This is a concept motorcycle with an interesting but probably impractical charging system. For more ~speculation~ details, here is the artists’ webpage: https://maskarchitects.com/portfolio/solaris-worlds-first-self-charging-solar-motorcycle/

How long would it take to fully charge this theoretical motorcycle? Assume sunny conditions and average weight/capacity/panel efficiency.

Thanks!

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    parent

  • I am ssuming it has a 1kwh battery. The panel size would be about 100 watts.

    So 12 to 13 hours of perfect sun would fully charge the battery. In real life it would take 3 or 4 sunny summer days to go 40 miles.

    If you only drove it 5 to 7 miles a day you could reasonably rely on charging only on the built in solar panels.

    parent

    I just realized the bike has 2 panels in the picture you posted. So, 6 or 7 hours of perfect sun, or 2 days to charge it reliably. You could reasonably plan to drive it 10 to 14 miles a day running only on power from the built in panels.

    parent root

    thats actually way better than expected

    parent root

    yes but I think the estimate of the battery capacity is wrong, a small battery for an electric motorcycle is closer to 4kwh

    parent root

    I just did a search for an electric dirt bike. The first one I clicked on was a bit over 1 kwh. That seemed small so I checked another one. It was also about 1kwh and claimed 60 miles on a charge. So I went with 1kwh for the battery and downgraded to 40 miles per charge to do my calculations.

    I tried to read the description of the actual bike in the link but gave up when it began describing it being an ergonomic jaguar with fluid movements.

    parent root

    This bike looks similar to the zero fx I have. Its has 3.6kwh or 7.2 kwh batteries I believe

    parent root

    How many miles can you get on a full charge?

    parent root

    I have the smaller battery and get around 40 or so. To be honest the math on this likely gets even more impractical given the almost constant power draw on the 12v systems. I have a polaris kinetic which uses a zero power train. I have a 100watt solar panel I added to the roof to keep an extra 1kwh battery charged. I use this to charge/run electric tools in the field. I've recently used it to keep the 12v system charged so that the main high voltage system doesn't get tapped to keep the 12v going. There isnt much additional capacity beyond keeping the 12v system topped up unless its in full summer sun. Thats just keeping the 12v system going, not adding anything to the actual drive battery

    parent root

    Depends when and where. Northern Europe I get about 300 Wh per day currently out of ~8 squaremeters of Panels. Could be a good concept for equatorial countries.

    parent root

  • This would work better as a moped or e bike type thing vs a full motorcycle. Doing a quick look, I saw a 2KWH moped with a 40mph top speed, 150 mile range, and 120lb weight. It looked lighter and more bike like than the picture you showed though. I have a gas dual sport that weighs 250-300 lbs. You can get lighter ones, but to make a full highway capable motorcycle would probably weigh more like 200+ lbs

    Assuming another poster was right at about 100w panels (x2). You might be able to do a 50%+ charge in a sunny area with a full day (assuming each pannel does 500Wh a day)

    So maybe feasible for an e bike/moped to be useful, but I doubt it for a full and heavier motorcycle.

    parent