I keep getting press releases from the car companies touting how their latest EVs can go farther on a charge than before. As if that were the problem.
Motorcycles haven’t got much range – and it’s never been a problem. They typically go about 150-175 miles before you’re running on reserve (motorcycle gas tanks have two tanks, basically; there’s the main tank and then the reserve, which has about a gallon or enough to get you to where you can get gas). This has never been a problem in the sense that it has never been a reason to not buy a motorcycle – assuming you otherwise like the idea of owning a motorcycle.
Why not?
Because even though you have to stop for gas more often vs. even the gas-hoggiest car, you barely have to stop. It takes maybe two minutes to fill up a typically motorcycle’s tank because most hold less than five gallons. You’re back on the road before that gas hog SUV (which has a 24 gallon tank) at the next pump is half full – and 50 or 60 miles down the road before the EV at the “fast” charger has recovered enough range to go 150 miles. It’s also a small hassle if you run out of gas because you can walk a can of gas back to your bike and be back on the road faster, probably, than the time it takes to summon a flatbed to haul your dead-battery EV to a place where it can be charged (where you’ll have to wait again, of course).
Increasing an EV’s range does help – but it doesn’t fix the problem. No matter how far an EV can be driven on a single charge, when the time comes to recover charge, there’s going to be a wait that’s too long for most people.
This includes the wait at home, by the way – because you’re still having to wait, even if you are at home. It is certainly more convenient to wait at home – but you’re still having to wait there. It is something like having to wait for the plumber you called to come fix the sink. You can do various things at home while you wait for him to show up but you’re still having to wait is the point. You can’t leave home while you’re waiting. Well, you could – if you have another vehicle that’s either charged up or gassed up but that means having to have two vehicles, which includes all the expenses of having them, such as the insurance and taxes and upkeep on the second vehicle.
You have probably heard about “new battery technology” that makes it possible to recover a meaningful charge (but not a full charge) in only about twice the time – about ten minutes – that it takes to fully gas up most cars. There are two problems with this. The first is that even if it were possible to recover a meaningful charge in ten minutes, it would sill mean a twice-as-long wait vs. the time it takes to fully gas up most cars. This is absurd on the face of it. Who would willingly want to wait twice as long to do what can be done in half the time? And it’s actually longer than that – because it’s not a full-tank equivalent they’re talking about. It’s a meaningful charge – which means (typically) enough charge (after a ten minute wait) to go maybe 150 miles before you have to stop and wait again.
If that were even possible – outside of the lab.
The stories you have probably read about “new battery technology” that makes it possible to recover a meaningful charge in about ten minutes are predicated on extremely high voltage charging architecture that does not exist in the real world and probably never will, on a mass scale, at any rate, due to the cost and complexity involved in building out such an infrastructure. And producing the electricity that would be needed to meet the demand. So it’s all pie-in-the-sky and also dishonest – the way it’s generally presented, as a soon-to-here thing.
Leaving aside the problems of being out in the weather – rain and cold – riding a motorcycle is vastly more practical than driving an EV and that says pretty much everything about the problems with EVs.
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