Armed with a few 3″ standoffs and a few sheets of perforated aluminum, I add the second floor to my controls condo- for the chargers. The perforated aluminum gives me some heat sinkage, and some airflow, which chargers like. It’s all configurable at will- so as my components change, the rig can adapt.
Want to see what the total cost of owning an electric ride is? Saunter on over to EmpulseBuyer.com… there’s this slick little widget for estimating TCO.
First, the guy gets my undying respect for having the inspiration to reserve that URL so early in the game. Brilliant! Second, I lay myself at the feet of anyone who can put a widget like this together… we are not worthy!
edit: Oh crap. I see that Brammofan had something to do with it. Does this mean I have to give him some adoration back?
Must be ’cause I grew up in Johnny Appleseed country… but it seems obvious to me, anyway.
Ok, mostly I’m just posting this because I’ve wanted to be the first to do an electric motorcycle cross-country coast-to-coast ride for a couple years now… and if by some strange twist of fate Brammo actually did it without me, and I hadn’t made a pitch to be the guy to do it, I’d kick myself in the head.
But still.
Throw a couple of saddlebags on an Empulse, do two 100mile segments a day (recharge mid-day, you get 40 opportunities for press events along the way) track it online, social/viral market the crap out of it… what’s not to love? Hell, you could go from BestBuy to BestBuy across the entire continent, for that matter!
(Boston, Bellows Falls VT, Niagra Falls, Detroit, Chicago, then tracing the path of Route 66-
“Well it goes through St. Louie down to Missouri
Oklahoma City looks oh so pretty.
You’ll see Amarillo, Gallup, New Mexico
Flagstaff, Arizona, don’t forget Winona,
Kingsman, Barstow, San Bernardino.”)
I’d go through Bellows Falls and Niagra because of the electricity grid message. My bike would be powered by hydro stations feeding the Northeast from Quebec- (through high-tension power systems my Grandpappy E.A.“The Lord Hates a Coward” Dillard designed…). On through Detroit, (obvious), to pick up the “Mother Road” – Rt 66- to California (HUGE support of the ride through Route 66 organizations… also, slower road than an interstate.)
There. I said it. Now I’ll be able to sleep at night…
Oh… if by some chance you think I’m not serious? Check out this link to see the proposal I put together to solicit sponsors.
Poor Craig Bramscher at Brammo seems hung at 1974 followers* on his Twittering. The man needs HELP!
Dudes. He’s the frikkin Big MuckyMuck of the Brammo Home Planet! FOLLOW his ass!
His twittering is here.
(Disclaimer: This post is a fictional account. Any resemblance to any efforts to usurp the title of Brammo Evangelist are purely coincidental. References to Brammo Empulse, Can I Get a Free Bike, I Can Haz Empulse? or any other self serving attempts and interests are specifically and unconditionally denied.)
*1974 was the year I graduated High School. Coincidence? Fate?
This just in: Secret of Brammo Empulse is out! Engineers develop Flux Capacitor!
Read more, at Motorcycle.com- probably the best story on the Laguna race I’ve seen.
2010 FIM e-Power race at Laguna Seca
hmmmm… perHAPS we’ve stumbled on the REAL reason the bike didn’t run in the Laguna race?
I just got this email- I think it’s a common concern with people interested in making the leap, so I’m posting it here-
“I live in South Florida and have a 30 mile one-way commute. About 10 miles of it is @ 35 Mph and the rest @ 55Mph. The traffic is stop and go in the 10 mile stretch with speed limit of 35Mph. The traffic flows fairly smooth in the 20 mile stretch @ 55Mph. There are 2 bridges over the intracoastal waterway (steep gradient) during this commute. Other than these 2 bridges, the commute is really flat.
“With that being said, based on your real life driving experience, do you think the Enertia will be able to handle this ? Or is the Empulse the way to go?”
“Based on the estimates from the Brammo web site, I figured that if the range was 42 miles per charge, I should comfortably be able to get to work and charge the battery up at work for my return trip home since I only need to go 30 miles one-way. Am I being too optimistic in my assumptions about speed and range of the Enertia ?”
Here’s my answer…
“Thanks for the note!
“On your commute… So much of the range depends on your driving style, but it seems to me that the Enertia could handle that. You would want to keep your top speed down below 50mph, I’d suggest. It is, however, pretty close to the edge, especially if you rode at higher speeds or accelerated hard.
“The one time I took it to work I had a similar commute and arrived with 30% power left. It was stop-and-go for around 15 miles, then about 10 miles at 50mph, then the rest at 30-40mph. A total of 30 miles. My problem is that riding at 50mph on Route 128 is simply too dangerous- people routinely travel it at 80+ where they can.
