Impossible: 100 mpg at 100 mph - Acabion

[kach22i]

Tell me why it's not possible.

http://acabion.com/
http://hegeberg.dyndns.org/acabion.com/images/product_main.jpg

 

[turbo]

A motorcycle with training wheels with a starting price of 1.83 million Euros? Their claims of speed and fuel economy seem a bit outlandish, but who's going to be able to refute them without testing?

 

[RonL]

Very pretty, and interesting.
I wonder how many RPM those training wheels are spinning at 250 mph?? Might get a little warm -:)

 

[russ_watters]

It is possible - but I'm not buying one!

And does it require a glass road for reduced rolling friction?

 

[Dale]

If you are going to have your vehicles on an elevated roadway you had better lock them onto the roadway (ala monorail). 100 mph on a motorcycle atop a little ribbon of road sounds more like an Evel Knievel stunt than a practical method of transportation.

 

[turbo]

You're right about that fanciful illustration, Dale. I've exceeded 100 mph (OK, dumb!) on several of my bikes, on straight-aways on wide roads with breakdown lanes and no intersections. Those "training wheels" (depending on whether they are retractable, sprung, or rigidly mounted) could send a bike into an instant crash with just a bit of contact with an uneven road surface.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

1908 Walter Davidson scores a perfect 1,000 points at the 7th Annual Federation of American Motorcyclists Endurance and Reliability Contest. Three days after the contest, Walter sets the FAM economy record at 188.234 miles per gallon. Word of Harley-Davidson's extremely tough motorcycle spreads rapidly.

http://www.harley-davidson.com/CO/HIS/en/history1900.asp?locale=en_US&bmLocale=en_US

I do find the six significant digits to be dubious.

 

[RonL]

Looking at the 1908 cycle, the frame does not appear to be much heavier than the electric powered mountain bike that i own, the large crankcase of the two cylinder engine would indicate lower rpm, more torque, and a better fuel economy.
I do wonder at what average speed the 188.234 miles per gallon was set.

As for the OP, the future holds promise, but i do not think it will ever be ready for people moving that fast, unless almost all control is engineered away from the operator, and into automated features.

 

[Poop-Loops]

Even if it was automated, you'd still have troubles with accelerating and decelerating. Do you honestly want to go from 0 to 200 in 6 seconds several times a trip?

 

[RonL]

I do enjoy the rush of takeoff in a commercial jet, don't like the landings much. Individuals traveling at these speeds on public highways, not likely.

I have witnessed almost half of our automotive history, started driving in 1960, and now the cars are starting to park themselves unassisted by the driver, hovercraft are near to being safe, with their computer controlled features. Although i will not see many of the next 50 years, i think if you reach my age you will be amazed at the changes you will see.

 

[Poop-Loops]

That would be nice. There hasn't been much of a change in cars since they started. 4 wheels, steering wheel, foot pedals for gas and breaks. Whoop-de-doo.

 

[RonL]

That would be nice. There hasn't been much of a change in cars since they started. 4 wheels, steering wheel, foot pedals for gas and breaks. Whoop-de-doo.

Your quite correct, and when you compare aviation to automobiles, one of the main
reasons for such rapid advance in flying, the building of roads was not a requirement.

Just for grins, think how things might have been different, if a hovercraft had been the first design to carry people, and dust control would have been the main issue.

 

[Argentum Vulpes]

That is a definitely one of the more unique looking cars out there but I'd still rather spend 117 thousand on a Tesla roadster with every bell and whistle. 135 mpg equivalent, and 125 mph top speed.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

...and 900 pounds of batteries probably worth about $80K. I sure hope they last longer than my laptop batteries! But then being that they essentially use laptop batteries...

 

[kach22i]

Just for grins, think how things might have been different, if a hovercraft had been the first design to carry people, and dust control would have been the main issue.

As an owner of a small hovercraft (Scat II HP - 1989) I can tell you even a crown in the road to drain water will send you into a ditch.

Similar to the elevated bike-way one of the early inventors of the hovercraft came up with a half tube tray system.

Dr. William Bertelsen Link:
http://www.aeromobile.com/aeromobile_vers2/index.htm

 

[Poop-Loops]

As an owner of a small hovercraft (Scat II HP - 1989) I can tell you even a crown in the road to drain water will send you into a ditch.

Yeah, but at least you get to tell your friends you wiped out on a hovercraft.

 

[Argentum Vulpes]

...and 900 pounds of batteries probably worth about $80K. I sure hope they last longer than my laptop batteries! But then being that they essentially use laptop batteries...

220 miles for a fully charged battery pack. And that is assuming you get no extra power from the regenerative braking system. So let's see at WOT you would get almost 2 hours of time. I guess that would be less then a laptop oh well but you'd be 220 miles away from your starting point.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I am talking about the battery life; not the stored charge. It appears to me that you will be replacing $80K worth of batteries every year.

 

[Argentum Vulpes]

The batterys will give a 100% duty cycle for 100k miles. After that point you will see a gradual drop of power. Li-ion batterys have gotten much better then they were when first brought onto the market. I can't find who Tesla's suppler of there batterys are but I'd bet on either http://www.a123systems.com"

 

[Ivan Seeking]

In fact that claim is made with no supporting evidence [in fact it is impossible]. My experience says that it will be more like 10,000 miles.

Recall that Moller has been promising a flying car for thirty years. This claim sounds about as credible.

 

[Argentum Vulpes]

I believe that there claim on battery life cycle is legitimate. Doing the math 100k miles with a range of 220 miles per charge will be about 455 duty cycles A123 systems packs are giving 1k duty cycles under 100% DOD http://www.a123systems.com/#/technology/life/" granted it is for a battery pack and not an individual cell.
The big thing about both of these companies they produce a Li-ion cell that uses an iron phosphate based cathode chemistry, where as most of the current cells out on the market still use a transition metal oxide type of cathode (used since the inception of Li-ion packs)
And yes it is the year 2008 and we were supposed to have moon bases that you could do a daily commute to, colonys on Mars and the asteroid belt. Flying cars, unlimited clean energy, and all sorts of stuff. Man did they ever miss the mark.

 

[mheslep]

220 miles for a fully charged battery pack. And that is assuming you get no extra power from the regenerative braking system. So let's see at WOT you would get almost 2 hours of time. I guess that would be less then a laptop oh well but you'd be 220 miles away from your starting point.

The batterys will give a 100% duty cycle for 100k miles. After that point you will see a gradual drop of power. Li-ion batterys have gotten much better then they were when first brought onto the market. I can't find who Tesla's suppler of there batterys are but I'd bet on either http://www.a123systems.com"

GM to allow buyers of its Volt to http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f455b442-48fc-11dc-b326-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1".

 

[Yonoz]

There's been a lot of hype around http://shaiagassi.typepad.com/" ", I can't wait for the dust to settle to see if it'll work. In principle, it's a plan to set up service stations that will simply replace the batteries in addition to the standard charging spots at parking garages; there'll be some sort of membership program, they keep making the reference to mobile phone plans as a model.

 

[mheslep]

There's been a lot of hype around http://shaiagassi.typepad.com/" ", .

NYT article regards EV's in Israel for whom Agassi will suppy batteries:

they expect the batteries to have a life of 7,000 charges, though Mr. Agassi says he is counting on only 1,500 charges, which is roughly 150,000 miles, the life of the average car.

 

[Yonoz]

Those batteries never seem to last as long as they should...