more complex, more expensive, more prone to fail fromdirt entering gears, more strain on rims, and alignment in cornering suffers.
There are good reason why real motorcycle companies avoid these designs that are best left as movie props.
Comment on Electric motorcycles with solid-state batteries seem to be coming soon.
JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 3 days agoAt least it being a fully integrated hub(less) motor makes it a much more sensible of a solution than many other tries with all kinds of belt drives and gears and cogs and stuff.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
curiousaur@reddthat.com 3 days ago
I watched that exact video. I still don’t think it’s ever more efficient to have a hubless wheel vs a good central bearing.
JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
Because it isn’t? I’m comparing it to other hubless designs, stuff like this.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
It’s just more bullshit for a company marketing bullshit to techbros who will use these bikes as living room ornaments.
gnu@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Adding a bunch of unsprung weight is a poor decision when it comes to handling though, and that’s something pretty important in a motorbike that’s trying to do more than just low speed commuting. Such a design will also be putting a lot of vibration through the motor components which is not good for longevity. It’s more a case of going for the (admittedly distinctive) aesthetic rather than being sensible.
booly@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Makes me wonder about the wheel’s rotational inertia, too. In theory, a hubless wheel could be lower mass overall without the need for a center axle/hub and spokes connecting the outside to the center. But that’s all weight saved in the center of the wheel with lower effect on overall rotational inertia. Visually, the picture that makes the thumbnail in this post shows that the brake disc has to be further from the center of the wheel, which I imagine adds a lot more weight (more material necessary for the overall brake disc being a larger circle) and a lot more rotational inertia (further from the center).
Maybe the whole design itself can save weight in certain places that make up for the weight added in other places. But I just have a ton of questions, and am overall pretty skeptical of the long term potential of this design.
Looks cool, though, I guess.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
The motor design has huge performance benefits. Power is like a solid disk motor of the same size. Their previous model claimed much faster 0-60 time, and so I don’t get why it dropped, but if true, the discharge rate of battery simply isn’t as high as NMC. That would also explain why they have to have both huge range and fast charge.