Are we in the electric Vehicle Revolution?

Bad biknut for ignoring stop signs.
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I just glad I don't live over there. I can kind of see why they banned eBikes in NY. I'm sure there were a bunch of delivery A-holes on eBikes ruining it for everyone else.
 
They don't want fast Ebikes riding on sidewalks in places like NYC, that's why they are against them. If you've ever been run over by a bicycle like I have by a BMXer at a skatepark you'd know why. Running stopsigns is ticketable behavior even on a pedal bicycle, because it can cause serious accidents with pedestrians and cars sharing the road with you, another reason why NYC has taken an adversary stance because it's a popular thing with fixie-riding delivery boys running stoplights and causing pileups and bloody carnage. Ride safely, even if it hurts your range, it will do a lot for the cause you have taken up promoting.
 
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In regards to the title, simply put.........NO.

We are still stuck in the petroleum revolution unfortunately :(

Filler-Up? Check the oil?
 
I'd have to disagree with you there scotto, we may or may not be in an "Electric Vehicle Revolution" but we are without a doubt in an "Alternative Fuel Revolution" as never before, not even during wartime rationing or the height of the OPEC crisis have fuels other then petroleum been so thoroughly examined, experimented with & used - I strongly doubt petroleum will be surpassed anytime soon, but it's glory days are over.

Even aside from it's effectiveness as a fuel or environmental consequences, far too many even motorheads like myself are disenchanted with the shenanigans, the price hikes, power struggles and associated bull to continue in this stalemate forever.

I will however admit that just because there's a revolution doesn't guarantee the "rebels" will win... but the shots have been fired ;)
 
NY make something illegal? Never.

The whole 750W (or whatever) limit is just not logical either. I'll bet those fat clowns brag about how "green" they are. Just when .gov should be doing everything possible to encourage such things, they are writing more laws to control progress. Talk about being on the wrong side of an issue!
 
BarelyAWake said:
I'd have to disagree with you there scotto, we may or may not be in an "Electric Vehicle Revolution" but we are without a doubt in an "Alternative Fuel Revolution" as never before, not even during wartime rationing or the height of the OPEC crisis have fuels other then petroleum been so thoroughly examined, experimented with & used - I strongly doubt petroleum will be surpassed anytime soon, but it's glory days are over.

Even aside from it's effectiveness as a fuel or environmental consequences, far too many even motorheads like myself are disenchanted with the shenanigans, the price hikes, power struggles and associated bull to continue in this stalemate forever.

I will however admit that just because there's a revolution doesn't guarantee the "rebels" will win... but the shots have been fired ;)
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I would look forward to my ebike ride home after work.

Nice ride past all the cars stuck in traffic with their radios on listening to talk radio and getting mad at the world.

How do people live like that ?
 
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They look nice but I just have too many other things to spend money on besides batteries. I just can't justify the cost. I'm sticking with gas.
 
Tyler6357 said:
They look nice but I just have too many other things to spend money on besides batteries. I just can't justify the cost. I'm sticking with gas.
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I have been fascinated with batteries since the early 60's.

What a bummer when they would run out of power and go dead. :(

Now they can be recharged 1000's of times after they run out of power ! :)

And I can put them on my bicycle and ride out ! :)

I am so happy I lived to see these times ! :)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/27/a...actory-for-mass-market-electric-car.html?_r=0
 
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NY also doesn't allow china girls. No china girls, no electric bicycles, they don't like guns, and have high taxes.

I love Texas.
 
biknut said:
NY also doesn't allow china girls. No china girls, no electric bicycles, they don't like guns, and have high taxes.

I love Texas.
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No 7/11 Big Gulps full of soda either. That will get you a free ride to Rikers Island Correctional Facility. LOL

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All joking aside, the real revolution will happen when scientists involved in nano-tech get more involved in the battery industry and make better use of the battery technologies which have existed for decades and just make them more affordable through the use of nano particles. If you take Chem 2 anywhere, there's a segment on electrochemistry involved in batteries, and the only way to improve power density is to use expensive rare earth elements which are highly oxy-reductive with each other, or to improve existing technology through making the electrode plates more reactive through nano-tech, which increases the available reactive sites for the reactions to take place and make juice. The problem I see with this is that through repeated cycles a highly reactive "rough" electrode will become more uniform and revert to a state similar to a traditional electrode over time, and lose reactivity, along with the fouling of the reactive sites through nonreactive compounds being produced like the lead sulfates in AGM batteries which should be shocked off occasionally with a desulfator in order to maximize the reactive sites on the electrodes as well as the reactivity of the electrolyte in a sealed battery which cannot be refreshed.

