Jean Turner | June 14, 2023
Cycle News Cross-Rutted
COLUMN
No Fate But What We Make
A new work venture recently took me somewhere I never thought I’d be: the Electrify Expo in Long Beach, California. Myself being new to the automotive space, and the show itself being new to the public (this was the opening round in only their second year), I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would this be like the L.A. Auto Show, only all things electric? Would legacy auto manufacturers be there? What would the displays and demos look like? Would exhibitors go all out, or phone it in at this new venue?
Automotive manufacturers with skin in the game were present, including Ford, Kia/Hyundai, Tesla, BMW, Volvo, Chrysler, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen and Toyota. Some had a well-thought-out EV-themed presence, such as Ford, Toyota, Volvo and Kia/Hyundai, and others put in… less effort. As for the “micro-mobility” sector, because that’s what we’re calling it now, there were over 100 brands of electric scooters and e-bikes, from the contraptions sitting idle on every urban street corner in America to the mopeds you see teenagers whizzing around on through modern suburbia. It was all there, from go-peds to go karts, four-wheel scooters to one-wheel boards, and even underwater scooters. Because yeah, that’s a thing.
Bicycles ranged from the cheap and exotic to major players like Giant and Liv displaying their latest eMTB offerings on a pretty awesome dirt track built in the demo area of the parking lot. Everything, from pedals to throttles to pedal-assist and gyroscopic forces powering your ride, all has a place in EV-ville.
What was painfully missing from this sea of electric-powered go? Motorcycles. There were no major brands participating. None of the legacy manufacturers had a presence: not Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Ducati, BMW, KTM, Suzuki, Aprilia, etc. I was surprised not to even see any of the electric brands: not Livewire, (though StaCyc, another Harley-Davidson-owned brand was present), not Stark with their newly delivered Varg, not Zero with their well-established line.
Several recognizable e-motorcycle brands, such as Cake, Greenger, UBCO and QuietKat were displaying (you may have seen these brands also at the AIMExpo). Rawrr was offering demos aboard their all-terrain e-bikes in a closed-course to a seemingly endless line of curious consumers. While plenty of electric contraptions whizzed through the showgrounds to and from the parking-lot demo areas, there was only one motorcycle company we saw offering demos on the street. A company called Ryvid was sampling the “Anthem,” a sleek, futuristic-looking E-motorcycle. Of course, we had to sample the goods, and I’d call it similar to a 650-ish sport naked that I wouldn’t mind spending more time on. Like the folks at Rawrr, the Ryvid booth stayed plenty busy—out of t-shirts and their staff visibly exhausted by the end of the day on Saturday, still with Sunday left to go.
Clearly this is a consumer crowd with a fair number of motorcycle endorsements, many cruising the show with their own helmets, and curious about the future of electric vehicles. Why was there no major motorcycle presence? Was there any interest, or even awareness of the Electrify Expo? Is anyone considering it a worthwhile marketing exercise to appeal to this sea of micro-mobility users—perhaps they’d like to step into a full-size two-wheel experience?
I’m certainly not pointing fingers, because it also occurs to me that this goes both ways—did the young Electrify Expo reach out to any of the major manufacturers? Honda, Suzuki and Kawasaki are all within 30 miles of Long Beach, but did they even know it was in town? It also occurs to me that perhaps I’m asking the wrong question. Rather than wondering where motorcycles are in the future of EV, perhaps we should instead be asking where EV truly is among the future of motorcycles.
Industry Day took place the day before the show opened, and throughout the seminars, panels and speakers, a common theme that struck me was the focus on an “electric-powered future” (as opposed to a “zero-emissions future”). This crowd sees EVs as the one clear way forward, and appropriately so. After all, this isn’t the Zero Emissions Expo. Still, there is more than one way to skin a catalytic converter, and a quick look at the direction of some of the major manufacturers might start to explain the lack of motorcycle industry presence at the Electrify Expo.
In a recent combined release from Yamaha Motor, Honda Motor, Kawasaki Motors and Suzuki Motor, the four major Japanese motorcycle manufacturers revealed they are joining forces in a tech research association called HySE, which stands for Hydrogen Small mobility & Engine technology. It seems the Japanese brands agree that hydrogen combustion is the way forward for motorcycles.
“Still, there is more than one way to skin a catalytic converter, and a quick look at the direction of some of the major manufacturers might starting to explain the lack of motorcycle industry presence at the Electrify Expo.”
“To realize a decarbonized society, a multi-pathway strategy to address various issues in the mobility sector is necessary, rather than focusing on a single energy source,” reads the press release. That unnamed “single source,” of course, being electricity.
“There are many challenges in the development of hydrogen-powered engines, but we hope to see the association’s activities advance the fundamental research in order to meet those challenges,” says Kenji Komatsu, chairman nominee of HySE. “We are committed to this endeavor with a sense of mission to preserve the use of internal combustion engines, which epitomize the long-time efforts that our predecessors have invested.”
