Two-Wheelers Go Hybrid, Electric

Interest in scooters and motorcycles has never been higher, as evidenced by the growing number of them on the road today. The reason? High gas prices have driven most people to explore ways to cut down on the cost of their daily transportation. Driving less, greater use of mass transit, and even paring down one’s personal transportation from four wheels to two have all been at play. As sales of hybrids have increased, so has interest in hybrid and electric drive technologies in motorcycles and scooters. Do such things exist?

Actually, there are quite a few electric scooters on the market. These include the Vectrix Maxi Scooter, which is really more motorcycle than scooter and is aimed at the off-road market. The company calls it a ‘high performance Personal Electric Vehicle.’ The battery powered Zero X is a serious off-road motorcycle with the performance of a gasoline dirt bike, but without the noise, pollution, and need for high priced gasoline.

Next up are hybrid scooters and motorcycles that should start appearing on the market soon. While hybrid scooters and motorcycles get more miles-per-gallon, they have an even bigger advantage since they can run silently on all-electric power. This is of growing importance as more cities, especially in Europe, are banning internal combustion engines in urban areas for both noise and air quality reasons. Unlike all-electric scooters, gasoline-electric hybrids also provide the performance and range needed for traveling longer distances outside city limits.

Italy’s Piaggio has shown three HyS – a sort of acronym for ‘hybrid scooter’ – models that it plans to start selling in the next few months. These are the small Vespa LX50 HyS and mid-size Piaggio X8 125 HyS scooters, and the Piaggio MP3 HyS three-wheeler. All are parallel and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that retain the engine normally used in gasoline-only versions, but also add a two horsepower electric motor. This motor is integrated into the rear hub so the standard CVT transmission can be retained. The entire engine, motor, and transmission are incorporated into a single unit that hinges at the front and acts as a swing-arm suspension.

For the Vespa LX50 HyS, Piaggio has installed an electric motor to augment the 50 cc gasoline engine in the Vespa LX. The tiny hybrid scooter gets up to 142 mpg while emitting only 40 grams of CO2 per kilometer. The hybrid 50cc model can travel at 15 mph for 12 miles on electric power.

The Piaggio X8 HyS is based on the middleweight X8 scooter with a 125 cc engine. The MP3 HyS is a hybrid version of the super stable, three-wheel XP3 scooter, also with the 125 cc engine. According to Piaggio, in full-on engine and motor mode there is up to an 85 percent increase in performance, primarily in acceleration, because of the motor’s torque at low rpm. The 125cc versions can travel at 25 mph for 12 miles on battery power with fuel economy up to 141 mpg.

While lead-acid batteries are now used, they probably will be replaced by lighter weight lithium-ion counterparts in the future as they become more affordable. Three batteries are used in the X8 and MP3 versions and two in the Vespa LX. They are located in the under-seat storage space. There is a battery charge indicator on the dashboard. The batteries can be completely recharged in about three hours from a 220 volt source. They are also kept charged by regenerative braking.

A rider can select the mode best suited for specific driving conditions, from silent running to maximum performance or fuel economy, by rotating a rotary control on the dashboard. The settings include ‘Balanced Power-Recharge,’ ‘Priority to Power,’ ‘Priority to Recharge,’ ‘Electric Power Only,’ and for the three-wheel MP3, ‘Reverse.’

Other manufacturers are working on hybrid scooters and motorcycles. Honda is reportedly developing a gasoline-electric hybrid motorcycle that could come to market in 2010 or 2011. While not much has been disclosed about the bike, it probably will be based on the Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) parallel hybrid technology used successfully in Honda’s hybrid cars.

Likewise, Yamaha could launch a hybrid motorcycle as early as 2010. A few years ago, it unveiled its Gen-Ryu High-performance Hybrid Motorcycle prototype. Here, a lightweight and compact YZF-R6 600cc engine was combined with a high output, high efficiency electric motor to provide performance and handling similar to a 1,000cc class machine.

Interestingly, Yamaha developed a hydraulic drive motorcycle that it entered in the 2004 Paris to Dakar off-road race. While the rear wheel was driven conventionally, the front one was powered hydraulically. Called 2-Trac, it used a chain-driven hydraulic pump located on top of the gearbox to produce high pressure, which was delivered via high pressure hoses to a hydraulic hub motor in the front wheel.