Forget cars, electric motorbikes could be the next big thing

It really would be better if more of us took up two-wheeled motoring. Ireland is in many ways a terrible country for those who are enthusiastic about motorbikes: the lousy weather, the inattentive drivers, the poor road surfaces and the hefty insurance premiums are more than a little off-putting.

But in terms of trimming CO2 emissions and reducing traffic congestion, putting more people on motorbikes would be a great idea.

Or would it?

It would seem axiomatic that motorbikes are potentially more useful than cars in the fight against climate change. They are smaller and lighter than cars, and have a smaller carbon footprint when being built.

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Come 2030, bikes are going to have to change too

They are more economical than most cars (some motorbikes claim fuel economy figures in the region of 1.8 litres per 100km – that’s 150 miles per gallon) and given that most cars are usually carrying one person, it makes sense to have that one person on a narrow, low-consumption device that can slip through traffic.

In addition, bikers are safer road users – because they have to be. When your crumple zone is your chest, you have to pay more attention to what you’re doing and what other road users are doing.

Frustrated

Keen bikers are frustrated that they are being lumped in with bigger, heavier, more polluting cars when it comes to discussions about climate change, and the impending 2030 ban on internal combustion engines.

While the Irish Government’s promise to stop the sales of all combustion engines doesn’t specifically mention motorcycles, generally there is no official discrimination between them and four-wheeled vehicles. Come 2030, bikes are going to have to change too.

In the meantime, many are frustrated at the tarring-with-the-same-brush effect. In Belfast Martyn Boyd, Northern Ireland’s representative for Motorcycle Action Group (MAG), told the News Letter: “It seems to be that local and regional governments feel that anything to do with a combustion engine cannot be considered to be sustainable – we believe that’s not true.

“We take up less road space for a start, motorcycles have a much lower carbon footprint in their manufacture and they’ve got a lower carbon footprint in their use. They are generally more fuel efficient and they weigh less, that’s important. You could have half a dozen motorbikes on the same stretch of road that would be the same weight as a car. It causes less damage to actual infrastructure, to road surfaces.”

A motorbike’s carbon footprint may be lower, however they can be vectors for other pollutants. While not quite so climate-sensitive, these pollutants are less than beneficial to the lungs of those sharing the road with bikes.

Emissions

Research carried out by the Los Angeles Times found that although motorcycles and scooters comprise 3.6 per cent of registered vehicles in California and only 1 per cent of vehicle miles travelled, they account for 10 per cent of passenger vehicles’ smog-forming emissions.

While the petrol-powered engines of motorcycles can be twice as efficient as those of cars from a fuel-consumption point of view, they emit far more than their fair share of nitrogen oxides. The gases, which are harmful to human health, trigger all kinds of respiratory illnesses and are at the heart of the still-swirling diesel emissions scandal.

So while getting more people on to petrol-powered motorbikes would be unquestionably beneficial from the viewpoints of congestion, carbon and competence, they’re less good when it comes to wellbeing.

So, electric they’re going to have to be, just as with their four-wheeled brethren. Which sounds simple. After all, we have plenty of e-bikes – battery-assisted versions of pedal bicycles – and motorbikes originally evolved from early pedal bikes, so this should be an easy evolutionary leap. Shouldn’t it?

Possibly not. While it sounds easy in theory, the problem with bikes is where to put the battery.

Motorbikes are incredibly weight-sensitive – all the more so when you realise that above walking pace, you steer a bike more by leaning it than by turning the handlebars – so lobbing in a hefty battery in place of a relatively light engine and fuel tank is not the easiest. Cars have lots of physical space in and around their cabins in which to fit battery packs. Bikes do not.

Performance

“We’ve been producing electric cars for a number of years now so we know the real difficulties, what you’re looking at from a motorcycles’ perspective is the weight of a battery,” says Neil Allen, communications manager for BMW’s Motorrad motorbikes division.

“That will affect performance. And obviously range. If you’re thinking, an average motorcycle weighs 200kg, and batteries can be quite heavy, it’s about finding a balance between performance, weight, efficiency and weighing that up against a standard motorcycle.”

That, reckons Allen, is why we haven’t yet seen the sort of mad scramble for new electric bikes that we’ve seen for battery cars. “Given the current ranges, I think a lot of motorcycle riders are waiting to see that gap between combustion engine motorcycles and electric motorcycles reduced before jumping in.”

The challenges of weight and packaging are going to be difficult, at least until further breakthroughs in battery chemistry are made. A lithium-ion battery has about 100-times less energy density than an equivalent weight of petrol.

Even given that most motorbikes have at most a 12 or 14-litre fuel tank (and some have only half that) the simple, ineluctable maths shows that you’d need a whopping great battery to hit the 300km touring range offered by most modern motorbikes on a tank of fuel.

Ultimately, motorbikes are going to have to make the same switch in motive power as the rest of the motorised world

There’s not much benefit yet in charging times for electric bikes either. Take BMW’s own futuristic-looking CE 04 electric scooter. That has a range of 130km from its 8.9kWh battery, but still takes more than 90 minutes to fully charge, even with the optional quick charger add-on.

Similarly, Harley-Davidson’s Livewire electric motorbike – which has some impressive performance figures such as accelerating from 0-100km/h in just over three seconds – takes 40 minutes to charge to 80 per cent battery capacity from a high-power DC charger. That’s no quicker than an electric car with a much larger battery, which will carry you further on a charge than the Livewire’s 142km range.

Counter-intuitively, it might be easier to convert the bigger, heavier motorbikes – the likes of Honda’s Goldwing – to electric power, purely because their sheer bulk makes it easier to package the batteries.

Then again, if trying to get commuters out of cars and on to two wheels is the key, then range is less of an issue, and so too is charging – assuming that one can charge at work (while also changing out of one’s heavy-duty leathers and helmet and into more work-appropriate attire).

Future electric bikes

Ultimately, motorbikes are going to have to make the same switch in motive power as the rest of the motorised world.

Between now and 2030 it would be no harm to put more people on to two wheels if it would save a bit of carbon, and some road space during rush hour, but any such movement would have to take account of the higher training standards needed for bikers, not to mention getting people around an understandable nervousness when it comes to safety.

There are some truly thrilling-looking future electric bikes in the works – BMW’s CE 02 concept, Polestar’s Re:Move urban delivery bike, the stunning Arc Vector with its carbon-fibre chassis with its claimed 400km range – but many of the same hurdles standing in the way of electric car ownership must be cleared.