This can be made cheap, because nanomaterials need not be expensive, but the problem is that its so specialized that it's big business, and as such it will be a specialized industry and prices will be set at a level on par with current status quo battery technology, which is expensive, and if a stable chemistry, lacks discharge rate for true power.

If it was made legal to do widespread conversions, natural gas would be the energy revolution with transportation systems. I know people in the business and it is literally burned off or vented to the atmosphere because its production exceeds demand.
 
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16v4nrbrgr said:
They don't want fast Ebikes riding on sidewalks in places like NYC, that's why they are against them. If you've ever been run over by a bicycle like I have by a BMXer at a skatepark you'd know why. Running stopsigns is ticketable behavior even on a pedal bicycle, because it can cause serious accidents with pedestrians and cars sharing the road with you, another reason why NYC has taken an adversary stance because it's a popular thing with fixie-riding delivery boys running stoplights and causing pileups and bloody carnage. Ride safely, even if it hurts your range, it will do a lot for the cause you have taken up promoting.
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How about doing the sane thing and make a law saying you can't ride an e-bike or any bike on the sidewalk like they do in L.A.? Pedal bikes aren't banned in NY and I could run over somebody just as easily on a pedal bike as an e-bike. After I ran you over, you would not be able to tell if I did it with an e-bike or a pedal bike.

I'm guessing NYC would ban all bicycles if it could, but that genie is already out of the bottle to try something like that. There would be street riots if they ever tried to.

In 2011, 4600+ people died in the U.S. riding motorcycles. I'm sure a whole bunch of them were riding motorcycles in NYC and I bet they ran over their fair share of pedestrians, yet motorcycles are still legal to ride there? LMAO
 
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The war might be raging for other forms of transportation, but the battle of the bicycles is already won. The last couple of months I've been exploring the relatively new bicycle culture in Dallas. There's bicycle riding groups springing up all over town, largely facilitated by the internet, and face book, plus the bicycle friendly commuter train system. Most of the people comprising these groups aren't hard core spandexers, they're casual riders, and by the hundreds. An interesting mix of inner city, and people from the burbs. They like to organize rides of about 10 miles ending at places where they can party.

In the past this would have resulted in a ride of about 3 bicycles showing up, because no one would have known about it, and even if they did it would have been out of reach of most riders, because of the distances separating everyone. That was then, this is now.

Now when a ride gets posted on fb, one minute later hundreds of people know about it instantly. Riders make plans to go, and then ride the train to the closest station to the ride. Most rides also end near train stations.

That's one way to do it, but now there's a better way. Most of these rides start 15 to 20 miles from my house. I can ride my electric bicycle to the ride. Ride the 10 mile ride, and then when the after party is over, I can ride the 20 miles home, all without getting tired, or sweaty. Stinky is debatable lol. What about acceptance? I'm not seeing any problems with it. I think in part because electrics time is come, but also it seems a little hypocritical to complain about an electric bicycle, after you just hopped off an electric train to get to the ride.

Can this be done on a regular bicycle? Yes, but I wouldn't want to try it at my age. Even the worlds greatest athlete would be challenged trying to keep up with my electric bicycle on such a ride covering perhaps 45 miles.

But is cost an obstacle? Apparently not. Now you can buy a good electric bicycle for no more than many of the regular bicycles I'm seeing on rides. Good factory built electric bicycles start around $4000, and home built are half that much. Try and find a carbon bicycle for less than $5000. $10,000 isn't out of the question. I see them on every ride now. That's Dallas for ya. I'm also seeing electric bicycles on most rides too. So far it's about half and half home built vs factory bikes.

Because of all this popularity, bicycle shops are booming here, and interest in electric bicycles is increasing. It's not uncommon now to see an electric bicycle on the showroom floor of a bicycle shop. That never used to happen. The first dedicated eBike shop just opened this month in Dallas too.

I doubt Dallas is the only city in the country ,or world for that matter, where this is going on. In other parts of the world eBikes are a lot more common than they are here in the u.s. but that's changing fast now.
 
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biknut said:
...... Even the worlds greatest athlete would be challenged trying to keep up with my electric bicycle on such a ride covering perhaps 45 miles.

But is cost an obstacle? Apparently not. Now you can buy a good electric bicycle for no more than many of the regular bicycles I'm seeing on rides. Good factory built electric bicycles start around $4000, and home built are half that much. Try and find a carbon bicycle for less than $5000. $10,000 isn't out of the question. I see them on every ride now. That's Dallas for ya. I'm also seeing electric bicycles on most rides too. So far it's about half and half home built vs factory bikes.

