Fundamental Change to Motorcycling Proposed by Govt.

[Becksy]

Would be interested in everyone's thoughts on this! Personally, there is a place for zero emission bikes (commuting, deliveries etc), but the engine for me is an essential part of the recreational aspects of motorcycling. I expect you'd be able to still ride a petrol bike beyond 2035 in this scenario, they'll just become classics!

https://www.uknmc.org/news/fundamental-change-to-motorcycling-proposed-by-the-government

[Dan - Admin]

I guess to some extent this is all but inevitable at some point, but it would make more sense if HGV's were zero emmission by 2035 and motorcycles by 2040... (not the other way round)..

[BobT]

Originally Posted by Forum Admin

I guess to some extent this is all but inevitable at some point, but it would make more sense if HGV's were zero emmission by 2035 and motorcycles by 2040... (not the other way round)..

It will never work for HGVs. They tend to be on the road for many hours a day so will need a very large battery pack, when you carry over a ton of batteries that you cannot charge during the downtime, that has a huge impact on efficiency.
If you want to reduce emissions then cruise ships would be a good place to start, followed by household heating systems, followed by military aviation.

[Antares]

Originally Posted by BobT

It will never work for HGVs. They tend to be on the road for many hours a day so will need a very large battery pack, when you carry over a ton of batteries that you cannot charge during the downtime, that has a huge impact on efficiency.
If you want to reduce emissions then cruise ships would be a good place to start, followed by household heating systems, followed by military aviation.

I'd disagree with that. There are plenty of fully electric busses in London that can manage an entire days shift and then are plugged in back at the station. Most truck drivers can only drive 9 hours a day anyway leaving plenty of time to recharge batteries, and if any vehicles, it's trucks and busses that'd be the easiest to put batteries on as they all have a LOT of real estate near the bottom of the vehicle and are not particularly sensitive to weight on the truck itself. Whilst as with all electric vehicles, range is not there quite yet, Scania says 80% charge in 40 minutes on their fully electric line. That's right about your mandatory break after 4.5hrs of driving anyway. Limited to 55mph, most you can do in 4.5hrs is around 250 miles. That's not a far cry from realistic.

Either way, motorcycles make up such a ridiculously small percentage of global pollution it barely makes sense to have all these Euro restrictions, let alone mandating fully electric motorcycles. According to a study done recently motorcycles actually produce the same or more pollution than an average car (1.6-2L) , but to be fair, this study compared larger motorcycles (800cc+), and this is vastly affected by the fact a LOT of people alter their bike's exhaust and air intake systems, whilst barely any car drivers do and also that the average age of motorcycles is far older than cars. But in the grand scheme, even with this in mind, there are just so many more cars, vans, trucks that motorcycles would barely put a dent in pollution stats. It truly isn't about it making sense, just probably the work of some soured old man who hates bikers and his wife doesn't love him.

Edit: With regards to this part of the article: "While cars and vans outnumber motorcycles on UK roads, motorcycles are an important and sizeable vehicle population, with 1.4 million licensed in 2020 and we do not want to see them remaining fossil fuelled as the rest of the vehicle fleet cleans up"

This is dumb and short sighted. Majority of those vehicles are scooters, and are used for commuting jobs. Those can go electric, they already are. But recreational motorcycles, (even if used for commuting) shouldn't suffer from this legislation. I'd wager only about 200k of that 1.4 million are anything bigger than 125s, and probably 180k of those don't do more than 5000 miles a year.

[Winger]

When an electric bike appears that will go 250 hard ridden miles and do a full charge in half an hour...count me in, you can stick your internal combustion engine where the sun don’t shine, we bought our first electric mountain bikes 18 months an absolute revelation.

As for other vehicles they will all be electric in the end one way or another...your choice will be like it or lump it 

[MattR]

It will never work for HGVs. They tend to be on the road for many hours a day so will need a very large battery pack, when you carry over a ton of batteries that you cannot charge during the downtime, that has a huge impact on efficiency.

Batteries are getting better and better all the time, in 15 years time the technology will probably be completely different to what we know now.

[Winger]

Batteries are getting better...but the majority of bikers are stuck in a time warp...that’s the problem  ...how many on here even have a lithium battery on their current bike  ...that’s the mountain the techy people have to climb.

The first lithium battery I bought was over 7 years ago for my XT660X and it’s still good to this day.

[smithy]

Originally Posted by Winger

Batteries are getting better...but the majority of bikers are stuck in a time warp...that’s the problem  ...how many on here even have a lithium battery on their current bike  ...that’s the mountain the techy people have to climb.

The first lithium battery I bought was over 7 years ago for my XT660X and it’s still good to this day.

I've got several Lithium batteries, one in my XR, and a few in my go-kart.

Smithy.

[bazzer]

Batteries are getting better but we really do need a technology shift as the energy density of lithium batteries is circa 2.4Mega Joules per KG Petrol is about 46mega Joules per kg so nearly 20 times. So for every KG of fuel you will need over 20KG of battery, so a long way to go.

I was watching a program that were talking to JCB about zero emissions excavators etc, they have been developing hydrogen combustion engines ( not fuel cells) This had the advantage of not adding 8 tons of battery's to a 20ton vehicle.

So maybe this is the way forward for industrial vehicles.

[sipaldi]

 And don't forget the Hardly moving son brigade.  How will they feel if someone takes away there incredibly loud 30mph bilge pumps? They are some of the most obnoxious riders. Why do they need their bilge pumps to be deafening? I am a biker obviously but even they wind me up with the noise pollution. Gives motorcycles a bad name.  I can't see any of them opting for a silent electric Hardly, defeats the object. I imagine they will be back on the bus in 20 years time.

  Rant over