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Lol..that's pretty funny right there....
Definitely a place for them; the jury is just out on exactly what that place is. I think local MX w/15 minute motos is probably achievable w/current battery tech. Long motos and offroad probably isn't in the cards yet.
The real conundrum for someone like me (strictly offroad / enduro) is whether I wanna drop $13k for something that may be super limited in application. If I had my own backyard track it'd be a no-brainer - especially if I lived in a populated area where noise was a big concern.
I would take what the Alta guy was saying he got for run times and add maybe 10-20%. If you are a offroad guy in the Utah desert you'll have to plan carefully but theres guys that take surrons out around st george and have a good time fooling around on them, question is is it worth the money.
I ride mostly on private land and keep quiet bikes but noise always a concern. An E-moto would be perfect for me but I can't justify the money for one right now.
awesome looking bike. I just don't want these things to be so much faster and easier to ride that i'll have to buy one to be competitive. I love it as an alternative and to help spread the sport. Josh Hill makes the bikes look like so much fun. I wonder where Alta would be right now if they continued.
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Dude, you‘re doing it again: you try to sound educated in this subject despite knowing s..t.
Just accept that you don’t have the slightest technical knowledge and leave this thread alone!
Or prove me wrong: Tell us why EVs need separate cooling systems. Or why a water cooled battery need a comparatively large radiator. Or why a lot of EVs run it over the AC/heat pump. Come on, show us your thermodynamics know how!
I think that he meant as far as full size electric MX bikes go. All of the current manufacturers have millions invested into R&d , tooling, dealer training, etc for gas powered motorcycles. They work , and plan many years in the future so they already have had the bikes designed , tooling being built, dealer training etc for the next generation or 2 of models right now. So it would make sense to me that they would not want to go all in. Especially with the majority of customers being EV haters. Just like the Gas and oil companies that put out the disinformation on EV's and try and keep people afraid of them. Look at history and when electricity was first taking over to be used for lighting instead of Kerosene , and kerosene when it was taking over whale oil before that. The people that had $$ invested did not want to switch over and they wanted to keep people afraid. I don't understand why they just do not amplify the legit issues with the new tech instead of pushing some of the crazy stuff .
EV's and fire, there are already self extinguishing batteries that instead of a fire that is hard to put out, they just blow a cloud of smoke. So in a way that type of battery is safer than a gas vehicle. I'm sure the smoke is not the best thing for the environment, but neither is a fire from a gas vehicle with burning plastic and tires.
If the Varg is everything they claim it to be when it comes out. I think that you will see more of a demand for EMX bikes. And if its just a little better than the Alta was, but they can stay alive and keep selling bikes then it will still be a great option for a lot of people.
As far as doing a 30+2 with red flag and restart in a mud race. Gas powered bikes often need to be topped off to be able to do that. In a red flag situation they might be able to have a fast charger that could top off the battery in the 10 minutes or so that they normally stop a race for. There are some Electric lawn equipment available right now that cane fast charge from a dead battery to 100% in 8 minutes. I know they are much smaller batteries and that last 20% or so of charge can take longer than the first 80%. But it seems like its close to possible. The teams would need a big battery DC to DC charger that they could add on to their pit vehicles. It would take a little longer than running to grab a gas can. But they have commercial breaks for most restarts anyway. So if it was possible to do in 10 minutes, I do not see that really being a problem. I would think that however they are doing it on the outdoor power equipment could be scaled up. And the batteries they are using on that equipment also have many more charge cycles than the average lithium battery. The company did not say what the batteries are using for materials , that I saw. But the stuff is out there and in use already. The company is Kress and they are some how also involved with Cat power tools. Cat has a fast charge Graphene battery that also has many more available charge cycles and faster charge speeds. So I am assuming the Kress battery could also be graphene . But I have not had the time to research enough to find out.
I do not think we will see Electric MX bikes racing with gas bikes at the pro level until some of the current big players also have an electric to go racing with. Since all of the manufacturers are part of the rule making process they will not want to allow an Electric bike in to compete against them if it is going to outperform their bikes. Just like how its harder to race a 2 stroke, and manufacturers pushed back on the rule change to allow 250 2 strokes into the 250 class in the nationals. They would do the same thing with the EMX bikes. So I do not see them being let in if they are clearly better and or there are not at least a couple brands with EMX bikes that can get a vote on a rule to let them in. Of course they could always allow the EMX bikes in and show how their gas bikes are still better. But I'm sure they are al also developing their own EMX bikes and would not want to set rules up to put their own future bikes at a disadvantage so it will be interesting to watch and see what happens.
Are tracks going to have a way of dealing with fires if one of these battery packs combust from overheating/impact? From the looks of things even fire departments can't handle Tesla fires. How the "F" is a private track going to handle a lithium fire?
Do you know where fire extinguishers are at your track if an ICE bike catches on fire?
There are batteries that will kind of self extinguish. In the event that a battery is damaged they de-gas and and release all of the energy as smoke. This reduces the chance of a fire by releasing all of the energy before it can get hot enough to catch fire. So that should prevent most of the types of fires you see happening with lithium batteries. A single burning dirtbike on a track might not be that big of an issue as long as its out in the open and not in the pits. You could always grab loader with a load of dirt and dump it onto the burning bike. Even if an electric bike catches fire, it has a much smaller battery than a Tesla .
