GZ 250 Forums - 1984 Honda Goldwing converted to Electric

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1984 Honda Goldwing converted to Electric

Thought you guys might like this....

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ws...432325229.html

Looks pretty nice to me! Here is what the owner/poster has to say about it on Craigslist:

Quote:

This is a unique motorcycle. I converted this 84 Goldwing to electric 2 years ago.

It has been used for 2 seasons (about 1500 miles). This motorcycle uses 24 LiFePO lithium 70aH batteries. The motor is an Advance DC Warp 8. The controller is a Kelly KDH12800B (360A, 120V). There is an on board smart charge by Elcon (110V , 15A. Charge time is about 4 hours if fully discharged. I have a remote terminal that plugs into the bike to monitor and balance all batteries (seems to not be needed once batteries balanced). The drive system connects the DC motor to the driveshaft through a 2:1 chain and sprocket at the front of the bike. Speed is smooth with one ratio from start to near 60mpg. Acceleration estimated to be about the same as the ICE. Weight is no more (probably less) then when the ICE system was in place. The back carrier holds 6 batteries and the charger. There is still some room in it. The side bags are fully available. The range of this motorcycle is about 40 miles with lower urban speeds. It is typically about 30 where I live in a rural area. The motorcycle has new instrumentation, volts, amps, and digital speed (still working on). This would be an excellent commuter bike, or running errands. Please contact me with any follow up questions. FYI, The electric parts alone are worth more than $5000.

Interesting conversion. Sounds like an ideal errand runner for around town. And no pipes to rust out or polish. I do wonder at the decision to put the batteries up high in the top box when the side cases would allow for a much lower center of gravity and easier handling around town. But what do I know???? Maybe if there were pics of the battery packs it would offer more info to my ramblings.
Still not convinced that electric vehicles are the future in any big way but they sure make some folks feel good to drive them. What we really need are vehicles that run on polluted air to balance out the vehicles that pollute the air. At present the modern gas burning engines are nearly pollution free and have fantastic economy compared to even 2 decades ago. Gas powered vehicles, whether bikes or cages give us a level of independence that an electric vehicle can never match. Hybrids are close but no cigar in my books because of the cost and carbon footprint.

Pretty interesting conversion. I wonder what it would take to increase his mileage to something like 100 miles per charge? It might be that more batteries would add more weight and you'd get diminishing returns on that set up plus it would probably eliminate any cargo carrying room.

Since the range is only around 60 miles, I would just ditch the bulky side and top cases and stream line the bike as much as possible. Lightening the load and giving the beast some semblance of aerodynamics would improve it's range some. No one is going to be loading down those storage bins for a 400 trek if they can only go 30 miles in one direction.

It's very common from what I've seen for people who do this to load the center of the bike with all of the battery weight, which I have also found a little perplexing. Even simply building a small aluminum frame to lower the battery pack would make more sense to me.

The limit to power and range really comes from the batteries more than anything else though. Home conversions aren't something that most people who have tons and tons of money will do. They do home conversions to save money and they choose their battery packs to save money. When the higher end stuff becomes more affordable, then these home conversions will likewise have more range and make them a little more appealing to those on the outside.