Could a motorcycle/scooter go hybird?

How about a Air Prius? The Air car tech is out there..

 

Hi Fraser,

Hmm, you should not put words in people's mouths. They take offense sometimes..

My specific reason for the Florida comment was that batteries like warm weather. A Prius battery, for example, only has about 1/3 its room temperature power, at 0 F.

 

The Vectrix range is about 35 miles? That would make it iffy for commuting for lots of folks. Especially if there are no charging stations around.

I think hybrid gas-electric motorcycles could be a hit for the young, hip and eco-conscious segment of the US market. Of course, some old geezers might like them too...

 

I find outlets in every single parking garage in Seattle. I find outlets outside of coffee stores, grocery stores, restaurants, outdoor parking lots, etc. In fact, my Hymotion Prius is recharging right now outside of a Denny's as I sit here typing on my laptop. The restaurant manager gave me permission to use the outlet on the outside wall because I am a customer.

"Recharging stations" are not an issue. Electric outlets are EVERYWHERE. That is why hydrogen vehicles are at a huge disadvantage compared to battery vehicles. The infrastructure is already in place for EVs and PHEVs to win.

So far, it has never been an issue for me. Once you start looking for outlets, you realize that it is not an issue.

The Vectrix maxi-scooter only takes 3 hours to recharge from empty and I rarely go below 1/2 of the battery used.

When the weather is nice, I regularly do 50+ miles per day on my Vectrix. Full highway speed at 64 mph on my commute and I get to use the HOV lane also. Most highway traffic slows down to 30 mph around here during rush hour.

 

Unfortunately, Dallas is not Seattle. Recharging stations will be an issue for a lot of us Texans for some time. Besides, our Republican governor is pushing for a bunch of new coal-fired power plants. So any electricity used to charge our EVs probably won't be that green to begin with...

I wonder if things are any better down in Austin. That old hippie town tends to be a bit more progressive on issues like this.

 

You are just full of misinformation. Even if your grid is 100% coal, using that electricity for an EV would be more efficient than gasoline and would result in less CO2.

"Recharging stations" are a silly concept. They are everywhere in every modern city. Do you have outlets in your city/town? Do you even have running water? The excuses I read are just pathetic. There is nothing magical about Seattle in terms of electric outlets. They are as common here as any city in the western world. Has Texas become a 3rd world nation by being too close to Mexico?

 

Why must you sound so snobbish? Oh wait, I know. You're from.... let me guess... SEATTLE!!!

I was cut off by a guy driving a Prius in Seattle not too long ago. Lots of snobbish liberals in that town, I found. Ah well, that's why they call it the Left Coast, I guess.

 

zenMachine, My response to you was a bit rough. My apologies.

I just get fed up by the excuses I read/hear about why people don't seriously consider plugging in. The bad info and excuses just start to get old after a while. The "coal = dirty electricity" and "no place to recharge" issues have be debunked many times by experts and those people driving EVs, so it gets annoying to keep reading them being spouted.

 

No hard feelings, bro. What's important is to be able to exchange our different points of view in order to understand our world a little better.

What I was trying to articulate (maybe not so clearly) is that here in Dallas Texas the environment is very different. Last year the governor veto'd a bill that would have allowed hybrid vehicles to use the HOV lane, not that we have very many HOV lanes to begin with. As a matter of fact, the one that I use today was opened only last December, after 25 years in the planning.

There was one person at my workplace who was waiting for that bill to pass before he'd buy a Prius, and when it didn't pass he bought a regular Camry instead.

The parking garage at my office has no plugs whatsoever. That would make it hard for a lot of office workers to drive an EV to work, given that our metroplex is pretty huge and many people's typical roundtrip commute is at least 60 miles. (A co-worker of mine drives 60 miles to work each way!)

As for charging stations and home garages, not everyone lives in a house with a garage. A lot of younger professionals I know live in condos, where parking in the street is common. Even those with garages don't have power plugs in them. Not yet anyway.

Be thankful that you live in a more progressive part of the country where things like that are more commonplace.