Imagine how far an EV with a similar amount of weight of batteries to vehicle weight could go. I'm not an EV hater, just pointing out here that even lithium-ion batteries are in the range of 100-265 Wh per kg while gasoline is around 12,200 Wh/kg (roughly 50x the energy density). This is a big part of why there are no commercially-viable EV aircraft, and probably won't be for some time -- namely until battery energy density improves by an order of magnitude or so.
As for this mini motorcycle, it's impressive that it still looks pretty decent and someone unfamiliar with this model might even mistake it for stock. I never quite understood why it's so hard to find even aftermarket tanks for bikes that get the range up to car range...I just want to go 500 miles on my bike without refueling. Put the gas in the frame AND into a 5+ gallon tank up top. Put gas into a portion of the seat. Put it up behind the headlight or in a big fender. Carrying jerry cans or even the bag style ones is just so bulky and inconvenient for overlanding on two wheels without a support vehicle carrying extra fuel.
Yes unfortunately EV's will not be able to be heavily modified by engineering teams for impractically long cargoless scooter trips at 40mph. Such a shame they will only be useful for virtually all practical trips.
Indeed, if you want an impressively impractical trip in an impressively impractical custom built EV, you'll have to make due with the world solar challenge. 3000+ kilometers at highway speed, carrying more than 1 person, and entirely on solar power.
Why are you on Hacker News when you clearly are not a Hacker and don't have the IQ to understand such a simple, interesting point OP is making.
Is it jealousy because OP travels and they want to hack it out even further than the normal model gives them? Why put them down otherwise?
What EV cars do is exactly what is happening here, they are highly aerodynamic and weight reduced, at the cost of practical things. They have to, to get distance.
It's true that energy density of batteries is a lot lower than gasoline, but electric motors are a lot more efficient. It doesn't make up the whole difference, but it does make up some of it. Also, battery technology is improving pretty rapidly.
Electric aviation is not yet viable commercially, but it will be soon. I'm working at a company building electric aircraft, and one of our prototypes has done a flight of more than 380 miles. Note that this is a prototype, in ideal conditions, with a tailwind, last few miles were circling the airport within the glide cone, etc. The actual production vehicle range, with all of the safety margins, seats for passengers, passenger weight, etc, will be a lot less; but still, 150 miles is enough for many commercially viable trips, especially in dense areas like the BosWash corridor, or getting from suburbs to a long haul airport, or many others.
Electrification can also make viable new architectures, like VTOL, and the extra efficiency and longer maintenance intervals can drastically drive down operating costs; so there will be many trips that are economically viable in an eVTOL that wouldn't be in conventional airplanes (due to needing an airport) or helicopter (due to high fuel and maintenance costs).
I completely agree with your first paragraph. But the 2nd, with gas storages encircling the rider like that, sounds very dangerous in the event of a crash.
It's not quite as a dramatic a difference as it appears - most petrol engines are going to be in the region of 30% efficiency, vs an electric motor at ~80-90% (or perhaps more?). Still, talking 5000Wh equivalent to 250, or a 20x difference (which is about in line with most real vehicles, I think? 1 tonne battery packs vs 50L fuel tanks)
> most petrol engines are going to be in the region of 30% efficiency
It’s worse than that. A recent Yale study found that—for an average car on the road—from $5 of gas you’re really only getting $1 of that energy to propulsion.
We are really not far off commercially viable short-haul EV flights. Harbour Air in Vancouver is converting their fleet of Beavers to EV and a company in Scotland is working on converted Cessnas. And purpose built aircraft will likely do better than these.
They won't replace the 737 any time soon of course, but progress is progress.
The same way this is a prototype heavily optimized for this record, if the point was to reproduce it with an EV we'd probably heavily optimize for regenerative energy, possibly lower speeds and solar panels.
I was wondering how Guinness Record would deal with such a category, and the answer seems to be that they just don't. Most of their electric vehicle records have either a time limit, or no refueling/single charge limitation
Yeah range frustrates me too. The reason they don't generally do this is that having unsprung weight dramatically affects the cornering performance of the bike. So while it would be great to crank out miles in a straight line on a long journey it would suck going around corners on a shorter trip. Like everything else in biking it's a tradeoff.
