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Comment by nicbou | Hacker News Reader

I don't care about electric cars, but I care about electric motorcycles. As a long range traveler, there are a few issues that are left unaddressed:

* My bike has a 500 kilometre range, which is about the maximum I'll ride in a day. Electric bikes have a smaller range than what I usually cover in a day. On the highway, the range drops so much that I'd need to take an extended lunch to finish my journey.

* I can extend my range by 200-300km by carrying extra fuel. This is not possible with electric cars.

* I can fuel up in 5 minutes. Refuelling does not dictate my schedule.

* I don't need to find a gas station that's within walking distance of my hotel (I have two heavy boxes to schlep around). Refuelling does not dictate where I can sleep.

* If I run out of fuel, I can ask someone to bring some from a gas station. I don't need to tow the car.

* I can't begin to imagine the logistics of finding a convenient power outlet everywhere I stop.

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Asking in good faith - why would you even drive 500 + 300km on a bike in one go? This sounds like a terrible ordeal to me.

There are plenty of things that can be done to make it comfortable. For many bikes, if legs get stiff you can just stand up. There are some models that would be arduous, some that would be so comfortable as to put one to sleep, and some that are a good mix of comfort and performance. Either way, being in the landscape as opposed to in a car is a different and wonderful experience.

300 kilometres is a standard driving day on backroads, accounting for lunch and breaks. 500 kilometres is a sustainable maximum for highway driving. I only do the latter when I really have to. On long trips I estimate 200 kilometres a day, or 2 days on, 1 day off.

With a comfortable motorcycle this is perfectly reasonable. I have a 2017 V-Strom 650 and it's perfectly suitable for the task.

7 hours of driving a day for a long distance trip is hardly excessive, I know plenty of people who go 12 or even 14 hours when they wanna get somewhere quickly.

Fuel energy density is a hell of a problem. On car you have some room to wiggle as anyway you're getting some weight reduction by just changing from a combustion to an electric engine.

Motorbikes on the other hand are optimized on a specific setting (think how an enduro handles different than a superbike and so on) which makes it really hard to add weight and you end up with a much bigger trade-off between fuel volume and range.

Bikes vs. cars also gets hit with the squared-cubed law. Energy storage scales with the cube of vehicle size, while frontal area scales with the square. Air drag accounts for the majority of energy usage at highway speed, so for the same vehicle shape, range scales with size. Add the fact that bikes have a high Cd compared to cars and range is always going to be markedly less.

> I can extend my range by 200-300km by carrying extra fuel. This is not possible with electric cars

I've wondered about this. What if for a long EV car trip you put a small gas or propane generator in the trunk or a small trailer, and ran it to provide some charging while you are driving and/or when you stop to rest or sleep?

Could that provide enough extra to overcome the losses from carrying the generator and fuel for it, and if so, could it be enough to make a noticeable difference?

You've heard of hybrids, right?

> put a small gas or propane generator in the trunk

I'd prefer you didn't pass out from carbon monoxide poisoning while operating a vehicle on public roads, thanks.

That's a very common setup in Europe and in central Asia. LPG tanks in cars are a nice way to save money on gas. They're ubiquitous in Uzbekistan.

EV bikes with solar panels offer something gas cannot.

What exactly? Solar panels can barely charge my phone. How is it supposed to charge a 15 kWh battery before I starve in the middle of nowhere?

Even with a power socket, it takes 5-9 hours to charge an electric bike.

That's only viable if you ride your bike very little or very seldom.

My buddy has a Zero S[1], which has a battery pack of about 6kWh nominal. Using a portable 120W solar panel and a total efficiency of 50%, that's 100 hours of sunlight to recharge the battery.

And that 120W panel is pretty darn big to lug around.

[1]: https://www.zeromotorcycles.com/model/zero-s

Excessive wind resistance?

But they look awkward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HbAEPdrvAI

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