| Re: About six times as expensive....
Clive George wrote:
>
> True in the UK too. Electric bikes are allowed to assist up to 15mph
> IIRC, and there's probably a power limit too. IC engines are out, and a
> good thing too IMO.
>
> cheers,
> clive
Why would you think this?
If IC engines cost less to operate, and (I heavily suspect) generated
less pollution overall, what objection would any reasonable person have?
Granted--in Europe it seems more common to see small scooters with
total-loss 2-cycle engines which do run quite dirty, but my discussion
was specifically on 4-cycle engines.
In the USA, total-loss two-cycle engines are already begun to being
legislated out of existence. New marine engines are (for practical
purposes) required to use fuel-injection on their 2-cycles, and some
2-cycle oil-burners imported are required as of 2006 to have catalytic
converters.
I searched for a small suitable catalytic converter for the 4-cycle
bicycle engine I bought, but could not find sources of any. Plus, there
are engineering concerns, best left to the manufacturers to settle
anyway (cat.s make the whole engine run hotter somewhat, so the factory
really needs to be the ones to set the things up).
--------
I fully support spreading less pollution and conserving energy, but it's
very shortsighted to assume that anything electric is better for the
environment than anything that has an exhaust pipe.
~
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