Model EM72-A09 becomes the X Rider electric motorcycle
Guess "EM72-A09" just didn't have that special something. Not long after our last post on this highway speed electric motorcycle (it "approaches" 65 mph) that commented on its strange name, we got an email from Xtreme Green Products telling us that the bike is now called the X Rider. The $7,999 X Rider uses 40 amp hour, 72 volt li-ion batteries to go about 95 miles per charge. The bike will launch sometime this spring, and Xtreme Green is callling it, "one of the most innovative alternative fuel vehicles available in the market." We're not sure how innovative an electric motorcycle is – Vectrix, Honda and Zero are all working on similar vehicles, to name just three competitors – but we're glad to see more plug-in vehicles make the leap from preview to product in 2009.
[Source: Xtreme Green Products]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tim 12:11PM (1/21/2009)
If you can step through, then it's a SCOOTER and not a motorcycle.
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CNCMike 12:46PM (1/21/2009)
Step through? What picture are you looking at?
Tim 1:05PM (1/21/2009)
CNC Mike #2,
You're right! This only LOOKS like a Vetrix "maxi" scooter and it only LOOKS like you can step through it.
That's MUCH better... right?
Too bad it doesn't look more like a REAL motorcycle like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMUVCeHCt9g
Instead it just LOOKS like a gay scooter.
Carney 12:02PM (1/21/2009)
With half our power coming from coal, it is arguably a worsening, not an improvement for the environment to have vehicles draw their power from the grid.
Also note the sky high price, humiliatingly low speed, and limited range.
Alcohol fuel bikes arguably have a far better claim to green status - it would be great to see them.
With alcohol fuel, you'd get higher octane than even premium gas (105 for methanol, 113 for ethanol), a welcome responsiveness and performance boost for bikers (who tend to enjoy such things more than your strictly "get me from A to B" types).
And you'd get that for a mere $100 more in price than a comparable gasoline-only bike.
Plus, no smoke/soot/particulate matter, much cleaner burning in other ways too, and non-carcinogenic, non-mutagenic, biodegradable if spilled.
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jpm 12:41PM (1/21/2009)
Not to mention it's ugly just like the Vectrix scooters.
GoodCheer 1:48PM (1/21/2009)
Carney: I fear you're shooting quite a bit from the hip.
"With half our power coming from coal, it is arguably a worsening, not an improvement for the environment to have vehicles draw their power from the grid."
The US electrical grid produces just about 600gCO2 per kWh generated. If this thing has a 95 mile range on 40 Ah * 72V, that's 30 Wh/mile. If T&D losses and conversion losses add up to 33% (which is a lot), then 40 Wh would need to be generated for each mile driven, for 24gCO2/mile.
A gallon of gas releases about 9000gCO2 when burned, so this bike has the 'carbon footprint' of (9000/24) 375 mpg. This is far FAR better than any bike I know of.
How would you argue it is a worsening?
Carney 3:45PM (1/21/2009)
GoodCheer, there are more far more environmental issues confonting us than solely carbon emissions and global warming. It's important not to develop tunnel vision.
For example, the Europeans (and apparently ABG) think of diesel as a superior environmental fuel because of its lower carbon output, despite much more smoke/soot/dirt/particulate matter and other foulness.
Carbon emissions do not represent a near-term catastrophe, but when the currently miniscule per capita power consumption in the Third World approaches current First World levels, that's about ten times the current gigaton output of carbon, which in a few decades WOULD take us to Eocene CO2 levels of 2,000 ppm, when we really will have flooding and substantial temperature rises, etc.
Evidence shows that both the deniers and the alarmists are wrong. Global warming needs to be addressed, but there are more pressing environmental problems in the short term, as any resident of Beijing could tell you, which should not be ignored just because they do not completely solve the problem.
And there are non environmental issues at stake as well.
Global warming is like the retirement portfolio of a 30 year old. He can't ignore it and has to make wise policy decisions that will avoid long term ruin, but if there are crazy people in the building hunting and trying to kill him, musing on his 401(k) is not his best course of action at the time.
And there are crazy people in the world funded by the oil cartel trying to kill us. It would behoove us to act ASAP to de-fund them, by collapsing the price of oil permanently (rather than temporarily), and elminating their ability to hold us hostage by switching to another fuel.
