It is depressing as hell being stuck in a fossil fuel obsessed world when we have had other viable options for decades, but take heart when you see electric dirt bikes beginning to proliferate in war, if Electric Vehicles are winning on the cutting edge of the frontline for reasons that have nothing to do with environmentalism, the future is far closer than it seems…
Also god damn I really hate loud dirtbikes and ATVs in nature so looking forward to these undercutting fossil fuel powered dirtbikes everywhere…
I have an electric motorcycle (Zero FX) and a borderline ebike (Sur-ron X). Honestly military use cases are probably great for them.
They’re super quiet, they can be laid down on their sides without any fluids leaking out, you can charge them without crazy charging infrastructure. I have charged mine with a large solar blanket before! Swapping batteries is pretty quick, but honestly when I spend a day in the woods with either, I’m worn out before the battery is.
Range anxiety is real for serious highway miles, however for scouting where you have even 1 proper truck to strap it to for distance travel, I could see a very real benefit to having a couple of these available for fast, offroad, short-range mobility use.
Hope they make a public version, they look really mean
Them being silent has already lost the demographic of engine-revving boyracers, who want their thundercock to be imposingly loud.
Maybe not even make a civilian version, just allow people to buy the military version. When Arnold Schwarzenegger bought a military Hummer back in the day, they weren’t selling civilian versions. I don’t know how much he had to do to make his truck road legal, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had to do something.
Schwarzenegger bought his because he wanted a unique vehicle, one that almost nobody else had, and that was a true military vehicle. Ukraine could probably raise money from people who wanted the same thing. Sell them the same bike that is being used on the battlefields of Ukraine at a significant mark-up, and let them show that by their purchase they’re also supporting the Ukrainian efforts.
There are hundreds of electric dirt bikes already out there.
It would make a nearly ideal wildlife spotting tool so long as you kept things to a safe speed.
For highspeed stuff I imagine they will have to come up with some kind of artificial noise to warn animals like a low hum or something.
People ride mountain bikes without noise, 40mph.
Yeah and I would argue it is actually pretty unnecessarily dangerous to do so both for the riders and wildlife.
Exhibit: A) that mountain biker who ran full tilt into a bear with cubs and got killed.
I know I have been put into dangerous situations plenty of times by mountain bikers while walking on trails that are hurtling around blind corners in areas where walkers or even horses are common.
I am not saying bicycles should have an air horn on them, but like bells that jangle loudly or like anything really…
Unfortunately, a lot of idiots enjoy being obnoxious with the noise and exhaust fumes of ICE bikes. To me that is one of the main reasons electric motorcycles aren’t more popular.
I am starting to see more and more heavy electric bicycles and e-dirt bike type vehicles but yeah this is a big thing.
People’s fixation on loud ICE engines is so intense that the tactical advantage of small electric vehicles has been largely ignored by militaries until recently and here we are talking of matters of life and death rather than aesthetic preference…
I’ve looked at electric bikes, every one of them has slow charging and shit range. They’re not built for riding any sort of distance.
Companies aren’t selling what I want. That’s why I’m not buying them.
I much prefer my electric car over a gas car, and I’d buy an electric bike if it had the same ability to tour as my current bike.
Motorcycles, even more than cars, depend on a very energy dense power source. Putting enough batteries in a motorcycle to give it decent range, and still letting it feel responsive is going to be a real challenge. Maybe in something like a Honda GoldWing where you’re hauling around a huge amount of other weight, you could add extra batteries and not change the responsiveness too much. But, the kinds of people who ride GoldWings are not doing little commuter trips, so you’d need extreme range to satisfy them, which I don’t think is feasible with current battery tech.
If there were a way to swap out batteries at the charging station, that would change everything.
Nope. The reason is they are heavy and have shit range.
I like my ICE motorcycle. Vroom! Vroom!
Silent, instant torque, can be charged (slowly) anywhere with a portable solar panel.
Win-win pretty much
Likely a small battery, so it could charge in a few hours.
They say it charges from wall power in about 4 hours. Wall power in Ukraine is 220VAC, typical maximum current in Europe is 2.5A. So, that’s roughly 500W.
500W for 4 hours is 500W for 3600 * 4s or 14400s = 7,200,000J or 7.2MJ. That’s a pretty big battery.
With a portable solar cell you’d be lucky to get a sustained 100W, so it would take 20h, or multiple days to charge.
Not bad. You can buy similar (but smaller) on Amazon now for less than $2k. I haven’t seen one sized for an adult on there yet.
