Comments on: The Fast Bike With The Funny Name (tm)

The Fast Bike With The Funny Name (tm)

The Power Nap — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:19:25 -0800

Healthy competition can advance technology, and motorsports is a good example of this. The Isle of Man TT has been a motorcycle proving ground since 1907, with a bike earning its mettle by doing ton-up on the 38 mile course. Enter Michael Czysz and his MotoCzysz E1pc. After disastrous failure at the Isle of Man TT the previous year, his company redesigned their electric sport bike from the ground up. The results could have wider implications for electric vehicles as a whole. Previously.

Some technical links for those inclined: Information on the motor Information on the battery system

By: spiderskull

spiderskull — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:32:41 -0800

Racing electric cars and bikes is a really, really good idea. There's two benefits: it provides a way for companies to invest in research with the bonus of good publicity and advertising; second, it convinces gearheads that electric is fast, because holy hell do electric cars accelerate -- this is important because gearheads are who family members and friends seek advice from when in the market for a car. If we can convince the enthusiasts, I think we can convince the rest of the country that electric is the way to go. As a side note, 1337-speak is a terrible way to name your products. "D1g1tal Dr1ve"? It's a flashback to IRC names from the 90s.

By: tommasz

tommasz — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:36:26 -0800

If this catches on, sitting in the pubs next to the track won't be as exciting. But it's an amazing feat nonetheless.

By: anthill

anthill — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:46:09 -0800

The future of motorsport will sound... like a 100hp blender. With some funky harmonics at full power.

By: pjaust

pjaust — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:48:03 -0800

Gearheads will get on board eventually. Electric motors are a whole lot simpler and more reliable than IC engines, and upgrading cars to get more power will be potentially a LOT easier (add batteries and a bigger motor). The drivetrain of the future will probably have a tenth of the moving parts and less than half the weight. But...grrrrr...the sound is half the fun of racing. It's already bad enough that I have to listen to diesel powered race cars. Electric races are going to be awful. Imagine standing trackside at an F1 race and being able to hold a conversation. Awful, just awful.

By: From Bklyn

From Bklyn — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:00:23 -0800

This link is from last year but still a very good perspective on the whole race. thanks, I've been following Czysz since he started this crazy project (back when it was a gas-powered motorcycle.)

By: biffa

biffa — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:01:20 -0800

Turned out nice again.

By: mosk

mosk — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:06:42 -0800

Yeah, on the one hand, I love the possibility -- well, it seems more like the eventuality -- of having all that torque available almost instantaneously. On the other hand, I like IC engines. But it does seem inevitable that racing fossil fuel-powered motor vehicles will soon become as anachronistic as racing horses. Nice article. It's good to see what the face of these changes will look like. I wish this guy and his team a safe race.

By: iloveit

iloveit — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:08:09 -0800

This is why we need to lobby Brian Eno to design the sound of electric vehicles RIGHT NOW. Some twerp at GM is going to put an mp3 of an Impala revving as the curb-noise for the Volt and we'll be stuck with that shit for 100 years. But, if we ACT FAST and get Brian Eno on the job, our future cars will actually sound like the future. Also, how do you pronounce that godawful name? Motosiziz...Motochize..motosysis.. If you are going for publicity, don't name your company MotoEyjafjallajökull for cripes sake.

By: Severian

Severian — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:10:19 -0800

sizz

By: iloveit

iloveit — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:12:52 -0800

Haha, woops, just RTFA'd. I guess the name isn't his fault. I can't tell the difference between leet speak and Polish.

By: Western Infidels

Western Infidels — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:14:06 -0800

While looking for videos of the E1pc (which I did not find), I found this video of a different electric bike competing in the 2009 race, and to my surprise, it's far from silent.

By: Western Infidels

Western Infidels — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:14:45 -0800

Ulp, bad link: here is the video.

By: surrendering monkey

surrendering monkey — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:16:36 -0800

They did win the TT race but narrowly missed the 100mph lap.

By: FishBike

FishBike — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:17:46 -0800

But...grrrrr...the sound is half the fun of racing. It's already bad enough that I have to listen to diesel powered race cars. Electric races are going to be awful. Imagine standing trackside at an F1 race and being able to hold a conversation. Awful, just awful. Sounds like a job for "hockey card in the spokes" technology! I actually like the sound of a lot of electric vehicles, where you can sort of hear what the motor control algorithms are doing. Maybe if ear-splitting noise is a beneficial feature in motor racing, they could just mandate the inclusion of a large loudspeaker, to be connected in parallel with the motor windings?

By: 534154414E

534154414E — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:05:30 -0800

"That's how planes work, the air accelerates so fast over the top of the wing that it creates low pressure that sucks the airplane up." Sigh.

By: Forktine

Forktine — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:26:47 -0800

Neat. With time, I think this will be the future of motorcycle racing, at least on-road (I think it will take longer to solve the impact and ruggedness issues of off-road racing).

By: -harlequin-

-harlequin- — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:11:50 -0800

Even with sound systems to give electric vehicles noise, they won't be as noisy as ICE cars. Part of the reason why ICE cars lose 80% of their energy before actually going anywhere, is because such a colossal amount of energy is lost to vibration. Ie, that noise doesn't come cheap - each time you fill the tank, a big chunk of that gasoline gets burned purely to supply the massive amount of energy required for all that noise. Battery technology is going to have to get a LOT better before electric cars can carry enough energy to waste that much of it on sound!

By: Ulquiorra

Ulquiorra — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:14:03 -0800

Fewer moving parts is always a good thing. More reliable vehicles seems to benefit everyone except maybe mechanics and the auto industry. Moving into a future with more efficient and apparently more power without burning gas seems like just the sort of thing that we need, approaching using alternative sources of energy from a rather novel direction. I am not really a race enthusiast so the only thing I have to say about the noise issue is there have been a few relatively easy solutions listed above. Getting used to the sound of electric engines might lead to turning that noise into half the sound of racing, though change is usually hard.

