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Electric car or bike

Does this qualify? The super ‘help my trap’
Just kidding lmao. You have a tesla? if so which model? American's seem to be moving big into the electric car department. I just wonder what the hell the electricity bill would cost to charge them here. Most prolly in the same region as a petrol station. You should also look at the Carbie Car Guys! | Cars, Bikes, Trains & Planes thread
 
No I dont, but I would love one of these for urban driving. I view it as the 1960's beetle for the electric generation.

honda_e_040.jpg
 
Nice question.
I had a long chat with a guy on a first gen Zero - the bike itself was a bit banged up, heavily used and dirty, but the guy said there's no going back to petrol. Maintenance costs were his biggest win - something like R1000 for a new belt every 25,000km and you're done. Plus the brake pads last a lot longer thanks to regen.
After the conversation he proceeded to embarrass me completely from the lights on my KTM 990 - left me like I was going backwards.
 
After the conversation he proceeded to embarrass me completely from the lights on my KTM 990 - left me like I was going backwards.

Yea, I met one in traffic when I was on my SdukeR. It was close-ish. I was behind by maybe a cars length until about 160kph then I went passed.
Met him a few weeks later at the bottle store xD and we had a chat. He owns all sorts of bikes, from the older 1098 ducati to the 1700 Vmax. He actually prefers the "petrol engine" feel of the petrol bikes buts the cost of ownership on his zero was almost nothing so he uses that to ride daily and on breakfast runs and track days he takes one of his petrol bikes out for a spin.

I don't know if I'd like a electric bike. The feel you get from firing up a big meaty engine and it lets you know its a monster is a awesome feeling. Turning a electric bike on and hearing nothing is sorta anticlimactic, Still it will most likely beat most petrol motorcycles out there and then there is obviously those electric superbikes and all those will surpass petrol powered supers.

But oh well, time to move on with the times I guess.
 
Well besides the obvious Maintenance benefits an electric motor has over the petrol equivalent. actually fueling an electric car is much cheaper.
Lets assume, with the Tesla (it's a large family car, comparable to I would say a Jetta in size). it comes with a 50kWh battery and a 360km range.

Benefits of electric, when you not going they don't use energy, so no idling away precious kilometres from the tank while you sit in traffic.
50kWh at say R2.30 per unit of electricy (on the high side) gives you around R115 to "fill the car"

If you take an efficient 1.2T engine in the jetta, real world we would see around 6.5l/100 consumption.
So would use 22.75L to do the same 350km.

At our current fuel price, 22.75 * 15.5R/L = R352.62.

So the Tesla is 3 times cheaper to fill up, even with really high electricity costs. you might even be able to charge your car at work.
 
I rented a Tesla Model 3 when I was in the states last year and it's hand down the best driving experience I've ever had in my life.
I was also weary of missing the roar of the combustion motor, but with so much less moving parts it was replaced by a sense of pure connection between myself and the surface I was driving on.
A pure linear power delivery like no other.



The big win is in how it converts energy to motion.

So while electricity as an energy commodity is not really significantly cheaper than petrol, the electric vehicles converts the energy into motion much more efficiently than petrol/diesel powered vehicles.

Like others mentioned, the maintenance savings are significant as well.

As soon as they are available locally I'll sell whatever kidney or child I have to, to order a Model Y - it's poised to be the perfect vehicle for my requirements.
 
The closest I get is my long term project :p
Have about 1000 18650 cells. And big block GNG Motor. And 1500W continuous controller(mosfets upgradable to stronger and lower RSDon)
 
Thanks for all the answers and comments. Firstly, yes this is the future and as more and more of the mainstream manufacturers start bringing in these modern vehicles, the more we will see on the road.
I do not own a Tesla :-( , I live in Centurion so no one here sells them and even if they did sell them here the stoopid government is still imposing crazy import duties on electric vehicles. I have driven the Model S and X and it was mind blowingly ridiculously awesome. Have made a point of trying to drive electric vehicles and have thus also been in a Nissan Leaf and both the BMW i series.
Really a pity that being at the bleeding edge of technology is so expensive. I am seriously trying to find out how I will finance a BMW i3 but crikey even a good second hand one is R500k plus.
My awesome 2013 4x4 Ford Ranger with fuel forever and services will not cost that much......
 
I am seriously trying to find out how I will finance a BMW i3 but crikey even a good second hand one is R500k plus.
If you have a 2nd ICE car in your household, you can pickup the 60Ah version in the R300K-R370K, just note in the real world you would only get around 100KM range from it though.

I would rather wait it out till 2022 when the VW ID3 is scheduled to launch here, or the new VW e-Up (It got the drive train and battery pack from the current e-Golf)
 
Does a Gravel King Moped count?
 
I would love a Honda e for a car and one of the Zero's for a bike.
But I'm not paying R400k for bike- even if I could afford it.
 
I would love a Honda e for a car and one of the Zero's for a bike.
But I'm not paying R400k for bike- even if I could afford it.

Was really considering getting the Zero while reading this thread, but if it's R400k, fek no!
 
Been looking around for a Zero dealership for a while now but nothing is currently an option.
Some smaller options for zipping around town have popped up though:
Eww those are expensive.

 
So expensive for those electric junk , can get an old R1 for that price😯
At least you know you going to hit a tree head on , you're going to hit that tree head on with dignity!

People will be impressed at your funeral.
 
@ThatGuyJD it appears that Eleksa is no longer around, although there is a guy in Strand CPT that still uses the name and apparently imports components and sells some of those vehicles.
@Spontaneous.Spinach haha ja, but a tree always reduces your riding time - so who cares what people think.
 
@ThatGuyJD it appears that Eleksa is no longer around, although there is a guy in Strand CPT that still uses the name and apparently imports components and sells some of those vehicles.
@Spontaneous.Spinach haha ja, but a tree always reduces your riding time - so who cares what people think.
i like electric, just be careful over these Chinese clones. You could have a bad time
 
@ThatGuyJD it appears that Eleksa is no longer around, although there is a guy in Strand CPT that still uses the name and apparently imports components and sells some of those vehicles.
@Spontaneous.Spinach haha ja, but a tree always reduces your riding time - so who cares what people think.
How do you mean no longer around?

They were at the Pretoria Show over the long weekend.
 
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How do you mean no longer around?

They were at the Pretoria Show over the long weekend.
Wow, ok.
Looked on google and their shop was not there anymore. I tried calling too but numbers were dead.
Thx, good to know.
 
Wow, ok.
Looked on google and their shop was not there anymore. I tried calling too but numbers were dead.
Thx, good to know.
Weird. Wonder what's up there...
 

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