GoodCheer 4:40PM (1/21/2009)
Carney:
"(....) there are more pressing environmental problems in the short term, as any resident of Beijing could tell you, which should not be ignored just because they do not completely solve the problem."
It sounds like you're arguing for centralized, stationary power production, located away from population centers. As you know, that way all those other pollutants can be captured with large, heavy, expensive equipment that would be impractical to affix to millions of vehicles.
I know you love the idea of an alcohol energy economy, but you must admit that it does not eliminate these other pollutants about which you are complaining.... according to some studies they are reduced, but they are not eliminated.
Chris M 4:41PM (1/21/2009)
GoodCheer, thanks for the figures. I'd long known that powerplants and EVs together were far more efficient than IC engine vehicles, but I didn't know exactly how much more efficient. Ironically, even when comparing the "powerplant to wheel" efficiency of EVs to the "tank to wheel" efficiency of gassers, the EVs still win by a large margin!
Carney, I can see a useful role for biofuels, including alcohols, but your anti-battery attitude is rediculous. If your near-term goal is to reduce petroleum consumption, then plug-ins will do far more than biofuels can. The only use of oil for power generation is for portable generators and emergency backup generators, neither are major power sources for EVs. On the other hand, producing biofuel crops can and usually does consume some petroleum for tractors, harvesters and trucks, so even when it does help reduce overall oil consumption, it doesn't reduce oil use nearly as much as plug-ins do.
In California, less than 40% of electrical power comes from burning coal, and that percentage keeps dropping as more solar, wind, and geothermal sources come online. EVs and PHEVs here play the major role in reducing petroleum consumption, as there are only 2 E85 stations in the entire state!
Carney 11:17AM (1/26/2009)
GoodCheer, I was accused of not supporting incremental change by some others here on ABG, but now it seems you're critical of me for not being an all-or-nothing hardliner, given your complaint that alcohols "reduce" rather than "elminate" certain emissions.
I must be doing something right, then.
Also, I think "reduce" drastically understates the enormously beneficial environmental effect of switching to alcohol.
[NOW NOTE THE FOLLOWING BENEFITS OF ALCOHOL THAT COAL PLANTS CANNOT CLAIM, HOWEVER CENTRALIZED OR REMOTE:]
Let me quote directly from "Energy Victory", page 109-110.
"When burned in internal combusion engines, alcohol fuels do not produce any smoke, soot, or particulate pollution. According to the EPA, such pollution currently causes approximately forty thousand deaths per year from lung cancer and other ailments. Converting to alcohol fuels could drastically reduce this toll.
"Alcohols, especialyl methanol, also produce much less nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution than gasoline, because they burn cooler. Since alcohols contain no sulfur, they produce no sulfur dioxide emissions at all. Thus conversion to alcohol would also elminate most of the vehicular contribution to acid rain.
"Ozone smog is created when sunlight drives the reaction of nitrogen oxide and hydrocarbons in the atmosphere. As noted above, alcohol fuels produce less NOx than gasoline does. In addition, however, the reactivity of alcohol molecules (which might be released by incomplete combustion or evaporative emissions) with NOx in the atmosphere is less than a tenth as great as typical gasoline components. Not only that, but because of their solubility in water, alcohol molecules are readily swept out of the atmosphere by rain."
John 2:20PM (1/21/2009)
this is not a step through motor scooter. i think its a great looking motorcycle
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nathaniel sears 4:00PM (1/21/2009)
Carney, alcohol fuel is not a very good solution for the united states mainly because corn ethanol (what almost all of our ethanol in the us comes from takes more oil to create than you get out of it because of the fertilizers, herbacied and pesticides use to create it.
Also it is far easier to regulate a few hundred power plants for emissions than from many millions of cars. and on top of all of that the pollution is released in a less populated area than everywhere where a car is
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noz 12:54PM (1/22/2009)
Some people here can't grasp the enormous environmental impact and complications of bio based fuels and all the problems that come with it.
