Photo credit to Oxymoron Photography
Interviews with Jeff Smith of SRI about the EV1 desert racer and Briam Wismann of Brammo about the past weekend battling the gas bikes head on with the Empulse RRs, the Empulse TTX, and Engage Prototype. And some soap-boxing about a serious subject at the end.
From Brammo’s Facebook page
Shelina and I talk about the first day of practice for her and the team running with the AFM at Sonoma Raceway. We talk not just about the TTX, but to everyone’s surprise the Engage as well!
http://ttxgpmatters.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/esbk-studios-special-shelina-spills-the-beans.mp3
I’d add some commentary but I feel it’s better to let these guys represent themselves, and let you take away from it what you will. I will say the chatter about the comparison has been minimal on the forums. I think everyone has a favorite and wants to chest pound for their favorite, but is choosing to keep things civil. Either way the review is very enlightening. And, as seems usual for the Motorcycle.com folks, the written article has more details and goes further in depth. Both are worth your time.
Another video about Ripperton, but this time a sit down interview and some nice detail on how the changes have affected the bike.
And then Brammo’s rider Steve Atlas give us another blog post talking about just how great his second test went, and even talks a bit about their new traction control system here.
Not much for me to say, as they pretty much say it all.
Enjoy!
So, being only about 6 months behind the times, the SAE released their combo plug standard about a week before Daytona happened. With the Japanese CHAdeMO standard gaining popularity with the, Tesla doing their own thing and the J1772 AC charging stations looking inadequate in comparison, people were having a hard time understanding why the SAE was being so stuborn as to insist they needed their won standard. Chelsea Sexton took a shot at the SAE (and everyone else kind of) in a piece for one of the major tech sites. It looked like the SAE was just being silly arrogant Americans standing in the way of progress. But it actually seems they really did have a better idea.
Before I go to deep lets review the differences between AC and DC charging. AC chargers are actually nothing but fancy electrical sockets and rely on on-board chargers. the problem with on-board chargers are that they are small. Most Leafs only come with 3.kW chargers, only now to have a 6kw chargers as on option for the new cars. An Empluse has a 3kW charger, and the Zeros are up to almost 2kW. The Ford Focus electric was supposed to have come with a 6kW charger from last I knew, and the Tesla come with a 10kW and you have the option adding a second for 20kW on onboard charging power. Most J1772 charging stations are good for 9kW, and the beefier ones even more. It’s a bit of a waste really, especially when pretty much all of the batteries in EVs now a days can take up to a 1C charge. In other words if you could put a 9kW charge on an Empulse you could charge it in an hour at just about every J1772 station out there. But that charger would be HUGE, and there’s just no room. The AC chargering stations are handy, and with a car as big as a Tesla, a minimum. The on-board chargers will not get smaller, so what do we do?
Well we go DC charging. (more…)
Capacitors, even Super capacitors just don’t work yet, and I’ve gone over why before. But this. This is cool.
So the past few weeks ago I ‘d had a few different things I have been musing about, and then I realized they all were related. I am just going on one of my musings here, so if you see something not right, feel free to speak up.
Anyway, I wrote a post that went up a few weekends ago comparing the Empulse R to the Zero S 11.4. Lots of comments were written, and I was corrected many, many times. You should check it out. This coming after I recorded my post interview musings about why you elmotos should have a transmission, which I then re-recorded because you hear me babbling on enough. That all came after a thought I’ve been mulling over about whether or not I could build my ‘86 VF500F Interceptor up enough to beat a track prepped Empulse TTX or 2013 Zero S, which followed the past few months were I am beginning to think that horsepower actually is a completely fair way to judge elmotos to ICE bikes. They’re all related, trust me.
Lets start with my old ‘86 VF500F Interceptor as a point of comparison. (more…)
From Facebook
Travis takes the time out of his day to go over EV tech with me. Thank you for the support Travis!
Btw, the Allan Cathcart article is in Cycle News, not CycleWorld.
And we’re back on the “air”. I recorded this interview shortly after I got back from Daytona, but it is full of great information about Zero’s racing efforts, and their new 2013 line up, and maybe even the immediate future of elmoto dirtbike racing. Since it had been so long, there is a bunch of hot blithering as I go over what has happened in the past month or so. Feel free to skip ahead to minute 50 for the interview, which is about an hour long. It is worth it! Kenton was a great guest.
My interview with Pat Wheeler of the TXGP’s IET panel, as filmed by EVMotorcycle.org.
