[RideApart] - Fenris Motorcycles Claims E-Bikes Can Reach 186mph

[Ninjette Newsbot]

Fenris Motorcycles Claims E-Bikes*Can Reach 186mph

Fenris Motorcycles, a new electric prototype built in Copenhagen, Denmark, lays claim to a top speed of “over 186 mph and 0 to 62 in under three seconds.” CEO and co-founder Jesper Vind has gone on record stating that he sees Italian firm Energica as their only real threat.

“The two [main] US manufacturers started their development at a time when the technology was at an early stage,” he said, “and so we only have one real competitor in Italy’s Energica.”

It’s not all bravado however, as Fenris claims that their new motor weighs as little as 27 pounds, which is approximately a quarter the weight of their competitors. With a proposed final weight of 432 pounds, and power output of around 200 horsepower, this should provide some intense acceleration and speed. An initial run of 500 bikes are planned for release in 2019.

The Fenris features some interesting technology; the suspension employs front and rear swingarms, with a shock for each wheel mounted below the motor. Note the printed label on what appears to be a carbon fiber triple clamp in the video: This Machine Has No Brain. Use Your Own.



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[taz]

I guess they haven't hear of this bike to making that claim.

[Yakaru]

I was actually checking recently, has anyone heard a word out of lightning this year? Not a whisper I can find past January. Seems worrying.

[taz]

That I know of there are not in official production yet you can reserve one from there Web site and email them and there is even a phone number on there for them yet. But I'm pore so even dreaming about that bike fore me is not worth it for me. The price tag of almost 39000 way out of my league for just a bike. http://lightningmotorcycle.com

[Snake]

218 mph is very impressive. 100 mile range is not bad either.
A question for the electrical experts: Why do electric vehicles get better mileage in the city than on the hwy?

[Flying]

Originally Posted by Snake

218 mph is very impressive. 100 mile range is not bad either.
A question for the electrical experts: Why do electric vehicles get better mileage in the city than on the hwy?

No transmission. No idling. Plus points for fancy regenerative braking system.

Can't really take advantage of all that on the highway and it becomes a matter of fighting against wind drag.

[Snake]

Excellent explanation! Thanks.

[CaliGrrl]

Also, in-town speeds often have less acceleration than the highway. Husband and I have an electric Spark, which kicks some serious butt in stop-and-crawl traffic: slow speeds, other vehicles to break the wind, and the braking is regeneration some energy.

Vs highway: more acceleration, headwinds probable, and you don't brake until you get to your off-ramp. In an electric, you have three variables of range, speed, and acceleration. You can spend your battery on any combination of those, so acceleration and speed reduce range.

[Snake]

Hhhhmmm, correct my if I'm wrong, it seems that electric vehicles would do better on the hwy with at a minimum a 2 speed transmission.

[cbinker]

Originally Posted by Snake

Hhhhmmm, correct my if I'm wrong, it seems that electric vehicles would do better on the hwy with at a minimum a 2 speed transmission.

As speed goes up, wind resistance increases, therefore more power needed to maintain speed. Gas vehicles lose a lot of fuel because of idling.

[Snake]

Makes sense. Thanks!

[choneofakind]

^^^ along those lines, there's usually a happy middle ground with your car in the gearing vs engine power curve vs wind resistance power requirements at about 55-60 mph that will get you the best gas mileage you'll ever see.

Do some science; set the cruise at 60 and hug the right lane.

[Motofool]

Originally Posted by Snake

Hhhhmmm, correct my if I'm wrong, it seems that electric vehicles would do better on the hwy with at a minimum a 2 speed transmission.

For the application of motorcycles, electric motors need no transmission, as combustion engines need.

The reason is that electric motors are nothing else than a magnet that desperately tries to follow a rotating electric field.
Until reaching an extreme limit, the more ahead of the magnet the electric field rotates, the more force or torque the magnet will exert over the shaft to overcome the resistance (air drag, hill, acceleration, etc.) that tries to slows it down.
It will use a higher rate of current (Amps) to overcome heavy resistance or load, but it will pull strong from zero to a max number of rpm's.

The behavior of combustion engines is kind of opposite to that: the torque is very dependent on the rotational speed or rpm's.
Too slow or too fast and the breathing suffers, killing the amount of burned fuel (and heat and gas expansion) and torque output.
A clutch and a transmission are needed to keep the engine rotating within that relatively narrow range of rpm's, while the rear wheel rotates from zero to a max number of rpm's (max mph of the bike).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_motor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_engine

[Yakaru]

Motofool has the gist of it. Here's me saying it another way, though simplifying and potentially with some details being a bit off:

Internal combustion has a 'sweet spot' -- some range in which it works well. This is more than the power band (though related), a good way to conceive of it is what happens if you're going 5 mph and put your vehicle in it's top gear? The engine won't be able to keep the process moving because the RPMs are way too low. Flipside, put an engine in 1st while going 80 mph.

We use geared transmissions to moderate that process -- keep the RPMs in a sweet spot for the output to the wheels to be at the speed we want. A transmission doesn't change efficiency nor the motor's output -- it just changes the relationship between turns of the engine/motor to the turns of whatever it is connected to. The gears let us cover a wider effective range of output than the technology provides natively.

Electric motors run fine at minuscule RPM and at their top end; so you virtually never need to change the ratio of engine rotations to wheel rotations in order to keep things efficient/functional.

[taz]

Didn't know I would strike quite the conversation, but I like the read.

[Chocula]

Originally Posted by Snake

... A question for the electrical experts: Why do electric vehicles get better mileage in the city than on the hwy?

The power required to overcome wind resistance increases exponentially (v^3) as velocity increases. Since motorcycles are not particularly aerodynamic, this quickly becomes a significant power requirement.

Electric motors are very efficient 90+% at converting electrical energy into motion. For the current crop of electric motorcycles, around 20 mph is the sweet spot that will maximize range. As you go faster, the increased wind resistance reduces your efficiency. Starting and stopping affects your efficiently, but not at significantly as increased speed does. Regenerative braking also reduces the impact of starts and stops. When the bike is at a stop, it is using very little energy.

So why do ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) get better mileage when traveling at highway speeds?

ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) are extremely inefficient at producing motion with up to around 35% of the energy utilized in pushing the pistons and around 20% with typical US driving conditions. ICE need to be generating a certain amount of power to operate (relatively) efficiently. In a nutshell, they are less inefficient when travailing at a steady speed in limited range of their power band. The exact speed will vary from bike to bike, but they are typically designed for optimal efficiency to be in the 55 - 75 mph range. They are constantly generating waste heat, even at idle. Acceleration puts the engine is less than optimal rpm and power requirement ranges.

The electric bike I ride does have a transmission, event though very few models do. I could leave it in 3rd gear, or even 6th all of the time, but it provides better acceleration and is more fun to ride when shifting.
The ICE bike I ride, will get 63 mpg riding at 80 mph, even 2-up with luggage, yet only gets about 35 mpg when riding on city streets.

[Snake]

Awesome info! Thanks.