Because of all this popularity, bicycle shops are booming here, and interest in electric bicycles is increasing. It's not uncommon now to see an electric bicycle on the showroom floor of a bicycle shop. That never used to happen. The first dedicated eBike shop just opened this month in Dallas too.

I doubt Dallas is the only city in the country ,or world for that matter, where this is going on. In other parts of the world eBikes are a lot more common than they are here in the u.s. but that's changing fast now.
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This is all great, biknut. But now I've got to give the bad news; it's limited to a few of our major cities.

But when you get down to our mid-sized and smaller cities, there's nothing. Mine has a bus system that's okay, but no more than that. There are no commuter trains, zip-car, bicycle share, anything like that. No one even proposes such things, knowing that it's a pipe dream.

When you take into account weather such as frequent rain plus snow and ice, only the hardest of the hard-core can consider doing without a car. And that means that $5000 is too much for a bicycle.

For most of America, it might as well be 1965 as far as alternative transport is concerned. And it might take us until 2065 to catch up to places like Dallas.

Now I am certainly glad that places like Dallas are showing us a better way. But it's going to take decades for the rest of us to catch up.

Unless, of course, there's some big breakthrough (and it'll have to be really big) in electric vehicle technology/cost.
 
bluegoatwoods said:
This is all great, biknut. But now I've got to give the bad news; it's limited to a few of our major cities.

But when you get down to our mid-sized and smaller cities, there's nothing. Mine has a bus system that's okay, but no more than that. There are no commuter trains, zip-car, bicycle share, anything like that. No one even proposes such things, knowing that it's a pipe dream.

When you take into account weather such as frequent rain plus snow and ice, only the hardest of the hard-core can consider doing without a car. And that means that $5000 is too much for a bicycle.

For most of America, it might as well be 1965 as far as alternative transport is concerned. And it might take us until 2065 to catch up to places like Dallas.

Now I am certainly glad that places like Dallas are showing us a better way. But it's going to take decades for the rest of us to catch up.

Unless, of course, there's some big breakthrough (and it'll have to be really big) in electric vehicle technology/cost.
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I hear ya man. It's easy for me to talk when Dallas has one of the best economies in the country, and that's not saying a whole lot. This country is in a lot of trouble, and no one seems to be doing much about fixing it.
 
biknut said:
The war might be raging for other forms of transportation, but the battle of the bicycles is already won. The last couple of months I've been exploring the relatively new bicycle culture in Dallas. There's bicycle riding groups springing up all over town, largely facilitated by the internet, and face book, plus the bicycle friendly commuter train system. Most of the people comprising these groups aren't hard core spandexers, they're casual riders, and by the hundreds. An interesting mix of inner city, and people from the burbs. They like to organize rides of about 10 miles ending at places where they can party.
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That's nice. Tell me, do gas bicycles ever show up at these rides or is it only electric? Are gas bikes welcome?
 
Tyler6357 said:
That's nice. Tell me, do gas bicycles ever show up at these rides or is it only electric? Are gas bikes welcome?
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I'm glad you ask Tyler. So far I've not seen a gas bicycle on the rides I've been on. I talked to a couple of people that at least know what they are. One guy told me he built one recently, but he locked the motor up. A couple of years ago I rode one of my china girls on a ride, and no one openly complained, but I pedaled without the motor the whole way. The problem with that is it's not easy to keep up on a heavy gas bike with just pedal power. I decided to drop out of the ride at the halfway point.

There's at least one riding group in the area that leans more toward customs like rat rods, and beach cruisers. I see some china girl pictures posted on their fb so I'm guessing they'd be more likely to accept them than other groups, but I'm pretty sure riding with the motor won't be accepted by the majority of riders in other groups who consider gas bikes as stinky, and noisy. There's probably more to it than that too, but I've heard those complaints.

Ignoring that, riding a gas bike will still be problematic. The bicycles ride too slow for most gas bikes. I'd be slipping my clutch the whole way trying to ride so slow on my china girl. The average cruising speed is only about 10 to 14 mph on most of the rides. If you kill the motor and try to pedal, that kind of pace is a little too fast for a heavy gas bike to keep up for long. And who wants to pedal a gas bike for over 10 miles without the motor? Another drawback is gas bikes aren't allowed on trains.

None of those obstacles apply to electric bikes. They can ride comfortably at any speed a bicycle rides. They have no exhaust smell. Most are quiet running. They're allowed on the trains. I haven't run into any eBike haters.
 
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