[OFB Cafe] Cool Electric Bike

[Derek Broughton]

On July 13, 2008 01:49:10 Donald R Spoon wrote:
> Now this sounds rather cool...
>
> http://tinyurl.com/6zlob2
>
> Note they have a "street-legal" model coming out soon.  A 60 mile range
> would get me across town and back just fine.  Slap a solar panel on it
> to recharge it while parked and you have a pretty low-cost transport!!

It's a bit more difficult than that.  You can't just "Slap a solar panel on it 
to recharge it".  Chris could probably pull out the numbers faster than me, 
but at a rough guess, it takes me about a liter of gas to run my generator 
long enough to power my house for a day when I have no sun or wind, and it 
takes me maybe 2.5 liters to drive my motorcycle that 60 miles.  So I'm 
thinking you need about 2KW of solar panels to keep your electric bike 
charged - far more than I need to keep my house running.