Harley Davidson’s roll out of a new electric bike last week confirms its intent to appeal more to members of the establishment than to rebels without a cause. Not least because the way this bike looks, rides, and, perhaps most important, sounds conjures up images more of a sleek cheetah than a grizzly bear.
I hasten to disclose here that I’ve never been fond of motorbikes. Indeed, I’m not sure what it says about my manhood that what I hate most about Harleys (and all motorbikes) is what I gather most men like most about them: that obnoxious roar of the engine. Continuing my admittedly strained analogy, I’d be more impressed by an engine with a cheetah’s stealth-cooing purr than by one with a bear’s chest-thumping roar.
More to the point, having seen a demonstration, complete with Ducati-like speed of zero to 60 in under four seconds, Harley Davidson might make a motorbike rider out of me yet.
Except that:
One hurdle Harley and others have yet to address is the limited range offered by electric motorcycles. Batteries typically must be recharged after about 130 miles, and that can take 30 minutes to an hour.
(Washington Post, June 19, 2014)
Frankly, I’m stupefied that Obama, who pledged to preside over transformative reductions in fossil-burning fuels, has done so little to ensure that the lack of charging stations does not operate as a disincentive for potential buyers of electric vehicles. Granted, he’s probably relying on Elon Musk, the Henry Ford of electric cars, to pick up the slack here, just as he’s relying on him to pick up the slack for U.S. space travel:
Tesla 20-minute ‘superchargers’ will blanket the U.S. and Canada within two years, CEO Elon Musk said Thursday. Musk announced plans to greatly upgrade and expand the number of its superchargers in and between population centers of the United States and Southern Canada to link major cities via free electricity.
(Autoweek, May 30, 2013)
Still, as a matter of principle, Obama should propose legislation mandating that, as a condition for continuing to receive billions in taxpayer subsidies, which include U.S. Naval escort of their oil tankers through hot spots around the world, big oil companies must enter agreements with all gas stations that sell their gasoline to ensure that at least one pump at every station in the United States is dedicated to charging electric vehicles.
This legislation should mandate further that gas stations must switch from gas pumps to electric pumps at each station commensurate with the increased manufacture of electric vehicles, until at least 50 percent of their pumps are electric. But here’s the real kicker: Why blanket the country with electric charging stations, when homes are already wired to charge electric vehicles? Surely it would make more sense to require car dealers to retrofit the buyer’s home whenever he/she buys an electric car. No?
Get your motor runnin’
Head out on the highway
Looking for adventure
In whatever comes our way
(Steppenwolf)
Well, I may not have been “Born to be Wild,” but I’m all for taking a ride on the wild side on my Harley Davidson electric motorbike.
That said, it’s an indication of the growing popularity and usefulness of electric motorbikes that they are doing for the police force what the B-2 Stealth bomber has done for the Air Force:
A new super stealthy, military-grade motorcycle is now on the prowl in Los Angeles, quietly hunting criminals in hard-to-reach places.
The Los Angeles Police Department has purchased the sleek new Zero MMX electric motorcycle for its fleet of off-road patrol units, cops confirmed…
The MMX — which runs about $15,000 but is not for sale to civilians — can zip covertly along park trails and even through buildings thanks to its virtually soundless, zero-emissions design, a spokesman for Zero Motorcycles said.
(Daily News, June 20, 2014)