MotoCzysz working on new green motorcycle?
Michael Czysz has been working on a new American sportbike for the last few years, one that he hopes will someday compete with the best machines in the world. Oddly, despite being a huge market for motorcycles and for motorsports, America doesn't really have a competitive presence at the world's top levels of two-wheeled racing. There have been efforts in the past, but nothing sustained. MotoCzysz hopes to change all that with the radical C1 prototype, but there's still a long way to go and funding is tight.
Is there another way Czysz could attack the problem that might attract more investment? Sure, he could try and go green. In fact, the team is already working on a green motorcycle concept, though it doesn't seem to be taking center stage at this point. We're unclear as to what's powering the prototype, but Czysz says it's not electric - yet. Diesel? Could be, as Czysz mentions oil-burners by name along with direct injection. We're pretty sure all of this is in the early planning stages, but it's something we'll keep our eyes on in the future.
[Source: Superbike Planet]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Carney 10:46AM (1/05/2009)
Why not flex fuel, or even, to reduce complexity, alcohol-only?
Growing the crops that produce ethanol and the other biomass that can produce methanol contributes to global cooling.
Methanol is not appreciably more toxic than gasoline, and ethanol is even edible (and the cure for methanol ingestion).
Unlike gasoline, alcohol fuels don't persist in the environment when spilled; instead they biodegrade readily in hours or a day at most. And unlike gasoline they are not carcinogens or mutagens.
Finally for greens they burn much more cleanly than gasoline, with no smoke, soot, or particulate matter. No net CO2 emissions with ethanol or plant derived methanol. Far less pollutants that produce acid rain and ozone smog.
Ethanol and methanol do get lower mileage, but since bikes are so fuel efficient that's not a huge concern, and m/ethanol is cheaper than gasoline (especially if the tariffs on foreign ethanol are dropped), giving you more miles per dollar.
Perhaps most importantly for bikers, alcohols have higher octane than even premium gas, giving you better acceleration and responsiveness. I guess their greater safety (less likely to ignite in crashes) is not as relevant here...
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IOMTT 3:25PM (1/06/2009)
If you only have a 2 to 3 gallon tank, the lower mileage with meth or eth would be a HUGE concern. An even bigger concern if you are in the woods. To get the same range you would need about a 1/3 larger tank and that would add an appreciable amount of weight in probably not a very desirable location on the bike. My bike only has 2.1 gal to reserve and gets 60 to 70 mpg during normal riding on 87 octane regular. Cutting that to 40's would piss me off to no end as I would have to stop for fuel way too often. IMHO I think applying this tech to bikes will bring little gain with a lot of pain. And, by the way, the added weight due to reduced fuel mileage would make this totally uncompetitive in racing vs normal racing gas.
Carney 5:42PM (1/06/2009)
You make some good points, IOMTT, but you should also know that flex fuel was invented by an engineer who raced cars and boats, even holding the women's world speed record for drag boats for a few years. And she did it all on methanol.
The Indy Racing League uses alcohol, as do midget and funny cars.
So there's definitely a major racing use of alcohol for both large and small vehicles. Doesn't seem like the reduced MPG is a deal killer.
And of course you get more miles per DOLLAR than gasoline as it's been priced the last few years and likely will be soon again thanks to OPEC's drastic production cuts.
travis 12:53PM (1/05/2009)
I'll be very interested to see what comes of this.
Portland is a great place for new green tech to be developed.
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