Modded electric motorcycle is street-legal, costs under $2K

We've seen more silly homemade electric vehicles than we care to remember, but Ben Nelson's electric motorcycle manages to retain some of its original two-wheel charm while using only a penny of juice per mile -- roughly the equivalent of 300mpg. Nelson bought the bike for $100 and swapped out the original engine for a Briggs and Stratton 8HP DC motor he picked up on eBay for $500, using four $160 Optima Yellowtop lead-acid batteries for power. Nelson says he can get the rig up to a top speed of 45MPH, and he's got a range of about 20 miles before he needs to plug in -- enough to run errands around town. Best of all, the state of Wisconsin willingly registered his bike as a "hobbyist" vehicle, which means he's free to (silently) roam the streets at will. Ben first built the bike about a year ago, so he's accumulated a ton of useful info if you're interested in following in his tire tracks -- hit up the read link to learn more, and check the video after the break.

Read - Nelson's build blog

[Via ecomodder]

[z0phi3l @ Jun 26th 2008 10:21AM]

The title is missing: "Looks like Crap, no sane person would actually use"

[ybd @ Jun 26th 2008 10:28AM]

Shallow, selfish people like you are the reason we need electric vehicles in the first place.

[bamboo @ Jun 26th 2008 10:29AM]

Just because it looks like crap doesn't make it any less useful. He just didn't take the time to put a fiberglass shell on parts of the bike.
If he did though, it would probably get slightly better mileage.

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Jun 26th 2008 10:34AM]

Ever noticed the fact that you can modify it to look better?

[Josh @ Jun 26th 2008 10:43AM]

looks just fine in the video...i'd need more than 20 miles though

[SHoe @ Jun 26th 2008 10:57AM]

Looks like crap? I think it looks awesome. Classic motorbike modded up in a road-warrior kind of way. Macho and geek. But yeah - you could just get a cover for the non-matching battery / motor area if you are a pussy like z0phi3l.

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Jun 26th 2008 12:05PM]

I'm surprised. I used to get straight low ranks :P

[tyler @ Jun 26th 2008 12:06PM]

Actually, this motorcycle looks like it would pair up quite nicely with the Knight Rider GPS shown just below it on the main page.

[phanbouy @ Jun 26th 2008 12:21PM]

ha.. people like you are why we see the same trite materialist "stylish" look on all consumer products

[Evan @ Jun 26th 2008 1:56PM]

The same mod could just as easily be made to a motorcycle that you think looks more "stylish". And the batteries could easily be covered if that suits you.

[SimbaDogg @ Jun 26th 2008 8:52PM]

small dick people like you are the reason why we need this, your small dick brothers buy huge SUVs, raised trucks, and flashy sports cars to make up for their...inadequacies

[dan bentler @ Jun 27th 2008 2:52AM]

Yup looks like crap alright. But for 2K he is on the road. For another 18K you can too be on the road but in style. Myself for 18K crap is just fine - as long as it gets me down the road and stops.

Dan Bentler

[JimReaper @ Jun 26th 2008 10:22AM]

Can't I just buy his...effort to make my own.

[Matt E. @ Jun 26th 2008 10:50AM]

http://www.evalbum.com/type/MTCY

[Rick @ Jun 26th 2008 10:22AM]

I don't see any protection for the battery cases. He gets T-boned or goes over on the side and there will be sulfuric acid everywhere.

[schmitty338 @ Jun 26th 2008 10:32AM]

...and that is worse than having a regular motorcycle with 15-20 litres of highly volatile gasoline enclosed in a thin metal tank sitting in your crotch, how?

[Tony @ Jun 26th 2008 10:45AM]

Hmm, gas or sulfuric acid on my nads... I'll take the gas.

[Rick @ Jun 26th 2008 10:57AM]

Because motorcycle gas tanks are fairly strong steel containers. Generally when you tip a bike over or take a spill the gas tank at worse gets dented.

I "kissed" the pavement at 55 mph because of a front end wobble on a BMW /2 back in 1979. The only damage to the bike was a scratched and dented right valve cover and a cracked headlight lens.

I used to work in a BMW bike shop and had 3 different BMWs over the years. I don't recall ever seeing a bike come in as the result of a collision with another motor vehicle or a single-vehicle crash as I had where the gas tank was breached.

Those batteries were not designed to be exposed out in the open. Car and truck batteries are usually inside the engine compartment or under the rear seat (VW, Porsche?). If the battery is scrooched in a collision it isn't going to spill over the occupants if it is in the engine compartment.

[computer.dude.28 @ Jun 26th 2008 11:14AM]

He could put one battery in the gas tank and then the other one that's sticking out could go in the center. Then neither would be in contact with the pavement if he dropped it.