I was going to recommend my former ride, the Suzuki V-Strom 650, which easily covers >200 miles, and can push close to 250 miles, on a tank of gas. Then I googled it and found the V-Strom isn't even in the top 10. The best are hitting 300 - 400 miles on a tank, some by being thrifty, some by having big tanks.
Given that the farthest I've ever ridden in a day was about 800 miles, being able to go all day on two, maybe even just one fill-up(s) seems reasonable.
Something like 350 mile range (lot of variables) once that's added on. Enough to get from Coldfoot to Prudhoe Bay (one of the harder routes to clear on a bike, historically).
It's a bit more complicated than that, as an EV motorcycle drivetrain tends to be lighter than a petrol one (excluding battery/fuel tank), but that isn't going to make a big difference for aircraft
Major problems are arising because of politicians silly proclamations and attempts to buy votes that are not backed by engineering reality.
Reducing certain emissions is commendable... But not when you realize that the environmental damage from strip mining rare earth metals in developing countries is far worse.
On a single "largest motorcycle tank ever used, designed and built in-house with a whopping capacity of 108 liters (28.5 gallons)" kind of tank that is, but still an amazing achievement
> After a grueling 304-lap test, Acerbis found they needed to use sponges to combat the sloshing inside the tank at the expense of losing some volume. The final tank weighed 15.2 kg (33.5 lbs) and could hold 108 liters.
I'm guessing they've probably implemented baffles within the tank, but even if there wasn't it shouldn't be too much of an issue. Once they are able to get going and are not stopping quickly for emergencies, they should be as stable, if not more stable, compared to a regular bike.
The best ICE still isn't cool because it's fundamentally Earth's chain-smoker with terminal lung cancer failing to light a cigarette while almost blowing up their oxygen tank.
weird metaphor. Given that ICE isn't going anywhere for some time I wish that people would realize that the choices are never a binary "perfectly clean EV" vs. "Coal-powered tree crusher" -- advancement in ICEs still represent an environmental benefit to the world. The Honda Monkey is one of the most efficient ICE vehicles that a consumer could hope to find, but i'll bite : where might I pick up a Tokai Challenger?
The way towards EV isn't by demonizing the things that have made the world tick throughout every industrialized society, it's by incentivizing the use of alternatives.
The biggest achievement in ICE is turning them off. The technology that's being put in cars now to turn off the engine while idling, electronic acceleration assist, and idling some cylinders when possible just trash the minor improvements we're eking out of wasting 65% or more of the energy in hydrocarbons.
Wrong on so many levels. Moral relativism of past acts cannot justify the unjustifiable. ICEs are banned in 2040 in dozens of countries. There will be no world and no air to breathe if climate change isn't solved by removing carbon from the air with haste. It is also difficult for people to admit that their lifestyles are unsustainable when they feel entitled to continue their reckless behaviors when they feel they deserve it. People cannot be allowed the choice of killing us all, so leadership requires banning certain things without a vote that are necessary for the survival of the species and of the planet. But this won't happen and the human race will go extinct because of pearl clutching and an inability to make tough choices. And so people keep doing burn-outs in their Ford Mustangs and sucking down triple cheeseburgers.
Where will u pick up that Honda Monkey with 100L tank? …see how that is a non argument?
Anyway, in the next 20 years, virtually all ICE vehicles need to go away. There’s basically no option for them except perhaps e-fuels, but given the 5x energy use compared to EVs, they will have extremely limited scope.
But the article isn't about an internal combustion engine, it's about a company that makes aftermarket fuel tanks, which chose to celebrate an anniversary by setting a record.
Why did you feel the need to wrap your environmentalist polemic in such a complicated metaphor?
An advantage of the Honda Monkey 125 over science projects is that it is a workable product that is economically viable even in relatively resource constrained parts of the world.
