Both my parents are long gone (bless them) but I remember my Mum telling me that the reason Dad first bought a car, just prior to WW2, was that as a plumber (lead was in common use then) he was tired of leaning forwards over the handle-bars in order to prevent the front wheel lifting off the ground, such was the weight of his tool bag on the rear carrier.
EV are they worth it?
- Thread starter ericmark
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Deleted member 174758
Actually, in my yoof I did ride a motorbike with a 4ft level strapped to my back quite often. I'm amazed I was never nicked for something like "dangerous load"
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Deleted member 174758
One kid in a kiddie trailer towed behind, second one in a kiddie seat behind dad, and get yourself a cargo bike. Three Shredded Wheat might also come in handy...
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Aye... right...
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Fortunately us 'retirees' don't have to worry about such things.
I've a yearning for a trailer, nice platform body with tandem axles, but it won't be towed behind a b....y bike.
Sorry guys, aren't we getting a bit off-topic now
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Electric cargo bike?
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It will not quite work, but it does show the problem, my e-bike a cheap one weighs around 24 kg wife's is lighter, and with a 48 volt 12 Ah battery it will take me around 25 miles with some peddling, and it would be more if this area was not so hilly. But the bicycle needs around 4 MPH to balance, does not matter how low you gear it, you can't balance below around 4 MPH, the trike is however better and you can gear it lower, but still 250 watt motor is not really enough, the speed limit of 16 MPH not a problem, but really to use to carry goods one needs around a 500 watt motor, which means it is a motor bike, or trike, so you can't use it on motor traffic free roads.Electric cargo bike?
We see the motor trike and quad being used a lot on farms, the main difference between a 4 x 4 and the quad is the weight, and this is the problem, we have so much weight added to a car or van to stop it being crushed in a crash, that the whole unit is too heavy, and if your going to have a vehicle used at work then health and safety at work means as it stands you need to protect your workers in the event of a crash, if you added the crumple zones to my e-bike I would never be able to lift it onto the train, as it is I can't get it inside the carriage, it has to stay on the veranda outside the main carriage. Except if the one carriage designed for wheel chairs is used.
Between Mold and Ruthin the buses has bike racks, but they were simply not used, so have now been removed, and not allowed a bike inside the bus as in a crash it would wheel up the bus, I know the problems with wheel chairs and the need to strap them down, by folding the bike some will allow them, but it is still a big lump.
To be frank removing the wheels with a standard bike it takes up less room in my car than using the folding e-bike. I will normally carry on the bike rack if not going to leave the car. But folded inside the car less likely to be stolen. And this is a problem, my e-bike has an ignition key, so you can't use the electric without a key, but you can still ride it using the pedals.
Mold bus station had some bike lockers, so you could lock up the bike and go shopping, but Welshpool, and Newtown don't have them, so your looking for a lamp post to lock it to, which often means an obstruction on the pavement.
It is one thing buying a cheap bike from Asda or Halfords at under £200 and using it for shopping, if stolen you have only lost £200, but an e-bike starts at around £1000, and it is easy to remove battery, and easy to remove wheels, a quick release wheel without a motor can cost £75, and without quick release wheels will not fit in car, so limited where the bike can be used, and still have the bike to return on.
If we could have a lighter mode of transportation we would not need electric, we can easy make a car carrying 4 people do over 100 MPG, if we can make it lighter, the Auto Rickshaw
In type approval terms, what we would think of as a car (a "category M1" vehicle), needs to pass a number of safety tests that simply can't be passed by this kind of vehicle. Forget EuroNCAP, that's not a legal requirement and is consumer driven. I'm talking about the type approval tests without which, it would be illegal to sell the car.
The above vehicle would be regarded as "Category L" - along with quad bikes, motorcycles, etc. They don't need to meet crashworthiness requirements anything like as stringent (in fact, in recognition of the smaller total volume of emissions, they don't have such touch emissions limits either). Of course, 2-strokes are notoriously filthy emissions-wise, and a big part of the air quality problems in developing countries.
As you say, with a 250 Watt power limit and 16 MPH speed limit (and the requirement to pedal before the motor will deliver any assistance), e-bikes sidestep the type approval requirements.
The requirements for employers to keep employees safe, must be capable of being interpreted in many ways, as farmers are quite happy to put farm workers on quad bikes, rather than in Land Rovers, and don't seem to get prosecuted for doing so!
We could, without doubt, save a load of CO2, steel, lithium, etc, if we could be persuaded to use smaller, lighter vehicles, but they're pretty horrible to drive any distance, can't carry or tow much, and have all the crashworthiness of a wet paper bag in an accident.
e-bikes work in certain circumstances, as you describe, but you can't carry very much on them. My Mrs. has one and it's a thing of beauty (just over 11kg, which makes it lighter than my (non-electric) mountain bike)! However, I'd love to see her bring a week's shopping for a family of 4 home on it!
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@Avocet is spot on, it is the laws which stop us using vehicles with low CO2 emissions. As to two stoke engines, most ships engines are two stoke, and railways engines the deltic was popular at one time, but with road transport the commer which was like a third of the deltic did not last long, the detroit lasted longer with 4 exhaust valves per cylinder, and the USA trucks with these engines clearly are not clean
but these are very different to small engines which have no sump and only way to lubricate the engine is to all oil to the fuel, this is often done to keep down weight, and allow the engine to work at all angles, as with a chain saw, one could not really have a sump on a chain saw.
