(11-12-2018, 02:10 AM)RockHop_imp Wrote:

(11-11-2018, 02:27 PM)GoldOxide_imp Wrote: Not sure if this topic has been discussed, however, I will risk bringing it up:

** The Death Knell of Motorcycling As We Know It. **

This might smell a bit of a conspiracy, but let's consider a few things:

* Technology is moving ever faster. Remember CDs, DVDs and even Bluerays? They're dead and dying;
* Autonomous vehicles based on machine learning, sensor advancement, and world-space database technologies;
* Electric-drive and slight variations of the theme;
* The erratic and political cost of dino;
* The environmental impact of drilling, fracking, and transportion of dino;
* Emission issues of burning dino (although diesel is pretty bad);
* The perception that millennials don't want to harm the environment with cars and vis-a-vis motorbikes, and therefore withhold such investments while living in urban centers;
* The perception that Harleys [traditionally] give motorcycling a poor image to young generation would-be purchasers (i.e. air and non-factory noise pollution);
* New motorcycling purchases have been declining worldwide for over the past 20 years (I think more);
* And, conversely, worldwide (and likely excluding North America) scooters have become more popular than ever, more fuel efficient, faster, better looking, quieter, better handling, ultra low maintenance, all season, and convenient.

On this trend it won't be long before people say, "Oooooo, he rides a gas burning motorcycle ... we won't associate with him. Shun, shun." This is somewhat like the stigma of traditional smoking.

In addition, all the yadda regarding self-driving vehicles of all nature: Cars, trucks, buses. How long will it take to work out all the kinks in artificial intelligence and how many lives will it cost to get there? Well, eventually we will get there because business wants it there. There is money to be made in services - lots of it.

But wouldn't this drive demand for motorcycling upward as people **yearn** even more control of their transport freedom? Well sure. Maybe F-150 owners will cling tooth and nail until gas is $12 per gallon and rationed because fossil fuel is out-of-fashion. Or some tax is added to vehicle purchases to get people to ween off dino.

But the fossil fuel bike would still be harming the environment, upsetting AI-motivated vehicles, and generate less and less revenue for the bike manufacturers.

It is my understanding that brands like BMW and Honda are already road-mapping themselves out of the dino car and motorbike business because the numbers are declining. This is profound. I did not make this up. Sure, everybody could eventually manufacture in India or China, but it cannot go on forever. Costs have to bottom at some point. So the road map changes.

Motorbikes (and cars) are already not allowed in city core Paris and a few other European centers.

It will be interesting to see how this really unfolds for current and future riders. Will everyone ride electric scooters? Dunno.

One thing that I foresee as not changing too much is the demand for off-road motorbikes. Yes there is the Zero, but dino-powered off-road rides will always be in demand in areas that has not been paved over by civilization (Mars comes to mind).

Thoughts?

I'm pretty neutral on electric vehicles and would certainly consider an electric motorcycle. In fact, if I was still active in Trials riding, I would probably own an electric trials bike.

That said, it seems with electric vehicles we are just swapping carbon emissions you can see (tailpipe) with carbon emissions you can’t see (production of electricity).

63% of the electricity generated in the United States is generated from fossil fuels, mainly natural gas and coal. Dino is not eliminated.

Nuclear and hydro (dams) make up 27% of electrical production, but the chance of increased production from these sources is effectively nil. Kudos to France by the way, 78% of their electrical production is nuclear.

That only leaves wind and solar as viable sources to shift away from fossil fuels. I hope they are successful, but I think dino will be here for a long time.

One other thing, manufacturing emissions for electric vehicles, like Tesla, are 68 percent higher than for conventional cars primarily due to environmental impact of lithium mining and battery production.

(11-12-2018, 09:40 AM)Cormanus_imp Wrote: Some Australian scientists have invented a way of safely transporting hydrogen that they believe will make it a whole lot easier to make it widely available for use in vehicles. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-08/hydrogen-fuel-breakthrough-csiro-game-changer-export-potential/10082514

LongRanger, I'm astounded to hear you don't have free recycling in the US. Here we get a bin full of bottles, hard plastics, paper and cardboard taken away every two weeks and no extra cost. They'll even give you an extra bin for AU$30 and take it away too if you need it. We recycle way more than we send to landfill these days and, if everything one buys wasn't over packaged, we'd send less of both.