The Monkey 125 has peak power of 7.5 kW and an area of 1.7 m x 0.75 m or 1.3 m^2 [0,1]. The sun delivers a theoretical maximum of 1.3 kW per m^2. In the same area as a Monkey 125 the max solar energy would be 1.7 kW, or 23% of the Monkey 125's peak power (which was probably all used as the team travelled over mountains). Fraunhofer claims a photovoltaic cell with 47% efficiency so a solar Monkey would have about a tenth of the petrol Monkey's ability to move.
I think the bigger problem is that the rider covers more of the era; if you were able to get even 1.5kW off a small vehicle like that just leaving them outside would likely be enough to recharge enough battery for the journey back (if living close enough).
...but having electric bike/scooter just connected to charger is far more practical way to do it
You could have a clean ICE using synthetic fuel, and a dirty electric using electric generated from natural gas or coal (like the large majority of electricity around me). I don't think ICE automatically means dirty. It's still an incredible energy density and simple distribution mechanism for energy that could potentially be harvested cleanly.
We should focus on cleaning up production of fuels too.
Actually, as the costs of fossil fuels rise, and costs of energy production drop, synthetics are becoming more and more viable. Could be very soon...
Synthetic fuel still generates CO2. That's always worse than green electricity, although as you point out maybe comparable to dirty electricity sources.
I'm a big proponent of EVs, I drive an EV car and work on EV aircraft, but they aren't yet ready to replace every segment of the market.
Electric motorcycles are only just becoming viable, and are a lot more limiting compared to electric cars.
And an ICE motorcycle can be a lot more fuel efficient, and is also lower carbon impact to manufacture, and takes up less space on the street and to park. For a single occupancy vehicle, an ICE motorcycle is a lot cooler than an ICE car; and depending on the use, could even be better than an EV car.
I am hopeful that within about 5-10 years, battery technology and prices will improve to the point that electric motorcycles actually become viable. But for now, buying a gas sipping Honda Monkey and commuting to work on it could be a big step up over a car.
A 169mpg motorbike (and note that that's a real-world stock model that you can buy and go shopping on) likely has significantly lower lifetime CO2 emissions than any mainstream electric cars. ICE is a big problem but giant heavy vehicles are a bigger one.
The monkey gets 160+mpg, it would be difficult to improve much on that. Certainly not going to get a 2x multiple of it for cheaper than you can increase the fuel tank by an order of magnitude.
Good for a consumer vehicle. For a random stunt it would be pretty easy to improve on that. Start with things like "aerodynamic fairings" and "low rolling resistance tires".
Someone above linked a solar car, which went roughly the same distance, significantly faster. Given that it apparently had 1.8kw nameplate capacity solar panels... and it covered 3000 km in 30 hours, we know it's (substantially better than) 1.8kwh/100km (at 100kph!).
0.03 gallons of gasoline release 1kwh of energy when burned, combined with the above the solar car was getting the equivalent of 1150 mpg. This trip would have taken 2.26 gallons (falsely assuming perfect efficiency, but then we get to ditch all the weight and aerodynamic losses from having solar panels on board... and I assumed the solar panels operated continuously at their nameplate capacity).
That's still slightly larger than the Honda Monkey's 1.5 gallon tank, but it's not unreasonable to think that someone could have done this. It would have been a lot cooler than "strapping on more fuel tanks" IMO.
According to the article it was a three driver team that was swapping out regularly. Also, the bike was made full size by wrapping the thing in a huge fuel tank. Still, that's a long ride even on a full size bike.
Wrapping it won't lengthen the wheelbase or suspension so it will still turn in like a little bike. Still will be twitchy at speed like a little bike, and defo going to take pothole just like any other bike with little wheels, terribly.
Then you don't know the meaning of the word "comfort."
The B body, culminating in the Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale Brougham LS (8th gen, "Body by Fisher") was a rolling couch you could sink into, with that ridiculously static-generating and uncleanable velour. Some Cadillacs and Lincolns were also okay, but Fisher put all other automotive brands, foreign and domestic, to shame in the comfort category.
A bit tangential, but this guy drove from Alaska to Argentina on a c90. It was a few years of sleeping in a tent, some random person's spare bedroom, or the cheapest hotel possible.