By: Netzapper

Netzapper — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:29:50 -0800

I fly electric model helicopters. The batteries we use run at around 12V and smaller ones have around 2000mAh. And these batteries, and their controller boards, sometimes short out. This will sometimes happen even when you're not doing anything aggressive--just a basic, stable hover and all of a sudden whoof! When these power systems short out, they burst into spectacular and astounding flames. From nothing to a ball-park-sized cloud of smoke in about ten seconds. And this is from a model aircraft about the length of your arm. While I very much want electric vehicles for the performance, it should be noted that they have very different failure modes from internal combustion engines. With an ICE, the general failure mode is that shit stops working. This may be unpleasant or unfortunate, but is rarely spectacular. Outside of Hollywood, very rarely do cars burst suddenly into an uncontained fireball. When a high-amperage, high-voltage electrical system fails, the results are often spectacular. In my experience, electrical power systems very often burst into uncontained fireballs. Add in LiPo batteries, and the failure gets even more astounding.

By: -harlequin-

-harlequin- — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:41:44 -0800

Outside of Hollywood, very rarely do cars burst suddenly into an uncontained fireball. It's certainly not unheard of, especially at the gas pump (or if you're a police officer driving a Ford Crown Victoria!). I would be surprised if electrical fires came to claim more lives per vehicle than gasoline, though you're probably right in that there may be a transition period, where gasoline safe-handling is already well established in society, but electrical is not. I don't think your helicopters are a useful analogy. Their rechargeable batteries are all but disposable - you deep-cycle them until they can't hold as much of a charge and then you replace them. That's not the model being used for cars, economics precludes it, so the batteries will have far more extensive nannying systems to control charge and discharge. Having a truck t-bone you and shear the car - and battery cells - in two may be a fire risk, but that's a fire risk regardless of whether your engine runs on gasoline, electricity, or gunpowder. (Though it's been a few decades since anyone has tried to make gunpowder engines. The powder just doesn't flow easily enough! :)

By: spiderskull

spiderskull — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:08:32 -0800

Actually, the battery explosion problem is, at this point in development, a problem. Regular lithium-ion is fine at containing the energy, as is NiMH. But Lithium polymer (which is what your model helicopter is very likely using) is much more tricky to contain. And it's a good bet that Lipo is the battery of the next decade.

By: spiderskull

spiderskull — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:09:45 -0800

Regarding sound, I think the sound is freaking epic. It sounds like a futuristic F1 car. Besides, racing will still be a noisy affair -- the straight-cut transmission gears are going to squeal like crazy, and you'll still get interesting doppler effects. Once we get used to it, it won't be an issue.

By: Netzapper

Netzapper — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:30:41 -0800

which is what your model helicopter is very likely using Yes, they are. In fact, LiPo batteries are what made electric helicopters possible. Until their development, nitromethane 2-cycle IC motors were the only option. Nothing else gives adequate power-density to weight ratios.

By: ovvl

ovvl — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:05:53 -0800

"Vincent Black Shadow" (HST, in elevator)

By: Skeptic

Skeptic — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 01:20:31 -0800

The battery fire problem isn't going to go away anytime soon. At its root there is a very simple quandary: as soon as you manage to store enough energy, you have the risk that this energy frees itself all at once. And the higher the energy density of the storage, the more spectacular its failure. Entropy is a bitch. So, if we manage to make any sort of energy storage that stores as much energy as a tankful of gas, we must be just as careful or more with it as with a tankful of gas. In the presence of a lit cigarrette. A similar issue has also hampered an interesting alternative to batteries: kinetic energy storage systems, that is, fancy carbon flywheels rotating at very, very high speeds. The problem there is that, if one such flywheel shatters, it explodes with all the energy of a dynamite stick. Not good.

By: rodgerd

rodgerd — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 02:09:15 -0800

In my experience, electrical power systems very often burst into uncontained fireballs. Yes, that's why amongst the millions of Priuses out there we keep hearing about them bursting into flames.

By: Mike1024

Mike1024 — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 03:08:59 -0800

But Lithium polymer (which is what your model helicopter is very likely using) is much more tricky to contain. And it's a good bet that Lipo is the battery of the next decade. Allow me to introduce you to Lithium-iron phosphate batteries. I fly electric model helicopters. The batteries we use run at around 12V and smaller ones have around 2000mAh. And these batteries, and their controller boards, sometimes short out. This will sometimes happen even when you're not doing anything aggressive--just a basic, stable hover and all of a sudden whoof! Well, with a helicopter it doesn't make sense to include a fuse because if you're flying, there's an overcurrent, and the fuse blows, you'd have a falling helicopter on your hands - and because there are no human passengers and people like cheap toys, people don't want to pay a premium for the best safety. On the other hand a ground vehicle carrying passengers could easily include safety features such as fuses as, should the fuse blow, the vehicle would just coast to a halt; and with human passengers on board people would be more willing to pay for safety devices. I have worked with LiPo-powered ground vehicles for several years, and have not encountered any explosions at all.

By: spiderskull

spiderskull — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:39:19 -0800

Mike1024 -- how have I managed to miss these batteries? They sound awesome, thanks for the info.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 08:40:15 -0800

"With an ICE, the general failure mode is that shit stops working. This may be unpleasant or unfortunate, but is rarely spectacular. Outside of Hollywood, very rarely do cars burst suddenly into an uncontained fireball." Today they don't regularly burst into flame because we have a hundred+ years of engineering mitigating the risks. And in places where we are pushing the envelope (IE: Racing) fire is still a problem.