We should start a collection to buy that poor woman some clothes so she can safely operate that motorcycle.
Cāmon, down here in the Sunshine State that is standard attire for Harley riders.
Now the riderās AGE and BMI is significantly higher on both counts - both male and female riders! 
1 Like
I live in the sunshine state, and at least the idiots who ride wearing shorts and flip flops wear a $400 helmet to protect the part of them that can be frozen and attached to a dogās body in a thousand years. O_O
Iām sitting here recalling what happens when guys wearing shorts and a flimsy T shirt or no shirt at all become separated from their 2 wheel conveyance on the road. Usually after a bunch of beers and almost always in a pack of riders he is trying to impressā¦ Ugh
It aint pretty
3 Likes
I think itās more āif you have a big enough hammer you donāt need finesse.ā Multiple gearing is wholly unnecessary in a Tesla. Those things can do 0-60 faster than a Lamborghini, a top speed of 155mph (artificially limited), and some of 'em can cruise for over 300 miles between charges. What would a multi-speed transmission bring to the table?
I think @TwinTurbo has the right of it. Youāll see multi-speed transmissions in vehicles that have undersized motors. With the right motor choice, theyāre not necessary.
2 Likes
I donāt want no stinkān transmission in my first EV (or second or thirdā¦)!
To me the beauty of an EV over an ICE is fewer moving parts! Itās long over due.
Iāve always been a āfewer moving partsā kind of guy.
You know, the K.I.S.S. method of design and engineering.
CSA
At one time electric cars were very popular, then the gasoline powered cars got self starters and the electrics disappeared, for good reason.
The gasoline powered forklifts I drove early in my trucking career were infinitely more capable and controllable than any electric I have ever seen, and changing batteries on the electrics is a real pain.
I feel the same way about cars. My Toyota will do 550 miles on a tank and takes 5 minutes to refill, Why would I want to replace that with range and battery life anxiety? If a significant portion of our cars become electric, where are all the extra electricity, generating plants, towers, transmission lines substations, transformers and most importantly, charging stations going to come from? Add to the recharging time the time spent waiting in line to get to a recharging station.
That was when the best battery for that application was using several car batteries. Lithium batteries have significantly improved forklifts and Golf Carts.
Battery life has significantly improved since the first Hybrid or Tesla and they are constantly improving. Weāre just starting to see Graphene batteries in testing. Tesla is developing a 500 mile Graphene battery.
This is a concern for me to, but I think itās solvable. Electric vehicles are slowly taking hold. Itās going to take years before there are more electric batteries then ICE which will give the grid (or other systems) time to catch up. Itās not going to happen over night.
Some years ago, I thought about buying a Citicar, a battery powered vehicle which I thought would be great for my commute to campus. A bicycle really wasnāt feasible because of the busy street I would have to traverse. I had devised a way to measure the power consumed to recharge the batteries. The Citicar I was considering needed new batteries and I finally decided it wasnāt worth the cost. This was back in the lead acid battery days. I would have been driving the Citicar less than 10 miles a day.
Fast forward to about four years ago. As an experiment, I bought a Black and Decker battery powered mower from a friend who had decided to hire her yard mowed. The batteries only lasted one season. I replaced the batteries at the beginning of the next season. These batteries, which cost $65, only lasted two seasons. I bought new batteries at the start of the 2019 season. I mowed for 5 minutes and the mower quit. The control unit went out and a replacement is no longer available. The batteries were lead acid and the mower was relatively heavy compared to my gasoline powered mowers. I.junked the mower.
I do believe that the new battery powered mowers with the lithium ion batteries may be a lot better. I have a string trimmer with a lithium ion battery. It is on its 3rd season on the same battery and a recharge takes me through a couple of months. It replaced a string trimmer with a lead acid battery. The new trimmer is much lighter and easier to use than the old string trimmer which had a lead acid battery.
If I was still employed, I would consider a Nissan Leaf for around town driving. I am sure the Leaf is far superior to the Citicar.
I imagine similar questions were asked when the Model T came out. Whereās all the gas gonna come from? Weāve already got a perfectly good hay and oat infrastructure for our horses. Why would we want to switch?
And the answer given to those Luddites was āthe world is moving on. Get on board or get left behind.ā
I donāt see much difference in that today. We can build more power plants. We can even build green(er) power plants, using solar and wind and yes, even nuclear which while not without problems is certainly not as hazardous to the planet as coal or oil. We can put solar panels on our own roofs and charge our electric car without having to rely on a power company at all if we feel like it.
Where is the infrastructure going to come from? The same place all the gas stations came from. A need will be perceived, and people will build to that need. Itās already happening. And I think it makes perfect sense for āgas stations.ā Youāre always hearing station owners complain that they donāt make any money on fuel, and the gas is just there to draw people to hopefully come inside and buy other things. Well, now theyāve got captive audiences for 15 minutes at a time while the cars charge. Set up a little cafeteria/coffee shop and sell 'em food. For that matter, actual restaurants could set up charging stations in the parking lot and charge a little extra money to fuel up your car while you have a steak.
In short, yeah, there might be some relatively minor inconveniences to deal with when electric cars really start taking over for gas cars in a significant way. There were, frankly, much more significant inconveniences to deal with when gas cars started taking over for horses.
They broke a lot. They got stuck in the mud a lot. You had to know how to repair wheels in the field. They were slow. They were insanely expensive. They were loud, and smelly, and uncomfortable as hell. You had to wear special overcoats and goggles to catch the mud and dirt the wheels flung up at you. They were hard to operate. If you didnāt start them right you could literally break your arm.
And now fast forward 100 years and weāre whining because we might have to go in and have a nice lunch while our quiet, comfortable air-conditioned car which can self-navigate using signals beamed to it from outer space charges for 15 minutes after a 300 mile highway run?
Are we a nation of wimps now?
The Ryobi LiIon riding mower has been getting rave reviews since it came out a couple of years ago. One thing I like about it is that the blades are direct-drive, so you donāt have to worry about routing/replacing drive belts. Iād get one, but weāve eliminated all but very small runs of grass in favor of native plantings, so a rider would be pretty silly.
3 Likes
I do believe that electric cars have there uses, but not for a one car family.
1 Like
I think a lot of it will come from overnight charging. Mrs JT runs the dishwasher and washing machine after 9pm to take advantage of lower electric rates. IMO, thereās a long way to go until our society uses as much electricity at night as we do during the day. We are also getting more efficient in electricity usage. LEDs are about 4 times more efficient than incandescent lights and last 25 times longer.
1 Like
In the new Jersey suburb of Philadelphia where I live, most streets have a speed limit of 25, with a few allowing 40.
An electric car would be fine for a one-car family that lives in a city with good mass transit and doesnāt take road trips. The more affluent families I know would much rather travel by air or cruise ship than take a road trip, and they usually take a taxi or shuttle to the airport. If they did decide to take an annual road trip, theyād probably be happy to rent a gas-burner.
This is my problem. Iām cheap, so Iād prefer to drive on vacation, but if itās more than 3 or so hours in the car, my wife insists on a plane.
If it was true, I bet itās not now!
1 Like
The very affluent are taking private jets.
The rest of us arenāt going anywhere by any method of transportation.
1 Like
No TSA on those private jets, either.
1 Like
In theory, they might last 25 times longer
In practice, I have NOT found that to be the case
Not by a long shot
Iāve never had to replace an LED light bulb in any of my LED flashlights, and Iāve owned a few of them for more than 15 years.
Since Iāve transitioned my home from CFLs to LEDs about 8 years ago, Iāve only had one LED burn out.
1 Like