1. Students in college are concentrating on developing clean energy alternatives that are commecialy viable.
2. A product that has reduced emissions, the product has zero emissions. Yes, depending on the power source there “could” be a shift of polution from one location to another.
3. Battery technology that appears to have a higher efficiency of 90%
4. The product appears to be fun and usable vs. boring and nerdy.
5. No, the product is not perfect but if you have a negative view then I would ask what are you doing to make it better?

“…the overall CO2 usage, including the carbon dioxide generated to charge the batteries, will be around 50 per cent less carbon dioxide than a petrol or diesel-power bike.”

This is clearly not a zero-emission vehicle, and the figure they give will vary depending on the electricity source. Most U.S. electricity comes from coal plants, the worst polluters on the planet.

What’s more, the U.S. electrical grid is already being pushed to the brink. The grid would need to be dramatically enhanced and expanded to meet the increased demand of electric vehicles…even if the majority of charging was occurring at night.

Anybody else want three times as many coal plants in this country? Didn’t think so.

Want to stop global warming? Stop looking for ways to sustain the unsustainable.

A zero-emission bike already exists, folks. It’s the one where your legs do the peddling!

In that sense you are correct, as of now, there are very few truly “zero emission” vehicles because most battery operated vehicles simply draw their power from fossil fuel burning plants. However, battery operated vehicles are still vastly superior in efficiency to their petrol using counterparts. Even when accounting for the increase in energy demand on the plants, electric modes of transportation only create 30% the amount of emissions as a standard petrol fueled vehicle.

However, there is a push to increase electricity costs during the day, and decrease them at night. This would encourage people to use less during peak times.

What it should also do is cause a run on batteries. If this rate change occurred, I would charge batteries all night and power my home with them during the day.

This would also be great for the idea of charging vehicles at night. Again, though, I have never heard of a case in which electricity is being thrown away at off-peak times.

Perhaps hydroelectric turbines are shut off, coal fired plants burn less coal, etc., but I don’t think anyone is discharging electricity into the environment as waste (if that’s even possible).

Same to the comment enthusiastic about the ‘betterplace company’ for the same reason. more pollution , and benefiting corporations who will have us chained to them by selling us expensive electric cars and then selling us charge-up cards for replenishing the batteries They purposefully aren’t building the cars so you can charge them at home, you will depend on their supply at their price, and the end pollution will be higher than now, unless solar / wind will be used, which is not in their plans.

Hook one up to solar or wind power, and I’m on board with the concept. Not on board the motorcycle itself. Those things are death traps.