In other words, “Long live ICE!” say the Japanese. In their divide-and-conquer association, Honda and Suzuki will focus on the research on hydrogen engines, Yamaha will study hydrogen refueling systems—a task in itself as hydrogen is an extremely light molecule and not easy to contain—and Kawasaki will study auxiliary equipment required for fuel supply systems. Even Toyota is getting in on the hydrogen-burning fun as a “special member” of the HySE association, along with Kawasaki Heavy Industries (parent company of Kawasaki Motor). Toyota, already producing hydrogen fuel-cell modules for heavy duty trucks, is lending their research, analyses and design experience to the team.
“Rather than wondering where motorcycles are in the future of EV, perhaps we should instead be asking where EV truly is among the future of motorcycles.”
While the Japanese remain polite in their wording, Stefan Pierer of Pierer Mobility (KTM Group) stated it far more bluntly in a series of interviews he’s given in the last year. “Electromobility is nonsense that is pushed by politically uneducated politicians. An upsetting nonsense,” Pierer stated in a 2022 VisorDown article.
The key complication (or what Pierer calls “stupidity”) comes down to energy density, which Pierer lays out in a simple comparison in a 2023 interview with Alan Cathcart. “A combustion engine is 0.8 kilograms per liter. If you want the same energy density with a lithium-ion pack, you’re adding up to 10 times the size—10 times! I’ve been riding an enduro bike with 9 or 10 liters of gasoline, where should I put in the 100 kilos to get the electric equivalent? Maybe in my rucksack or on the luggage rack?? Don’t talk about an adventure bike with pretensions for covering big distances on or off-road. This is stupid.”
Of course, KTM isn’t ignorant to electric powertrains. The company came out with the Freeride in 2013, and does decent sales with its electric mini motocrossers. E-bikes have their place in the scope of motorcycling, and according to Pierer, who was President of the European Association of Motorcycle Manufacturers (ACEM) at the time of a 2022 Speedweek.com interview, stated “unlike the automotive industry, we have a clear global vision of where we are headed. We are assuming that with 48-volt electrics, that is 11 kilowatts or 15 horsepower, a lot will become electric in the next 10 years… Everything that concerns motorized two-wheelers over 48 volts is going in the direction of e-fuels. There are very clear development plans between the manufacturers.”
In short, electromobility is stupid nonsense, and only small vehicles up to 15 hp (11kW) are suitable for electric replacement. So how do they plan to decarbonize? Synthetic fuel. And no, that does not mean hydrogen.
Synthetic fuel, also called e-fuel, is produced using carbon-dioxide (or -monoxide) extracted from the atmosphere, and combining it with hydrogen obtained from a renewable electricity source (wind or solar). These e-fuels could potentially replace petrol fuel, diesel and even jet fuel. Sounds almost too good to be true, right? Companies like Pierer Mobility, BMW Motorrad and countries like Saudi Arabia think it’s perfectly attainable, and they’re all in.
“We have set up lobbying groups for synthetic fuel with many different European companies… and in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, they are starting to make the necessary huge investment in equipment for producing synthetic fuel on a commercially viable industrial basis.”
These lobbying groups have had success so far convincing the aforementioned “politically uneducated politicians” in Europe to include an exemption for synthetic fuel-equipped vehicles in the 2035 ban on new combustion engines.
Pierer goes on to explain how synthetic fuels could utilize existing pipelines while hydrogen cannot, and how synthetic fuels can also potentially be used in the 1.6 billion internal combustion engines already on the road. “It’s a scientific gasoline, and you can fill your existing motorcycle with it, and it works just fine,” Pierer explains. “In MotoGP we are going in 2024 to a blend of 40% synthetic with conventional race fuel, and in 2026 or 2027 it should go to 100%, like in Formula 1. Together, we will save the planet—and have fun racing!” Read the full Stefan Pierer three-part interview series on Motorcycle.com.
That all sounds pretty great to me, and I’ll be cheering on both the Japanese HySE association, and the synthetic fuel effort of the Europeans in this race to replace fossil fuels. Because it’s not so much the fossil fuel I’m in love with so much as internal combustion itself. All due respect to the Ryvid Anthem and the Rawrr Mantis, the Starks, the Cakes, the Livewires… it’s just not the same experience as putting spark to fuel. It’s the moving, breathing internal combustion that truly gives a motorcycle its soul. The beating heart of a piston, the way the pulsating power of a four-stroke grips the dirt, the internal rotating masses that are generated by a parallel twin versus a v-twin (or a single, or a triple!) are what produce the distinct character of a motorcycle. It is a living, breathing, hot-blooded machine—I can hear it, feel it and smell it. My motorcycle has a soul. An electric motorcycle has an on/off switch where the throttle should be.
So, it seems the major motorcycle manufacturers on both sides of the globe are still in hot pursuit of better options for decarbonizing the two-wheel experience, and whether it’s for love of that soulful thump, or sheer logistics of energy density, not many seem to think electric power is a viable solution for full-size motorcycles. It makes sense for consumer automotives and micro-mobility, but the major motorcycle manufacturers just aren’t ready to let go of the internal combustion model. And to that, I say hallelujah! I’m all for a cleaner environment and understand the need to de-carbonize. But if we can do that without losing our souls, that would be a dream come true. CN