live with this. However when they then start to use this tracking information for pricing discrimination people start to get twitchy. When you start to use it for political purposes, including political advertising, people start to get twitchy. When they start to use it for credit rating scores, etc, etc.

> people start to get twitchy

You mean all the people who don't have a facebook account?

Advertising is fine, just don't do anything that violates privacy. For 100 years or so advertisements have not needed to remember your face... We just need to go back to before this one specific thing was instituted.

"Micropayments is a utopian fantasy that would never play out in reality"

Care to provide some arguments?

The problem right now I see in the lack of an easy to use service with reasonable fees. And the mindset of the people that why pay for things voluntarily? But Wikipedia for example shows, that there allready enough people thinking different. So we just lack the micropayment service

Wow... great insight.. didn't check that

Thanks to GDPR this is no longer a rare glimpse, as a lot of sites are publishing something similar to this, or offering opt-outs. And while this list is long, it is most definitely not extreme.

If one would like to, it can be considered a list of sites to block cookies from ;)

Personally I already found the "Necessary" category long but acceptable. If I had been able to choose "only necessary" I might have kept the tab open...

Yes, all sites from this media group is a cookie hell, https://twitter.com/cyberfart/status/1004822971683352576

Your link doesn't work for me - I get redirected to the article.

Instead, I had to go to the main cycleworld.com page, scroll to the footer, and click "GPDR" to reach:

https://www.cycleworld.com/sites/cycleworld.com/consent.php?...

27 "Necessary" cookies for CDN control, cookie consent, CSRF protection...and other less 'necessary' things, some from Linkedin or Pinterest and other social tracking sites. 10 "Preferences" cookies for storing your preferences... mostly from ad networks. 34 "Statistics" cookies for analytics. 84 "unclassified".

Two hundred and fifty one marketing cookies.

I particularly like how, while some cookies have reasonable session-only or month-long expiry dates, and many others last for 1 or 2 years, the _nauid cookie from nrich.ai is set to expire in 1000 years. Wouldn't want to miss that opportunity if you see my computer on cycleworld.com today and, in the far-off year of 2978, I connect this centuries-old relic to a different server that's using nrich.ai.

After all, you might be able to sell an ad for a fusion-powered hyperspace hoverbike if you know this computer looked at a page about electric motorcycles 900 years ago.

An interesting find. Motorcycles and similar sized vehicles show the limitation of batteries more than automobiles as they have less ability to absorb the weight and space requirements. While there are some +100 mile range bikes their range drops off very fast at highway speeds, bikes not being the most aerodynamic.

Personally, my turn off has been lack of locking storage and good wind protection. Both add weight and wind protection will range because of increased drag but for those of us who like to commute on two wheels having secure and dry storage for out gear and work items, think laptop, is always a concern. I am really hoping for a HD EV that can use the full range of accessories for either Softtail or Touring line with sufficient range to get to a Poker run, ride it, and return. So figure 200 mile range at near constant highway speeds. To displace big touring bikes it will have to be at highway speeds

Looks like Harley is releasing an electric bike next year and it looks really good.

https://electrek.co/2018/04/27/harley-davidson-electric-moto...

The electric bike options are all really great offerings but are much more expensive than their gas counter parts. I recently picked up a small electric dirt bike and I'm having a blast on it. I won't sell my CBR because that is fun in a different way that an electric cannot replace but the electric has its own positives. Not having a clutch and no engine heat burning you up in traffic make electric bikes perfect for daily commuters.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com