>An impressive 4,183.8 kilometers (2,599.7 miles) without refueling.
this distance reminds me of the Cannonball Run from Red Ball Garage in Manhattan to Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach, which is about 2,900 miles. I don't think anyone's done a Honda Monkey Cannonball Run yet
You really need to watch the documentary on Cannonball Run - its fascinatingly full of historic tidbits that you didn't know that you knew, and those you didnt.
Readit News
As for this mini motorcycle, it's impressive that it still looks pretty decent and someone unfamiliar with this model might even mistake it for stock. I never quite understood why it's so hard to find even aftermarket tanks for bikes that get the range up to car range...I just want to go 500 miles on my bike without refueling. Put the gas in the frame AND into a 5+ gallon tank up top. Put gas into a portion of the seat. Put it up behind the headlight or in a big fender. Carrying jerry cans or even the bag style ones is just so bulky and inconvenient for overlanding on two wheels without a support vehicle carrying extra fuel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Solar_Challenge
Why are you on Hacker News when you clearly are not a Hacker and don't have the IQ to understand such a simple, interesting point OP is making.
Is it jealousy because OP travels and they want to hack it out even further than the normal model gives them? Why put them down otherwise?
What EV cars do is exactly what is happening here, they are highly aerodynamic and weight reduced, at the cost of practical things. They have to, to get distance.
Electric aviation is not yet viable commercially, but it will be soon. I'm working at a company building electric aircraft, and one of our prototypes has done a flight of more than 380 miles. Note that this is a prototype, in ideal conditions, with a tailwind, last few miles were circling the airport within the glide cone, etc. The actual production vehicle range, with all of the safety margins, seats for passengers, passenger weight, etc, will be a lot less; but still, 150 miles is enough for many commercially viable trips, especially in dense areas like the BosWash corridor, or getting from suburbs to a long haul airport, or many others.
Electrification can also make viable new architectures, like VTOL, and the extra efficiency and longer maintenance intervals can drastically drive down operating costs; so there will be many trips that are economically viable in an eVTOL that wouldn't be in conventional airplanes (due to needing an airport) or helicopter (due to high fuel and maintenance costs).
It’s worse than that. A recent Yale study found that—for an average car on the road—from $5 of gas you’re really only getting $1 of that energy to propulsion.
It’s 20%.
They won't replace the 737 any time soon of course, but progress is progress.
https://harbourair.com/harbour-airs-all-electric-aircraft-op...
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetl...
High speed head-on collisions could have been quite spectacular.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon
I was wondering how Guinness Record would deal with such a category, and the answer seems to be that they just don't. Most of their electric vehicle records have either a time limit, or no refueling/single charge limitation
e.g. https://guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/115107-greate...
But the more amazing thing about a 4000km motorcycle ride is they weren't injured or killed by someone using their smartphone.
Given that the farthest I've ever ridden in a day was about 800 miles, being able to go all day on two, maybe even just one fill-up(s) seems reasonable.
https://www.bennetts.co.uk/bikesocial/news-and-views/feature...
https://www.visordown.com/features/top-10s/top-10-longest-ra...
https://www.ducati.com/ww/en/accessories/ACC012304
Something like 350 mile range (lot of variables) once that's added on. Enough to get from Coldfoot to Prudhoe Bay (one of the harder routes to clear on a bike, historically).
Reducing certain emissions is commendable... But not when you realize that the environmental damage from strip mining rare earth metals in developing countries is far worse.
http://web.archive.org/web/20110310093031/http://www.deathmo...
Deleted Comment
> After a grueling 304-lap test, Acerbis found they needed to use sponges to combat the sloshing inside the tank at the expense of losing some volume. The final tank weighed 15.2 kg (33.5 lbs) and could hold 108 liters.
0- when it reports that there's 0km left in the tank, I can only fill it up by 40L, so is it really a 50L tank? Hard to say.
10 liters seems on the high end though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokai_Challenger
The best ICE still isn't cool because it's fundamentally Earth's chain-smoker with terminal lung cancer failing to light a cigarette while almost blowing up their oxygen tank.
weird metaphor. Given that ICE isn't going anywhere for some time I wish that people would realize that the choices are never a binary "perfectly clean EV" vs. "Coal-powered tree crusher" -- advancement in ICEs still represent an environmental benefit to the world. The Honda Monkey is one of the most efficient ICE vehicles that a consumer could hope to find, but i'll bite : where might I pick up a Tokai Challenger?