“I am not sure I’d suggest buying the Enertia expressly for that commute, it seems like you may, on occasion, be cutting it pretty close. If you had a strong headwind, for example, you may find you couldn’t make it to work. Let me put it this way. If you owned the Enertia, would I suggest you try riding it to work? Absolutely. If you were considering buying the Enertia FOR the ride to work? I’d probably advise not. If you want to use your commute as a reason to buy the Enertia to justify it to your wife, partner or significant other? Why sure… no problem! 
“On the Empulse, certainly, it’s going to have a better range, and I did pre-order one with confidence that it could do my commute- however, it is, at this point, still a concept bike- there are no hard, firm specs yet. They can say what they want, and I trust them to a point, but until they actually have a product for sale I’m not holding my breath. As I always advise in the digital camera market, decide what to buy based on what’s available- not what manufacturers promise to be coming soon… “
I think I have a dead bead on the wary and elusive controller used by the Boys of Brammo. Taking a good close look at the controller on the Enertia as I did, and having a look at the sponsor decals on the Empulse, I will now and heretofore hazard my guess (aka fabricate a rumor) on what controller Brammo is in bed with.
Drum roll.
It is the Sevcon Gen4 G8035 AC controller.
“The Gen4-series represent the absolute latest design concept for compact and reliable AC Controllers. They feature the smallest footprint in the industry for their power capability. The high efficiency of these controller makes it possible to integrate them into very tight spaces without sacrificing performance. The design has been optimized for the lowest possible cost while maintaining superior reliability in the most demanding applications.”
G8035- 72-80V, 350A
This ain’t like the biggest secret of the ages or anything maybe, but I, for one, couldn’t get nobody to make no comments about the controllers. Just that they had “looked at” Alltrax.
Over and out. Enjoy the races. I’m just sittin here, on my computer, NOT AT THEM. Just doing my civic duty spreading rumors on the internets.
Here’s why it ain’t gonna happen.
In spite of my thoughts on the modular build, the idea of a bike that has universal parts, including universal batteries, motors, and controllers, as well as an open software architecture that allows user programming and tuning, I realized after a few conversations with some industry insiders that it just, plain, wasn’t gonna happen. To quote a buddy- oh yeah, a fuel-cell powered motorcycle? I can’t wait! I’ll park it right next to my Unicorn!
Here’s the first basic reality.
As I learned in my own build, the batteries are really the heart of the machine. The size and weight, and most important, the energy density, charge and discharge rate dictate the performance of the bike more than any other single factor. If every electric bike, and car for that matter, used the same batteries you’re going to see similar performance- maybe not identical, but similar. These guys are fighting to get an edge, and indeed, the Brammo Empulse is turning more than a few heads as a result of their performance claims- impossible without some battery breakthrough they’re not telling us yet. So the bike makers aren’t going to stick to one battery, and they certainly are not going to toss their one, single shot at making a bike that is different than anyone elses. Add to that- if everyone is stuck with using the same battery, then what’s the impetus to develop new technology? On one hand, the idea of having electric vehicle battery stations where you can pull in and exchange packs seems like it makes a ton of sense, in reality it makes no sense at all.
Modular batteries so you can slap in a new pack, or add/subtract packs for different capacities, or change the type, cost and weight of the packs you want to use? Sure- in fact the Empulse will be sold in three configurations with three packs, and I’ll bet my last dollar they’ll make it so I can upgrade my pack. Zero and others have snap-out packs now. Maybe we’ll see dedicated swap-stations that are manufacturer specific- a Nissan Leaf network of stations where you can swap out your Leaf packs, sort of like having an Exxon credit card- but that ain’t coming soon.
Open architecture? Not likely. Hackable architecture? Of course… unavoidable, but not condoned.
All of us who’ve built bikes know that it’s pretty easy to program the controller for a motor/throttle response curve that you want. None of the bikes on the market are using a proprietary controller, so, in theory you could open up the controller and program it to your individual taste. (It was only my own good manners that kept me from opening up the Brammo Enertia I had here to find out what controller they were using…) Will the manufacturers open that up so you can do it as easily as you do with your own build? Not likely.
First, there’s the question of liability. You alter the bike and go hurt yourself, any decent lawyer’s going to come after the bike company. The key here is the same as “chipping” a car- they have to make it hard enough that they can prove you didn’t do it by accident, and you knew what you were doing. Anybody can alter a vehicle to make it dangerous, the manufacturers have to be able to say it was your fault.