Carney 12:46PM (1/26/2009)
"corn ethanol (what almost all of our ethanol in the us comes from takes more oil to create than you get out of it"
This is TOTALLY FALSE. There is only one study claiming this, from 2001. It was written not by an engineer, economist, or fuel expert, but by a radical insect entomologist named David Pimentel writing far outside his field of expertise, and who is so extreme he opposes beef, pet dogs and cats ("alien species"), beef production, and even all modern agriculture (which has saved billions from starvation) - he made the wild claim in one paper that "40 percent of world deaths can be attricuted to various einvronmental factors, especially organic and chemical pollutants." He also wants to cut the standard of living in the United States in half.
His "study" was promptly (2002) eviscerated by Dr. Bruce Dale, a professor of chemical engineering and thus someone who actually knows what he is talking about. Among Pimentel's many proven errors:
*Corn yields dating from 1992 (thus far underestimated)
*Figures for energy required to produce ethanol and methanol date from 1979 (thus far overestimated)
*Figures for energy to produce fertilizer are 1990 world values per UN Food & Agriculture Organization, not far more efficient US values, (thus far overestimated)
*Assuming all corn is irrigated, when only 16 percent is and virtually no irrigated corn is converted to ethanol. This is a source of a very large error since Pimentel assigned huge energy costs to ethanol corn crop irrigation.
*Zero energy credit for the high protein animal feed produced as a byproduct of ethanol production. (Most of the protein value of the corn ethanol crop is perseved and used as animal feed to produce meat. If the ethanol were not being produced, we'd have to expend most of this energy to maket the feed ANYWAY.)
Finally the Dale study showed that not only is the energy balance for producing ethanol very positive (not negative as Pimentel claimed) but with an enormously favorable metric of balance in liquid fuel produced vs. expended, finally concluding to be more than twenty to one.
Another study published in Science in 2006 that accepted wildly wrong and cripplingly flawed assumptions found that the petroleum cost of ethanol is one fifth that of gasoline. Nearly all other experts' assumptions, as I mentioned in an earlier post replying to Chris M. below, make it one tenth.
Finally you just have to use some common sense. Ethanol sells for about $1.50 /gal wholesale before the 51c subsidy, leaving only about $2 / gal gross income. Gasoline and diesel over the last few years, pre-collapse, cost WELL over $2 per gallon. So it's mathematically impossible for a gallon of ethanol to require more than a gallon gasoline to produce it.
Sean 9:42AM (1/22/2009)
Looks like Xtreme Green has signed their first auto dealer -- http://www.xtremegreenproducts.com/newsroom/display.php?newsid=2
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john 5:48PM (1/22/2009)
They just did an interview with the Prez of Xtreme Green on EVCast.com -- http://www.evcast.com/members/evcast/blog/VIEW/00000001/00000178/EVcast-160-Interview-with-Neil-Roth-President-of-XtremeGreenProductscom.html
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Carney 11:34AM (1/26/2009)
Chris M., I'm less anti-battery than I was before I learned about the studies apparently showing various benefits of centralized and high-smokestacked emissions compared to distributed low ones. I'm still not enthusiastic about coal plants' INCREASE in soot, smoke, particulate matter compared to the status quo. Although you can quibble about whether they reduce bad stuff enough, there's no doubt that at worst, burning alcohol fuel makes no emission situation WORSE.
And the problem with your "you still need to use petroleum" thesis is that most of the applications for petroleum products, with the possible exception of fertilizer, can be met by alcohol. Tractors, transport trucks, etc.
Methanol can be made into dimethyl ether, an excellent diesel fuel with a higher cetane (equivalent to octane) rating (60) compared to ordinary diesel (45-50). Like alcohol, and unlike diesel, DME produces very little NOx and ZERO soot, ZERO particulate smoke, and ZERO SO2 . Thus we can drastically cut air pollution from trucks, trains, ships, construction machinery, and generators.
But even if we do none of that, the "petroleum cost" of ethanol is less than one-tenth that of gasoline. Per given amount of petroleum used in production, more than ten times as much ethanol can be produced, thus we can reduce the amount of petroleum needed to make our fuel by as much as 90 percent.
As for increasing the number of alcohol pumps in CA, mandate flex fuel capability as a standard feature in all new cars sold and drop the tarrif on imported ethanol. If the environmental, economic, and national security benefits won't create market demand for alcohol, then the lower per gallon price of methanol and ethanol will. And if the Saudis flood the market to strange ethanol, we should promptly tarriff them. This is important business.
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