Since gasoline because unusable after awhile, most cars will become obstacles and block up roads.
So we of course want something that can zip around the roads!
The main advantages I see are:
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Peddle when out of juice
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Peddling charges the batteries, so in an emergency you can turn on the battery
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The batteries can reasonably be charged by solar panels that a lot of houses have.
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Gets around all the blocked roads.
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Generally easier to repair.
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The distance travelled on a full battery is absurd
I don’t expect any movies to put their heroes on an eBike, but they should!
IDK just thought you’d appreciate my dumb thought XD Any other reasons why during an apocalypse you should find an ebike?
I think you misspelled “Bikes” in your title.
Ebike is another way to refer to electric bicycles. It’s the new transportation mode people are absolutely loving as an option for city living. This is due to the emphasis of cities becoming walkable to reduce their impact on climate change.
They know, they’re saying ebikes would suck in the apocalypse. I agree. They’re too heavy and the batteries don’t last long enough to be useful without power access. If you had that kind of power access an emoto would be better.
why an e motorcycle over an electric bike? I feel the disadvantages are worse: its heavier, larger and requires more time to fully charge. Sure its faster, can probably get your further, and can carry heavier things, but every time you’re not using those aspects, the disadvantages are more pronounced. Can’t fully charge the battery due to slow charging with whatever you can muster up? will now you’re just carrying dead weight.
Will there be nice roads that you know are safe for you to drive fast on? Maybe, again you may be carrying deadweight otherwise.
If you’re not using it to carry large/heavy items, again you’re riding around in dead weight.
Guess the concern is maybe in the apocalypse might not have a ton of food, but having a solar setup should be pretty easy.
But either way, need more bike riders in apocalypse movies!
Nah. No offense, but give me a Surly Trucker over any e-bike. If I was not so messed up with my back, I’d still be good for 200 miles plus in one day on a couple of Snickers bars. Even in my rough shape, I can manage 30 miles daily as is and ~50 with consequences after.
Even without roads, I’m nearly as fast on a carbon 29’er hardtail like a Cannondale Flash and if I was in shape, I would want to cut my own trails anyways.
I’d probably look for a way to move to a makeshift belt drive and single speed. I could probably rig up rubber belts from cars and stuff for far longer than I’ll be able to source chains. I’d eventually be able to do a leather belt drive to stay running for awhile. The hard part will be what to do about wheels in the long term. Wooden rims were standard long before aluminum. I bet I could still salvage enough heavy canvas, glue, and scrap rubber to make my own tubulars. Yeah, I think I could be riding for many decades.
How are you at reverse engineering circuits and rewinding motors? I’ve wound my own transformers before, but a stator is a whole different beast, especially with brushless. That ~30 mile range, battery lifespan, and monstrous dead weight without power would drive me mad.
It’s an interesting idea and have some merit to it, but it can never outbest and outlast a normal bicycle. Still, it’s significantly better than a car or motorcycle and depend on what sort of apocalypse we’re talking about.
2)Peddling charges the batteries, so in an emergency you can turn on the battery
To actually charge the battery you need a voltage higher than the battery itself, and to charge the battery using the motor you will need something with regenerative braking, and to crank these motor you need higher energy than you normally do and put in to overcome the resistance in order to generate enough power to charge the battery. Even with regen braking in normal situation, i don’t think it’s enough to charge the battery. You’ll be pedalling a significantly heavier bike in the end because of all that resistance.
3)The batteries can reasonably be charged by solar panels that a lot of houses have.
This is the true benefit of ebike, but you have to be in an apocalypse in a place with plenty of solar panel.
5)Generally easier to repair.
Compared to car or motorbike, yeah, but compared to a normal bicycle, there’s a challenge if the electronics are fried or when battery need replacing.
The distance travelled on a full battery is absurd
This is true on eco mode, and depend on battery capacity, which affect the weight
The batteries will wear out eventually and lose capacity. Even if you have an unlimited stock of spares, the cell chemistry will eventually break down a few years after they left the factory.
Bro thinks he’s going to build a microcontroller for his battery while hiding in a hole 🤣
Regular ol Tony Stark.
You dont need a charge controller. They’re more of a safety and battery longevity feature.
If you just need to get enough juice into this thing to outrun the next horde of zombies, any dc voltage source a couple of volts jigher than the nominal charge of the battery can do in a pinch. Cracking the pack open and charging individual cells is also an option if you can’t find one with a high enough voltage.
I absolutely dont recommend this under normal circumstances, but electrics are far easier to repair from scrap than combustion engines.
That’s an impressive way to turn lipo type batteries into bombs. Lithium batteries require you to control the current, not the voltage. If you give them too much voltage, without current limiting, they will draw in as much as your supply will give. This will rapidly destroy the cells, resulting in them discharging via heat.
The plus side is that most decent batteries have circuitry to protect against exactly that. Many also have the charge controller embedded. This massively improves their safety, but not all batteries have this built-in.