I have a few times looked at the trike
the Royal Mail have tested some, but looking at the 250 watt rule, I can't see any limit to how many 250 watt motors, so could one have one in each wheel? The rules are a bit vague, it says 250 watt on a continuous basis, so having more power at some points in the speed range is allowed, so it is likely a 350 watt peak power motor would comply, as it can't produce that throughout the range. But a 1000 watt is clearly moving into the motor bike class.
Even the use of a throttle. It depends on the age of the e-bike, and e-bikes are not registered, so how does one know the age of a second hand e-bike? The problem with no throttle is starting off, and you are allowed a throttle up to 4 MPH, called walk assist, with a mid engine e-bike the first push on pedals starts the motor, but with wheel motors it takes some time for the motor to engage, so junctions are a problem, as slow start, and these signs "Cyclists dismount" silly as it takes so long to cross a road when walking beside the cycle, and you need to fold the pedals to stop them tripping you up. Instead of "Cyclists dismount" it should say "This cycle track is not for using, it is to get some sort of grant, please cycle on the road." in some cases there are crossing lights at a height the cyclist can use, but cycle tracks with multi drop pavements for car access into drives, is just silly, no one in their right mind will use them.
I have a few times looked at the trike
the Royal Mail have tested some, but looking at the 250 watt rule, I can't see any limit to how many 250 watt motors, so could one have one in each wheel? The rules are a bit vague, it says 250 watt on a continuous basis, so having more power at some points in the speed range is allowed, so it is likely a 350 watt peak power motor would comply, as it can't produce that throughout the range. But a 1000 watt is clearly moving into the motor bike class.Even the use of a throttle. It depends on the age of the e-bike, and e-bikes are not registered, so how does one know the age of a second hand e-bike? The problem with no throttle is starting off, and you are allowed a throttle up to 4 MPH, called walk assist, with a mid engine e-bike the first push on pedals starts the motor, but with wheel motors it takes some time for the motor to engage, so junctions are a problem, as slow start, and these signs "Cyclists dismount" silly as it takes so long to cross a road when walking beside the cycle, and you need to fold the pedals to stop them tripping you up. Instead of "Cyclists dismount" it should say "This cycle track is not for using, it is to get some sort of grant, please cycle on the road." in some cases there are crossing lights at a height the cyclist can use, but cycle tracks with multi drop pavements for car access into drives, is just silly, no one in their right mind will use them.
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On the other hand perhaps they are?
Not to me. I don't have time for charging batteries.
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Just plug it into the charger in the evening and should be easily topped-up by the morning. What is the problem?
I've seen that bloke's videos before. He is an absolute know-nothing (that's the politest word I could come up with), who just hates EVs and goes off trawling for any anti-EV dirt that he can "spin". He has a whole load of similarly minded followers on YouTube, to whom everything he says that sounds even vaguely like it might be anti-EV, is red meat.
However, as someone who works for a company with a crash repair shop, I've been around long enough to remember when that same guy (if YouTube had been a thing, back then), could have made exactly the same video when vehicles started coming with airbags!
"Oooo! A crashed vehicle's undetonated airbag could go off any minute you know! It could kill someone! These things were supposed to make us safer - excuse me laughing, but this is just so funny...." (You get the picture)? Basically, something new comes out, with new hazards associated with it, and all the same arguments get trotted out. In fact, remember when manufacturers used to recommend airbag and seat belt pre-tensioner replacement at 10 years?
"Oooo this is going to write-off perfectly useable cars"! Oooo you won't be able to get insured on a 10 year old car with airbags, unless they've all been replaced"! "Oooo nobody knows how to work on them"! "Ooooo the world's going to end"!
And then they started making high end cars out of aluminium...
"Ooooo nobody will be able to work on them"! "OOooo you'll need special tools and welding gear"! "Ooooo everyone's going to have to re-train"! "Oooooo you can't paint aluminium"!
And then they started using boron steel in some of the higher-stressed parts of a steel bodyshell...
"Oooo you can't weld that"! "Oooo it's going to be impossible to straighten on the body alignment jig"! Ooooo you're going to have to write the car off for anything more than a parking knock"!
And then they started putting cameras and radars on the backs of windscreens....
(I could go on, but I'm sure you see where I'm coming from)?
Pretty much EVERY innovation in vehicle structures and safety has, at some point, sent a mechanic or technician into apoplexy, because it's taken him out of his comfort zone. 100 years ago, these same people would have been putting up YouTube videos about how much easier horses were to look after, and how horseless carriages would never catch on, because nobody had the necessary skills to maintain them.
Fortunately, the engineers who work at the manufacturers, and Thatcham, are made of tougher stuff than that. They will be working on (and I predict, will overcome), every last one of those obstacles (and I don't for one minute deny that they exist, by the way), so that the technicians will just regard it as second nature by the time they've got a few under their belts.
Meanwhile, our resident YouTube, (self-appointed) King of Negativity, will crawl off and make videos of how bad hydrogen cars are, and how dangerous handling them after crashes is...
For anyone who hasn't the time or inclination to watch it through, the summary is as follows:
He's got hold of a Thatcham report, listing a number of problems associated with repairing crashed EVs, that will need to be overcome. He's then made a YouTube video claiming that they're all insurmountable....
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Deleted member 174758
Surely the same sort of issues occur with almost any new product. Some people just don't like change.
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