Engineering For Affordable Transportation

Hybrid cars like the Prius are all well and good, provided you understand there isn't enough lithium on Earth for every potential driver to have one. Lithium is in too short supply. There isn't enough of it. If its the only option for vehicle batteries, it will be fought over, like Gold, and people kill for Gold. At some point, having a Lithium Battery is going to be like having a Gold Watch and walking through the ghetto at night, drunk. You will get rolled for it. You might even die. Having a lithium battery will become a bad idea in a public place. It becomes a motive for crime.

People buy the Prius because it gets around 55 MPG on flatland. Here in the mountains? Its more like 30 MPG. You can do that with most passenger cars today. Smaller cars, which don't have the weight of the battery, do better because it really is about Power To Weight ratio. Every Top Gear test car has proved this. Lowering the weight is as good or better than increasing the power. The fastest cars are both light and powerful. Richard Hammond jokingly refers to this technique as "add lightness". You can do this at home by removing the other seats from your commuter car, which generally reduces the weight by around 80 pounds. Sometimes a bit more. It depends on what the seats are made from. I pulled the seat from my BMW in order to use it to deliver newspapers, back when I was a college student, and this dramatically improved the power to weight ratio and my fuel economy and handling. Few people are willing to remove a seat because they might carry other people in their cars, even if its really just a solo commuter vehicle, so they don't get to experience the benefits.

I had a coworker who endlessly complained about his daily commute fuel cost but wouldn't do this step. "Where would I put the seats after I take them out?" he complained. "In your garage with your other boxes of useless junk." Idiot. This was the same guy who said that murdering people would be okay if you "did it for your family". Uh-huh. He was a devout Xtian, btw. Muslims aren't the only murder-hobos. I find this attitude prevalent in the Bay Area, btw. The place is filled with potential or current murderers. I think drinking water full of birth control pills and anti-psychotics, which doesn't come out with mandated water treatment techniques, has created Reavers from the general population.

So I'm glad I don't live there anymore. Yuck. The water I drink isn't filtered through anyone's kidneys first.

What this means is any serious attempt at sustainable transportation requires vehicles without these fancy batteries. It was discovered decades ago that a 400 cc 4-stroke engine is the best balance in power to weight ratio for a 2-wheeled vehicle, a motorcycle in particular. This gets you around 70-80 MPG depending on how hard you push it, and will run a 250cc bike frame, which is light, compared to a 650cc bike frame, which is 100 pounds heavier. This detail is important. Motorcycle manufacturers opted not to produce a 400cc bike, instead increasing the compression of a 250cc bike, requiring you to run the most expensive gasoline, 40 cents a gallon higher price, or deliberately decreasing the performance of a 650cc bike, or worse, "sleeving" the engine into a smaller displacement and adding weight in the process. This was a legal loophole, since many countries, including Canada, have special lower insurance rates for bikes under 400cc. In reality, this isn't a real 400cc. There are some being make, but they are pricey.

Suzuki Dr-Z 400 thumper. Offroad bike (dual sport street legal), heavy frame, good suspension, but heavy. $7000
KTM Super Duke 390 cc. $8000
Honda SS400 (air cooled, 1970's technology)

Kawasaki had a 450cc in the 1980's. It was steel and weighed 500 pounds.
Honda also offered a 450, same weight problem.

Honda currently has a 500cc sport bike, which is basically a commuter. Good fuel economy, complaints about power, however some bikers ALWAYS complain about power, right up until they die. This article is not for them. The 500cc bike is also nearly 500 pounds. That is heavy.

There are also some 300cc bikes.

Kawasaki has a 300cc Ninja. This bike wins awards but the engine noise would offend my neighbors and annoy my ears. I don't like it for that reason. The BZZZ! would get old after a few minutes.

Honda has also released a slightly larger engine for its CBR250 called the CBR300, which is really just a CBR286. So this is a minor displacement improvement and an exaggeration. I continue to be unimpressed by Honda's commitment to motorcycling performance and fuel economy. They should build a scaled up engine, a proper EFI 400cc thumper. The technology for this is both available and cheap. Make your engineers do some work this year, Honda. Soichiro may be generating power for Tokyo with his spinning coffin, but you owe it to his memory to stop being useless. Your F1 team is an embarrassment to motor sports. They haven't even finished a race this season. A multi-million dollar advertisement for poor reliability. Honda has done better. Re-release the CB350, the old steel airhead bike, with a modern EFI engine and oil cooler, the old twin, steel, upright UJM.

Classics never go out of style. This is the bike I would have. A Honda CB350 with the front disc brake conversion. Properly maintained, this is a 60 mpg bike for less than the cost of a Vespa, and it is highway capable. Don't think I'd like it on the freeway, but for short bursts, it is probably okay. Suzuki released something like this, which is not sold in California because CARB is insane, called the TU250X.

This bike has EFI rather than a carburetor, and is very clean running, even when cold. The EFI also gives it more torque at lower RPMs. This bike really needs to be sold here. They would sell a lot of them because its is priced at $4300 new. It is very popular in SE Asia, since it is made in Thailand. This is a good commuter bike, and riders say it will go 45 mph all day long. It is possible to change out the final drive sprocket to increase this speed, but your wind resistance becomes a real drag above 40 mph and at 50 is seriously noticeable and the need for cowlings and a windshield totally spoils its looks. If you want to go fast, get a proper sport bike like a Ninja or something more powerful. And write your will. But this article is not for racers. It is for commuters and weekend riders using back roads and taking their time to see the sights and ride below 45 mph. Slow travel has its value. You can hear the birds sing and have time to turn your head, or easily stop and look at something. This is why I like scooters. They are slow enough to be like riding a bicycle. These bikes will go faster, but they can also go slow and they won't go out of style and you don't have to dress like a Power Ranger.