Photo Credit: Enertia

Another electric motorcycle that has come to our attention is the Enertia, a 280lb vehicle with a range of 45 miles on a single charge. It’s estimated to cost around $0.01 per mile to operate in electric cost and if used 100% for commuting can reduce green house gas emission by an order of magnitude over an average CAFE emission vehicle.

The top speed of the bike is 50mph and the performance is decent accelerating from 0 to 30mph in 3.8 seconds. The battery storage system is an array of lithium phosphate batteries designed to resist thermal stress. The system is designed to operate for 35,000 miles of operation.

Here’s the rub, the base model is available for $11,995 starting at the end of this year and with options the price can accelerate to nearly $15,000. It’s certainly an interesting option, but with a high cost of acquisition.

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Scotts Valley, California based Zero Motorcycles is now shipping an all-electric 250cc equivalent motorcycle for a list price of $7,450 complete. These nifty little bikes are available in on- and off-road configurations and really fly (check out the videos hosted at their website.) The standard configuration has a duration of 2 hours and/or range of 40 miles and accelerates from zero to 30mph in less than 2 seconds.

Some interesting and distinguishing characteristics about this offering are the programmable interface allowing for different personalities to be exhibited from easy to sport. This is critical because the bike has 100% of torque available throughout the power range and is capable of delivering 300A at peak power. The storage system consists of an array of 168 second generation lithium-ion cells designed to avoid thermal incidents seen in other electric vehicles. The entire bike weighs only 140lbs (without the rider) and has successfully made 65 foot jumps, so it’s sufficiently tough for the task at hand.

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In December, 2006, Return to the Age of Sail, we first reported on SkySails. The concept is simple, use an enormous kite-sail in conjunction with conventional propulsion to reduce the fuel requirement for cargo ships. Rather than investing in masts and extensive rigging, the SkySails approach is to fly a kite sail (which resembles a modern parachute in design) up to a kilometer above the ship. At this height, wind speed is substantially higher yielding better wind power results.

In the maiden voyage of nearly 12,000 nautical miles, the reported performance was an aid of 20% resulting in a net savings of about 2.5 tons of fuel and more than $1,000 a day. This is our favorite kind of green project, it produces a good environmental benefit along with a strong tangible economic benefit.

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Pyscho-Active, a project working to win the Automotive X-Prize has designed another version of the rotary engine, similar to the EngineAir design discussed earlier this week. The difference is that this is a mixed fuel vehicle combining combustion with pneumatic assist to boost fuel efficiency to greater than 100mpg. In addition to the engine breakthrough, the team has also focused on safety features to make this a safe vehicle to go alone with its efficiency.

There are no plans for commercialization at this point, but should the project win the X-Prize, we believe that will change.

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Keeping with the air theme established this week, here’s yet another approach to the air powered propulsion potential. French company, K’AirMobiles has proposed a new class of vehicle, the VPP or vehicles with pneumatic propulsion class. This would include full-fledged cars like ZPM’s from earlier in the week, EngineAir’s runabouts, and indeed, these glorified bicycles with air tanks and engines.

If the technical specifications are correct on the website, this could be a very attractive local option. The CityEl version is a 3 seater with a top speed of 40kph. The range is represented as 40-80km, which is more than enough for a runabout. The useful load is spec’d out at 240kg. What likely isn’t attractive is the survivability in such a vehicle upon catastrophic impact. Still, an interesting approach.

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