[david @ Jun 26th 2008 11:48AM]

Not sure how significant this is, but i do know that optimas are not your run of the mill lead-acids. They have some spiral core sealed cell that would be more safe than usual. We used a pack of ~40 of them on the electric race car I worked on in college (Formula Lightning).

[GreezyG @ Jun 26th 2008 1:05PM]

As someone who has flipped a golf cart and got battery acid on him.... It's not that bad, it'll take a while to eat through your clothes. You will have plenty of time to take off your protective clothing that you ALWAYS wear while riding a bike....right?

[Micah @ Jun 27th 2008 9:59AM]

Many electric vehicle builders recommend bringing baking soda with you on the vehicle. In the case of a spill, toss the baking soda everywhere and the acid will react with it instead of your oh-so-delicate skin.

[Matt E. @ Jun 26th 2008 10:44AM]

Try this one on Instructables.com:
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-build-a-72Volt-electric-motorcycle/

[Rick @ Jun 26th 2008 11:01AM]

This is the way it should be done. The batteries are inside the frame of the motorcycle. Motorcycle frames are very strong. Honda tends to over-engineer stuff for safety reasons.

[jonathan @ Jun 26th 2008 10:50AM]

I actually love it.

[EricR @ Jun 26th 2008 10:57AM]

The only real problem (besides the range) is the top speed of 45 mph -- it is too slow to be safe on anything bigger than a residential street. You have to have the ability to get you out of danger should some idiot try to change lanes into you.

Same problem with a moped, small motor scooter, etc.

[surfwax95 @ Jun 26th 2008 2:11PM]

Granted, the top speed is a pretty paltry 45mph, but I bet the acceleration on an electric bike would be quite quick, eh? Just enough to get out of harm's way.

[LarryLarryLarry @ Jun 28th 2008 7:00PM]

No, the acceleration is crap. He can go from 0 to 45 MpH in... 5 seconds. The acceleration is truly horrible for a motorcycle, and not even good for a car.

This makes the extremely-low-angle shots of him "racing away" in the video even more comical. If the shots were taken from a normal angle, you'd be laughing.

[Matthew @ Jun 26th 2008 11:01AM]

Those are Optima batteries...lead-acid, but in a paste form. Won't spill.

[digitallysick @ Jun 26th 2008 11:03AM]

I love the idea, but i feel if he had a lighter design he could get even more out of it. That heavy metal frame , and big tires/gas tank probably weigh the thing down. Maybe an aluminum frame, and thin tires (like an olympic bike) would be better

[Rick @ Jun 26th 2008 11:04AM]

They still have asulfuric cid in them. Your local fire department and probably the local or state EPA people are going to get involved if you spill acid.

[Josh L @ Jun 26th 2008 11:05AM]

Doesn't look so bad. Coming from me, this is a pretty big compliment.

Like someone else said, though, most people are going to need more than a 20-mile range on any vehicle. He did use regular lead-acid batteries, so using more efficient ones could help that out (at the cost of... cost).

The only other improvement is that it needs a noisemaker of some sort, but those are cheap (and there are several professional solutions to silent-running electric vehicles in the works, iirc).

[warren @ Jun 26th 2008 11:09AM]

Why don't Yamaha and Honda start making electric motorcycles? With the right transmission, design and lithium ion batteries, I bet we could easily see a "cool" bike get 200 miles per charge. Doesn't it make sense to start out with motorcycles, since they are already light and streamlined?

[Kevin @ Jun 26th 2008 11:34AM]

I think you are right, but the people who ride motorcycles may not really be the right audience for electric vehicles. As a group, they tend to like their loud polluting beasts. Could you really feel dignified wearing a leather jacket otherwise?

[phanbouy @ Jun 26th 2008 12:13PM]

I think you are right, but the people who ride HARLEYS...

Fixed.

[warren @ Jun 26th 2008 11:13AM]

Why can't they mod a battery to replace the size and shape of the gas tank?

[Matt E. @ Jun 27th 2008 11:47AM]

Because you don't won't the center of gravity to be that high on a motorcycle.

[crispy @ Jun 26th 2008 11:21AM]

Come on battery technology, you're holding us back.

[crispy @ Jun 26th 2008 11:22AM]

Also, he says "clean renewable electricity". Yeah no, most of our power comes from coal plants. Given the emissions equipment on cars I bet they produce power cleaner than our electric grid. Nice try guy.

[erislover @ Jun 26th 2008 11:48AM]

Centralized production of pollution is much cheaper and easier to control than distributed production of pollution, as I'm sure you'll realize if you stop and think about it for a few moments after giving up your perfect solution fallacy.

[XenoX101 @ Jun 26th 2008 11:53AM]

Do you know the emission equipment on cars? What makes you think a $20,000 car would have better emission handling capabilities than a multi millionare dollar powerplant?