The way towards EV isn't by demonizing the things that have made the world tick throughout every industrialized society, it's by incentivizing the use of alternatives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...
Anyway, in the next 20 years, virtually all ICE vehicles need to go away. There’s basically no option for them except perhaps e-fuels, but given the 5x energy use compared to EVs, they will have extremely limited scope.
Why did you feel the need to wrap your environmentalist polemic in such a complicated metaphor?
Wow, faster too! When comparing the aerodynamics of a dude in a jacket to a wing, I suppose being an average of 20mph faster makes sense.
The Monkey 125 has peak power of 7.5 kW and an area of 1.7 m x 0.75 m or 1.3 m^2 [0,1]. The sun delivers a theoretical maximum of 1.3 kW per m^2. In the same area as a Monkey 125 the max solar energy would be 1.7 kW, or 23% of the Monkey 125's peak power (which was probably all used as the team travelled over mountains). Fraunhofer claims a photovoltaic cell with 47% efficiency so a solar Monkey would have about a tenth of the petrol Monkey's ability to move.
0. Specific model used was probably a variant of this Honda, not the OG Monkey that stopped production in 1999: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Grom
1. https://www.hondaprokevin.com/2021-honda-monkey-125-review-s...
2. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/05/30/fraunhofer-ise-achiev...
...but having electric bike/scooter just connected to charger is far more practical way to do it
Actually, as the costs of fossil fuels rise, and costs of energy production drop, synthetics are becoming more and more viable. Could be very soon...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32231353
Electric motorcycles are only just becoming viable, and are a lot more limiting compared to electric cars.
And an ICE motorcycle can be a lot more fuel efficient, and is also lower carbon impact to manufacture, and takes up less space on the street and to park. For a single occupancy vehicle, an ICE motorcycle is a lot cooler than an ICE car; and depending on the use, could even be better than an EV car.
I am hopeful that within about 5-10 years, battery technology and prices will improve to the point that electric motorcycles actually become viable. But for now, buying a gas sipping Honda Monkey and commuting to work on it could be a big step up over a car.
> To achieve this feat, the technical team at Acerbis engineered the largest motorcycle tank ever used,
Oh.
Someone above linked a solar car, which went roughly the same distance, significantly faster. Given that it apparently had 1.8kw nameplate capacity solar panels... and it covered 3000 km in 30 hours, we know it's (substantially better than) 1.8kwh/100km (at 100kph!).
0.03 gallons of gasoline release 1kwh of energy when burned, combined with the above the solar car was getting the equivalent of 1150 mpg. This trip would have taken 2.26 gallons (falsely assuming perfect efficiency, but then we get to ditch all the weight and aerodynamic losses from having solar panels on board... and I assumed the solar panels operated continuously at their nameplate capacity).
That's still slightly larger than the Honda Monkey's 1.5 gallon tank, but it's not unreasonable to think that someone could have done this. It would have been a lot cooler than "strapping on more fuel tanks" IMO.
I couldn't imagine 4,000km on a knee-high 125cc bike.
They are very cool bikes though. I'd love to buy one, but I want to buy a Rebel first.
The B body, culminating in the Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale Brougham LS (8th gen, "Body by Fisher") was a rolling couch you could sink into, with that ridiculously static-generating and uncleanable velour. Some Cadillacs and Lincolns were also okay, but Fisher put all other automotive brands, foreign and domestic, to shame in the comfort category.
As for the specific car you mention… Umm… Yeah I guess taste is subjective.
A bit tangential, but this guy drove from Alaska to Argentina on a c90. It was a few years of sleeping in a tent, some random person's spare bedroom, or the cheapest hotel possible.
this distance reminds me of the Cannonball Run from Red Ball Garage in Manhattan to Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach, which is about 2,900 miles. I don't think anyone's done a Honda Monkey Cannonball Run yet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b7erU_DOfE