Posted on 03/17/2023 6:05:36 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Or buy an ICE vehicle instead of an EV.
The 750 and 1,000 watt (48-52v) mid-mount motors (mounted just in front of bottom bracket for cooling efficiency and also geartrain utilization) will easily wheelie the bike over backwards on a steep hill in lower gears. For climbing I am moving toward a 44 tooth chainring and 11-42t cassette. Without the gearing advantage the motors would bog just like yours did.
“Or buy an ICE vehicle instead of an EV.”
The irony is that ICE are so perfected these days. With highest MPG and much less pollution. That this is when the eco-loons demand we go all EV. And about tens states are banning ICE automobile sales after 2035.
ICE makes sense here because we have so much oil, EVs make sense in China because they have little oil. They have loads of coal to make electricity. Ane little oil reserves, Though if they start fracking....
I should be shocked that most republicans don’t see this for the big picture it presents - get everyone on electric vehicles so the government can then Jack up electricity rates to control you 100 percent of the time. I should be surprised but after the vax; I am not.
I detect that you only have ONE car.
Better the devil you know.
I built up another bike based on an 80cc 2 stroke engine from eBay. It mounted inside the frame. It had a clutch but no transmission. The chain went on the opposite side as the bicycle’s chain. I forget how many teeth the rear sprocket had, it mounted in the spokes close to the hub. I was skeptical of this type of mount at first but I had no spoke problems and it stayed tight. You started the motor by riding up to a few mph and then releasing the clutch. It topped out at about 38 mph so the gearing was pretty high. It had a very distinct power band.
If you kept it in the power band by pedaling hard if needed over a steep hill you didn’t lose much speed. If you let it bog down it was trouble. The engine actually produced several horse power. I have my motorcycle with sidecar endorsement but of course this bike was in no way street legal. However, it was a lot of fun... riding basically a motorcycle that weighed so little.
Having the motor utilize the gear train has obvious advantages but it seems like you would need to find components capable of handling the excess load. Does it use standard bicycle parts?
The chain and cassette do tend to wear out quicker than in non-motorized use. Aggressive pedal+motor riders will say they get 600-1,000 miles from a chain and a little more for cassettes. More sedate riders get years out of them. A growing consensus is that 11-speed chains are best; even though narrower the microscopic manufacturing details are superior and they hold up better. You do need a long cage derailleur to support the largest cassette cogs. The most these electric motors ever put out is 1 1/2 to 2 HP and a pro rider adds 500 watts.
Probably the biggest problem is breaking the chain when shifting under power. There are shift sensors to cut power when shifting which pretty much eliminate that.
And there are braking sensors also, for safety.
Temperature records are a bit of a pet peeve of mine. The first real practical thermometer was invented in 1714 by Fahrenheit. But you have to ask how many years was it before it was in widespread use. Then for many decades we are talking temperature only being recorded in much of Europe, and the East coast of North America only, except for a few other places like maybe Cairo, maybe a spot or two in South America. Much of the world would have no temperature record at all. On top of that how long was it before a standard record was kept i.e. someone reading the thermometer the same time each day.
I maintain that is was not until the latter part of WW2 with US and British ships gathering world wide data that a true global record was accomplished.
Not until satellites in the 1960s-70s do we have almost total coverage.
We have less than a century of good records.
I understand ice cores, tree rings and other things, but that is data you extrapolate from not a true record like a thermometer reading taken at the same time and place for years.
One thing I like to look at, though, are historical records of sea levels from the past few thousand years. Basically, it's laughable to worry about "unprecedented sea levels" when when we know that many places had higher sea levels in prior warm periods than today.
In my area (northern CT) the cost per kwh went up 60% in January.
That is not a typo.
60%.
There are no peak hour features—this is anytime, all the time.
Any EV owners in this area have got to be steaming hot—they got baited and switched.
In fact, the EV helps the overall throughput of solar by virtue of the fact that the EV doesn't have to charge every day. My wife wants to have 100 miles of charge when she wakes up just in case random needs happen that day. Since our EV gets 230 miles with 80% charge, that's 130 miles of charge between most recent "full charge" to the next time we have to charge it even during a rainy period. Since we drive it 30 to 40 miles on average per day, that means usually we can wait a few days for a good solar day to charge it.
If a family emergency happens and we need to drive hundreds of miles without waiting for a charge -- no problem -- we still own the ICE pickup.
Do you have battery back up in the home? Or do you roll over to utilities at night?
Thank you so much for the very good advice and insight. We will keep all of your suggestions in mind.
I do have battery back up in the home (92 kWh) and almost always the battery backup is enough to make it through the night without pulling from the grid. In fact I haven’t pulled from the grid since March 4th. And even on that day I pulled only 9.4kWh from the grid, while consuming 97.3kWh, 90% of the power I used on that day was free and I had to pull from the grid only 10% of the power needed).
I clicked on your state—warm area with lots of sun.
Here in the cold northeast solar does not make economic sense. I ran the numbers at one point—the breakeven was more than ten years even with all the tax benefits.
Oh yeah—and my roof right now is covered in thick snow and ice....
Electricity costs are also sky high.
Electric vehicles have turned into nightmares for their owners—and the owners are really angry.
There is a chance for efficient free power with one of my Canadian extended family members. He has a creek running trough his property. So when I'm there half a year from now I'll help him measure flow rate and head to see if he has enough kinetic energy from water flow to utilize a pico hydro turbine. Obviously he has no flow for maybe 4 or so months out of the year during the winter. But the rest of the year the creek is constantly flowing day and night.
Have you crossed over the payback boundary yet?
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