Then there’s the warranty, of course. Chip a motor, blow it up, unchip it, claim warranty repair. You can build it, no doubt, so it can be tracked, but these guys have way to much work to do just getting a product to market to worry about making it easy for hackers to take advantage of their warranty process. Now, at some point there was a Honda car that they opened up to tuners, wasn’t there? Google is failing me, but that is the exception that proves the rule…
But say, like a digital camera, you want to update the firmware of the controller and the BMS, as well as the instrumentation. I’ve already seen stories of Brammo techs making housecalls to fix something, and incidentally updating the firmware on the bike, improving one thing or another. If you own a pro digital camera, this is a pretty familiar process. On the support page of any site there are updates and downloads. Download this tiny file. Put it on a memory card. Put it in the camera. Go to the Firmware selection of the menu and hit update and you have new firmware- controlling everything from a simple process change to an entirely new menu. There’s no reason why that couldn’t happen with a bike.
Well, except one. The dealer network. This was an eye-opener.
The automotive dealer network, and I include motorcycles in that, is arguably the most powerful single group in the industry. Dealers in many cases tell manufacturers what they’re going to do, and the smaller the manufacturer the more the dealers get to say. It basically boils down to, “Hey. You want us to sell your bike or not?” …and dealers make money on service.
I heard this story… you can guess the company I’m talking about if you know any of the recent history, but it doesn’t matter- and to keep from screwing anybody up by saying names, I’m not going to. I was just talking to an engineer about this issue and he described a bike that was already working with a pretty established dealer network. They had a project designing a firmware update that was so cool it could even tell if it needed to update itself. You download the file, load it on a jump drive and plug it into the bike. The bike looks at the file, decides if it’s newer than the file it has, and installs it or rejects it accordingly. I wish my camera could do that.
When they floated this out to the dealers, it was summarily rejected and the project was canned. Why? The dealers got $200 for a firmware upgrade. There was no way they were going to sell a bike that needed very little service in the first place, then the one thing they could make money on got sourced to the user.
This story led me to thinking about my visit to a local dealer who handled Vectrix before they went under. He parked them next to his gas scooter line. You know what he used the Vectrix for? He used it to sell gas scooters. A guy walks in curious about the Vectrix and looks at it, parked on the showroom floor at the far end of the lineup. After a little yabbering, the salesman puts a pitch in for a nice, cheap little gas scooter that gets 65mpg and costs thousands less. They make the sale- a much easier sale than a Vectrix, with more potential for service and an upsell later. This was after the Vectrix filing, and this guy as much as told me this- but I’ve been around sales for long enough to not have to be told…
Hmmm. Suddenly selling a bike outside the usual dealer network is starting to make a lot of sense… Between BestBuy and the independent rep network of a company like Zero, I’m starting to get it.
It makes my idea of a dedicated electric bike/scooter/motorcycle dealership seem a heck of a lot more realistic than trying to get an established dealership to pick up an electric line, too…
Thanks for stopping by…
The Electric Chronicles started as a way to organize and find information on all manner of electric-powered two wheel transportation, and soon evolved into a chronicle of the build of the Honda VF500F motorcycle, the launch of massElectrics- a startup electric vehicle parts, supplies and custom build service, as well as my continuing goal to ride an electric motorcycle from coast to coast.
Obsession is such an ugly word… but this has gone on for quite some time now. Read about it here- some of the background and inspiration: The Renault Mars 2 story.
To make things a little simpler to navigate, use the Search feature above. Here are some photos of the infamous and notorious Zombie Fembot… the build that started this little obsession.
There’s lots more to this, all over the internets, though, and so here is a directory of the Electric Chronicles.
The Electric Chronicles Youtube Channel
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Contact me via email here.
MASS Electrics- supplies, parts and custom electric builds.
Four years ago I told a friend of mine that in five years you’d see EVs and electric motorcycles popping up everywhere, and it looks like I was right on the money. It’s a new frontier, a new industry, we’re still building them in garages and home shops but there are plenty of companies committed to being among the first to hit the streets with a production machine. It’s time to jump on the train, it’s about to leave the station on a wild, exciting journey!
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Here’s my Enertia mod- clipons, rearsets, naked. For the record, Brammo completely copied my idea. But since I’m having so much fun with rider triangles, I decided to see what the bike would be like if someone actually could bring themselves to chop it up like that, and how close it came to what someone who actually knew what they were doing had done.
Not bad. My Enertia shows a little higher hand position and a lower foot position- what I’d want for a not-all-out-race-bike-old-man-with-bad-back rider position. The cool part is that they’ve been saying the Empulse will likely have options for different foot and bar positions for people who aren’t that committed to a roadracer and the pain that it entails- thus, an adjustable triangle.
Sweet!
(…now where did I put that Sawzall?)
A Basic Guide to Building an Electric Motorcycle
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