Also, by using power plants instead of engines we have more control over how all the engines are powered as the electric grid can be powered by any number of ways (be it coal, hydro, wind, solar power or something else).

Using electricity is the best way to go because that way it becomes a standard for everything, and when that happens we can shift our focus towards making electricity greener by using renewable energy. It's all about thinking ahead, but even so there will be benefit instantly from all these cars no longer polluting the air.

[DanLeasure @ Jun 26th 2008 2:22PM]

It's a step in the right direction away from the Oil and Gas industry; not a solution.

If idiots like you were around when Edison made the first light bulbs you'd have whined about how it made no economic sense to engineer and manufacture light bulbs when pig fat candles were so cheap and easy to make.

[mikeg @ Jun 26th 2008 2:24PM]

actually to reply to the people who are going to say that coal is cleaner, it depends on many things, including the particular plant in question.

mostly though, there is so much loss in transmission, through the power grid, that the savings of a direct comparison do not stack up.

you have to take the amount of pollution, factor in the effieciency lost by transmitting, and then the efficiency lost quite quickly as the batteries age.

throw in the potential costs to replace these batteries on a fairly regular basis (unlike real electric car batteries, these aren't designed for that type of full cycle then recharge) and im not going to thnk there is much savings at all.

plus you now have the disposal problems of lead / acid batteries to add into the equation.

[crispy @ Jun 27th 2008 12:11PM]

Where did I say perfect solution? I just pointed out the fact this guy is trying to paint a greener picture than what is reality. Yes car pollution is bad, but the electric grid doesn't exactly shit rainbows.

Also, to the $20,000 car question, the fact that I the air that comes out of a Civic's tailpipe in L.A. is cleaner than the air going into the engine makes me say that. I don't many power plants that can say the same thing.

Also you'll note I said "cleaner" not anything about being any better to breathe since its lacking all the important oxygen.

Good Game.

[Rob @ Jun 26th 2008 11:33AM]

I'm jealous. Very nice. I hope more technically-inclined people would get more involved in these types of development. We need it badly. If you think over $4 for for a gallon of gas is not enough motivation, then nothing will ever be. The government needs to give out reasonable incentives for the common folks to get involved in the development. Not the nonsense pie in the sky garbage that McCain is promising, $300 millions, which more than likely is going to big corporations.

Kudos bikerman, keep up the good work.

[XenoX101 @ Jun 26th 2008 11:54AM]

Ok erislover pretty much summarized my entire comment. Anyhoo.

[ZeroCorpse @ Jun 26th 2008 11:54AM]

Battery technology is fine. He could have used any number of different kinds of lightweight, high-power batteries. Currie Technologies and several of the electric bicycle manufacturers have been using LiFePO or NiCad for a while now. The bikes with these batteries don't even look electric because the batteries are small enough to hide in the downtube.

The barrier is COST.

LiFePO batteries ain't cheap. NiCad are getting better, but they're still much more expensive than the heavier Sealed Lead-Acid batteries that are the most popular for this sort of vehicle. My bike uses SLAs, and they're HEAVY, but they also give a lot of power for a low price. I can replace my whole 36v battery pack for around $75 with SLAs. If I switched to NiCad or LiFePO, I'd triple or quadruple that, at least.

Granted, I'd take back some 25 pounds (or more) and have a more discharge-friendly battery, but it's a lot of cost for something that will need to be replaced annually, or even bi-annually.

"Real" bikers say that the problem with electric motorcycles is that they're almost silent, and that makes you a candidate for getting plowed over by people in cars. I can say that I won't take my electric bike on the road-- I stick to sidewalks (which is legal for a bicycle here) because a lot of drivers are idiots that don't consider that a small tap from their car could kill me. They are too busy talking on cell phones to notice smaller two-wheeled vehicles on the road.

[phanbouy @ Jun 26th 2008 12:16PM]

It's too bad the noise= safety perception still exists. That's what the HORN button is for; lots of engine noise won't make up for still being all dressed in black on a black bike.

Y'know, because it would be un-macho to wear high visibility clothing, but not to run 110dB pipes because..uh...noise=safety. Yep.

[phanbouy @ Jun 26th 2008 12:19PM]

Oh yeah, almost forgot, noise won't make up for your lack of skill. (or, in the case of most Harleys, lack of bike maneuverability)

[Micah @ Jun 27th 2008 10:02AM]

I ride a bike (ie. pedals and skinny wheels) on road all the time. I've been commuting on it every day for 3 years now in Atlanta, considered one of the worst cities for being bike friendly. It's a little dangerous, but it's sure nicer than driving a car.

Live a little, people! Don't be so scared!