I think they will build an overheating protection into the software that would shut the bike down before it got hot enough to catch fire.Altas have been know to have heat problems , but so far no fire problems. Look at how many Sur-rons and Alta's have burst into flames , I do not know if its a lot of 0. But they have been out in the real world being abused and modified now for a few years. The fire risk is less than with a gas vehicle. The EV would have to have damage to the battery and or extreme heat. While a gas bike is always hot enough that all it takes is the gas line being damaged or spilling gas on a hot head pipe.
From what I've been able to find from various sources, a typical ICE car takes ~300 gal to extinguish. Tests from fire departments show 6000 - 8000 gal for EV's, with some fires requiring up to 40,000 gal to fully extinguish.
Hopefully fires are exceedingly rare, because full blown battery fires are no joke...
Think again....
They can all be purchased separately, but can be assembled together as one piece. Best of both worlds.
I can relate. Happened to me on the KTM freeride E-XC. Revving it never felt so powerless. After that, Never, ever, went bushwacking alone in the woods on a E- bike. Combustion engines have this magic feature to repel most of the wildlife away. All kinds of critters in them woods at night. The 2 stroke also keeps them nasty mosquitoes at bay. Hopefully the Stark Varg will have a bug and bear repellent app !
You might want to do some research before running your mouth. Nothing worse than someone who has no clue what they are talking about thinking they have to throw out their uninformed opinion just to shit on something they have no plan on buying in the first place, or in layman's terms PISS OFF.
That could be a possibility, the repellent app. Ultrasonic sounds can repel bugs and critters. Hook up a sweet sound system and use the speakers to repel the nasty's. It could be a great side effect, the electric bikes getting rid of the mosquitos and ticks that are close to the trails and everybody wins. It wouldn't be killing them, just annoying enough to keep them away. I've never tried any of those ultrasonic repellents , so I have no idea how well they work or don't work. But it could be an add on for the trail versions. A loud horn or whistle would also help scare critters. They could include free rape whistles to use for repelling cocaine bear.
There have been 0 instances of fires in any Alta Redshift motorcycle as far as I'm aware, and thats including all 5 models.
These bikes are really safe.
Pass. Next bike is a 24 KTM 300.
Hey Bryan, since you’re customer number one, did they give you a date for when you should expect your bike to be delivered? Just want to know when I should jump back into this thread, because it’s been going in circles for the last ten pages or so.
Pit Row
He posted that it’ll be in his garage by the end of may.
Bryan, I can't wait to see you whoop up on my friend at Cahuilla again.
I'm looking forward to seeing those around. I'll hit you up if I ever see you in the pits. Your number is easy to remember because it's my birth month.
Haha i was talking to him at Barona a week before my Varg trip and he has a Varg on preorder and his buddy preordered 2! So we'll probably be battling eachother on Vargs
Why not reduce theoretical run times 10 or 20%? It makes more sense to do that. The proposed Stark has a much more powerful motor and is bigger and heavier with the same nominal 6 kWh.
For a start no one, anywhere, is immersion cooling li-ion cells with water. Battery cases are cooled with glycol/water conventional coolant yes but cells need highly specialised, dielectric fluids for flooded cooling. Corrosion, conductivity 101 reasons.
Because no Stark bikes exist in the wild for evaluation nobody really knows how good or bad they may be with regards to heat control.
The point is that the temperature delta of a battery that needs to be kept at 50C for safety and efficiency is a lot less in 40 degree ambient conditions than an ICE bike that is running at 100C. The only professional electric bike series I'm aware of is MotoE. The Energica bikes use a pumped, full immersion cell system (not cooled case plates) and large heat exchangers.
MX bikes don't have or need heat pumps btw
The Alta MXR had a claimed battery capacity of 5.8kW and a claimed curb weight of 259 lbs.
The Varg has a claimed battery capacity of 6kW and a claimed curb weight of 110kg or 242 lbs.
Yes, 'claimed' is the operative word on every single aspect of the hypothetical Stark.
In the post you made before this you claimed that the Stark was bigger and heavier than the Alta. Which contradicts the info that has been put out.
Were you talking hypothetically or factually, or does this change depending on your position at the time?
Good, then please tell me why the cooling concept of the Varg is insufficient in your opinion? Where would be the benefit to use a water cooling system since the Varg‘s cells are directly connected to the battery housing that sits nicely in the oncoming air flow?
He twists it as he likes and if you come up with a bulletproof argument he says: we can’t say for sure because there are no bikes to inspect.. everything‘s hypothetical
He made a broad statement. I don't agree. He said they won't go 30 minutes. That's as of today.
My point is, technology moves at warp speed. I wouldn't bet against e bikes getting longer range.
Just because he's the head of KTM doesn't make him the authority on everything e bike.
Btw, as a snowbird and 66 years old I probably ride as much as you do or more. And I also ride year round.
If, or until, we have Starks to measure, it is purely hypothetical what any aspect of their performance is. It's predicting the future: very hard.
In other EV performance applications though, the current draw rate required by a 60 hp motor, let alone 80 HP, from a 6kWh air cooled battery will have it overheated, and limited, in a few seconds.
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