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Underground > Laboratory >

Mods Go Electric

16:44 / 29.07.03

As far as I can see, this vehicle has a lot of potential:

It's called the Equinox, it looks cool as hell and it doesn't use gasoline. It can go 45 miles on a single charge at speeds up to 30 miles an hour. The first model is a 2004.

Think we'll start seeing these around cities? It seems like a more palatable step than an all-out electric car....

18:54 / 29.07.03

45 miles is a small range, and that's the maximum, I guess without hills, heavy traffic etc. It could be OK if your journeys were very short, say if you lived and worked in town. But it wouldn't be much fun for suburban commuting. If I was looking for something like this, I'd probably still go for a petrol version on which I could visit my friends on the other side of town without staying overnight.

But it is a step in the right direction and it looks OK.

10:17 / 30.07.03

It looks fantastic. The fact that you can charge it from a standard household electricity socket is a major plus. I can imagine a lot of first-time-drivers-and-workers going for this. The only thing I can think of which might hold this back is the price (2800 USDollars), which sounds a lot for a scooter, though I'm not sure how that compares to the normal petrol driven sort.

What I really want to see commuters on are those electric micro scooters. (Not a great example, this link, but the best I could find. I've seen nippers zooming about on ones with wee seats). They have the added advantage of taking up bugger-all space (you could store one under a desk), and look like they'd be less dangerous to pedestrians than bicycles. Probably wouldn't carry an adult, mind.

14:28 / 30.07.03

Similar Hondas (gas burning) have an MSRP of $1,699. Top of the line Honda scooters (Silver Wings) go for $7,999.
The Honda Metropolitan has a 1.5 gallon tank, and gets...between 50 and 70 miles to the gallon.

I think part of the thing with the electric scooter, though, is that you could visit your friend across town, plug into the wall for a couple hours, and get enough of a charge to get home. It takes four to six hours to get a complete charge. If six hours = 45 miles, then one hour = 7.5 miles and two hours = 15 miles (if the charging works that precisely).

It appears the thing doesn't have regenerative brakes... might be able to extend mileage if they did. (Those are the brakes that act as dynamos, charging you up whenever you slow down.) I wonder if they make 'em light & small enough to go on a scooter.

16:31 / 30.07.03

Couple of questions for those who might know. What is the technology here? (I can't read the site.) Is there a nasty chemical battery? Does it lose its ability to recharge over time?

Also, what kind of efficiency are we talking about? Remember that the electricity it uses was probably produced by burning fossil fuels, which isn't an entirely efficient process to start with, so asessing the environmental impact is always complex.

17:59 / 30.07.03

Grant -- I'm not sure recharging curves are as linear as that, but you've got a point. Also, I guess if the friend forgot you were coming and went out, or turned out to be living on the 17th floor, you could get back on public transport -- it would depend on your personal pain threshold.

Lurid -- It has a lead-acid (prob. sulphuric acid) battery, which in theory should last quite a while with proper care and could possibly be refurbished/recycled. It is the same kind of battery used in normal automobiles -- these go through multiple and partial charging cycles every trip and last for years.

Fossil fuels are actually quite efficient -- this is why the Honda can go so far on just a few cupfuls of liquid -- they're just dirty and finite. What this scooter can do though is make use of the ability of a power station to produce power cheaply in bulk and produce less pollution per gallon of fuel burnt -- because the power station doesn't need to move it can be loaded up with much more machinery to clean its emmisions. Where this scooter fails is that some of that power is lost on the way to being stored in the battery. The main problem though is that the vehicle has to carry that lump of lead around with itself all the time and it weighs the same even when it's empty. What all electric vehicles need are lighter batteries. OTTOMH, I believe they have been built and proven but are prohibitively expensive.

Seriously, if it had a range of 100 miles, I might buy one. Maybe Grant's regenerative brakes would be the key.

20:29 / 30.07.03

Really? I thought that fossil fuels were actually inefficient (in some sense) but provided lots of easily accessible energy. I seem to remember that the effieciency rate for power stations being about 40per cent - I could be wrong though. Still, the point about cleaning up pollution is a good one.

I guess my point was that, just because you aren't buying petrol, doesn't mean you are in some sense consuming it.

This is a good start, however.

07:09 / 01.08.03

Lurid Archive:

"I guess my point was that, just because you aren't buying petrol, doesn't mean you are in some sense consuming it.

This is a good start, however."

Definitely. The electricity coming out of your socket could be produced by solar or wind power, and for a growing minority of people it is. The best thing this moped could do would be to show the general public that electric vehicles are an affordable, desirable option that won't make you look like a knob when you're riding around on them. Give manufacturers and designers some pointers. Pave the way for a possible future when most, if not all, electricity is generated from renewable resources.