Technology Freeze

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Kevin Cameron has been writing about motorcycles for nearly 50 years, first for <em>Cycle magazine</em> and, since 1992, for <em>Cycle World</em>. (Robert Martin/)

The last 30 years have been an exciting period in motorcycling. The technology hothouse of racing, both on and off-road, has taught us much about how to build good motorcycles, and those lessons have been quickly transformed into product.

But the future of the motorcycle is obscure. Soaring insurance rates strongly discourage high performance as a marketing tool. Manufacturers appear to have zeroed in on a new pattern of parallel-twin engine designs whose features mainly address meeting Euro 5 emissions standards. External forces are driving design toward a sameness that meets a price point, passes emissions, and cooperates with insurance underwriters.

While these are excellent motorcycles in terms of low weight, agility, and very rideable flat engine torque, we may, at least for a time, have to bid farewell to the fabulous horsepower and rpm we enjoyed with our 600‒1,000cc sportbikes. It’s a new world, with new goals.

Where does the obscurity come in? We have no idea what requirements governments will impose next. It’s even possible that in a future of autonomous vehicles controlled by artificial intelligence, motorcycles will have no place at all, since they are controlled not by AI-in-the-cloud but by the now discredited and distrusted human mind. (AI for president, anyone?)

The Electric Future

But isn’t the future of the motorcycle electric? And won’t that restart the whole exciting process of technology development? I for one am not sure it will, because well-understood limits exist for batteries and electric motors. Batteries that offer the highest density energy storage require built-in electronic systems to keep charge/discharge currents at safe values, avoiding both overheating and shortened service life. They also prevent 100 percent discharge. Li-ion electrode technologies that safely deliver high current have lower energy-storage capacity. No single combination of battery technologies now provides a well-rounded performance—it’s still “horses for courses” after 46 years of li-ion development.

Electric motors operate by passing current through wire windings to produce magnetic forces. That flowing current generates heat, proportional to the square of the current in amperes, and directly to the resistance. If we don’t remove that heat from the motor fast enough to keep winding temperature from rising without limit, the windings become hot enough to destroy their own insulation. Circulating cooling liquid through tubes wound in with the wire displaces some of that wire, thereby reducing the motor’s potential for power.

Since power equals volts times amps, on long-distance lines power companies reduce resistive heating by increasing voltage—the higher the voltage, the lower the current and the lower the resistive heating. But insulation for high voltage takes up room that doesn’t exist in electric motors.

Salvation Through R&D

So, unless you want your R&D people to square off against basic physics, there are limits to batteries and electric motors just as there are to emissions-compliant internal combustion engines. R&D to overcome those limits takes time and resources. Two grad students in a one-car garage with $10,000 borrowed from dad probably won’t develop a market-ready room-temperature superconductor that completely transforms the electric-motor business.

It’s a long-standing rule of thumb that a progressive manufacturer should spend 3 to 5 percent of their revenue on R&D. At present, the income of electric motorcycle manufacturers is near zero, and 3 to 5 percent of that is just enough to open a Grainger catalog and look for motors and controllers already in production. Harley-Davidson put serious capital and big professional effort into its electric LiveWire.

Harley has put serious effort into the LiveWire Arrow platform. (Harley-Davidson/)

Can’t we build sales by appealing to popular desire to avoid global warming? Maybe, but tell me how that works when the three top-selling autos in America right now are all big pickups?

While IC-powered motorcycles continue to appear in a variety of shapes and styles, I’ve seen mainly just two basic designs for electrics:

1. The finned suitcase on wheels
2. The finned suitcase concealed inside sportbike Tupperware

For the moment it’s unclear just where the motorcycle is headed. Changing technology is expensive and risky, but change is coming, like it or not. It’ll be a ride.

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[fullscreenaging]

Something interesting for a change Kevin. 
I actually read all of that!  

[billy sugger]

29 minutes ago, fullscreenaging said:

Something interesting for a change Kevin. 
I actually read all of that!