[quote]The ministry cited as an example Penghu, a popular tourist destination, saying that the island added 3,430 new electric motorcycles from 2011 to 2013, which meant that one out of every two newly registered motorcycles in Penghu was an electric model.
The ministry said that 50cc and 80cc models are popular with elderly motorists or tourists on outlying islands like Penghu.
The ministry said it would encourage the motorcycle manufacturing industry to develop larger-sized 100cc and 125cc models to help electric motorcycle makers penetrate the mainstream market and boost the use of the energy-efficient vehicles …[/quote]
Completely agree, they should try implementing the use of electric vehicles … but to my knowledge, these vehicles have no engine that can called 50cc, 80cc or other cc. Maybe I don’t understand, but building more gasoline burning scooters does not encourage buying of electric vehicles.
Yup, the ignorance about these machines is pretty irritating. Hard to tell if it’s the government coming out with these silly statements, or the reporter/editor dumbing it down on the basis that, if a journalist doesn’t understand what a kilowatt is, their readership won’t either.
Pretty awesome that Pengu is giving up gasoline engines though. I can’t understand why other don’t follow suit - it’s the obvious solution for a geographically-vulnerable island that may be cut off from fuel supplies at any moment. This actually happened to me on Orchid Island: with one (count 'em, one) petrol station, which first broke down and was then half-destroyed after a typhoon, it was complete chaos. Couple of hundred square meters of solar panels instead, and life would be a whole lot easier.
Going to guess they are using equivalent power/performance as a guideline and not going into details so as to not confuse the public (and in doing so, confusing the public). Electric scooters are somewhat slow…
Pretty much. I worked in the news for almost four years (though not at TT), and basically just like most other businesses in Taiwan, people pa mafan and are far too willing to embrace chabuduoism.
The thing about Electric vehicles is that, since the engine doesn’t have displacement, they are referred to by the power output.
However, the power output from an electric motor is measured by the constant power output they’re able to give, whereas the internal combustion engines are measured by the peak power at a certain RPM (best case scenario). There are also big differences in the torque they’re able to give.
And of course, the chabuduo-friendly journalist didn’t even bother to google the terms and learn a little bit about the issues. Had he done that, he could have educated his readers a little bit.
Oh, hmm, I know this reporter, and she’s usually pretty thorough and has a great understanding of economics and finance in both languages. I wonder if she slipped up, was under unreasonable time pressures, or this is actually a legitimate way to measure motorcycles.
My guess is that this has to do with categorization, since licenses are needed for scooters above 50cc and special licenses for motorcycles above 150cc (or was it 125?). Probably this problem could be fixed by writing “50cc-equivalent.”
Unfortunately, as Blaquesmith said, that doesn’t work. The torque curve for an electric motor is so completely different to an ICE that equivalences don’t make much sense. A 2kW motor has a lot more grunt than a 50cc engine, especially at low speeds, even though the 50cc engine might have a rated (peak) output of 2kW. I think if more of the general public understood what electric vehicles ‘feel like’, they’d be a lot more appealing.
It could well be an issue of stupid government categorization - if so, they really need to invent some new ones. It can’t be that difficult.
[quote=“Hokwongwei”]Oh, hmm, I know this reporter, and she’s usually pretty thorough and has a great understanding of economics and finance in both languages. I wonder if she slipped up, was under unreasonable time pressures, or this is actually a legitimate way to measure motorcycles.
My guess is that this has to do with categorization, since licenses are needed for scooters above 50cc and special licenses for motorcycles above 150cc (or was it 125?). Probably this problem could be fixed by writing “50cc-equivalent.”[/quote]
Actually it’s over 49cc (could be 50cc), over 249cc (could be 250cc), over 400cc I believe if you first drive a heavy motorcycle.
In Europe they added Kw to the displacement. static.piaggio.com/riding_licens … gio_EN.htm
KW ratings have always been there - they refer to peak engine power, not electric motors. The engine plate by law shows kW as well as displacement.
An 11kW motor on a 125cc-sized frame would have the same top speed as a petrol-engined 125 (about 90kph), but general performance (acceleration and responsiveness) would be similar to a 400cc ICE at city speeds.
Exactly. In all the cars I owned previously in Europe, the power was stated in both CV (HP) and KW in all the documents. Same thing for my bike. But all that is peak power, not the sustained power output they are able to keep for extended periods of time (much less at low speed, specially for small engines).
Another weird thing is how most 125cc bikes sold in Spain have 15CV of power, which is the maximum the Spanish law allows a 125cc to have, but the exact same bikes here (many Kymco or SYM scooters, for example) are capped to 9-9,5 CV. But I guess that has to do with some weird taiwanese law or custom I’m not aware of.
Curious thing is, I was checking into the regulations for electric vehicles in Taiwan, and how difficult would it be to import one, which kind of license would be needed, etc. It seems any electric motorcycle, regardless of the engine’s power, can’t be considered “big” bike, and can’t have a red license plate. They cap a yellow plate. Now, that’s not a big difference, since it’s still not completely clear if the red plates are allowed into the highways or not, but on the other side of things, they are allowing motorcycles with much more torque and power to be driven by unprepared people.
The people at the DMV had ONE job. And they botch it every time.
Then again, I’d love to get my hands on one of these. I saw them in real life, and the humming sound of the engine (like a jet engine with a muffler) won me immediately. zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/specs.php
Blaque, requirements for yellow plate bikes and red plate ones are the same: if you can legally ride one thing, you can also ride the other. The claimed horsepower for a Wolf 125cc classic is 14 - 15 hp. HP can be meassured at clutch or rear wheel, being the latter smaller. May be that could explain some differences in the numbers, but I’m not sure…
Then again, I’d love to get my hands on one of these. I saw them in real life, and the humming sound of the engine (like a jet engine with a muffler) won me immediately. zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/specs.php[/quote]
The benefits of yellow and red plate bikes are the same but the requirements are very different for getting licensed. A red plate license involves big bucks (relative term) and I think an actual driving school.
[quote=“Abacus”]
The benefits of yellow and red plate bikes are the same but the requirements are very different for getting licensed. A red plate license involves big bucks (relative term) and I think an actual driving school.[/quote]
AFAIK it’s the same. You need to take the “special” course and test for riding any of them. If you have first hand info for the yellow plate, please share.
[quote=“jesus80”][quote=“Abacus”]
The benefits of yellow and red plate bikes are the same but the requirements are very different for getting licensed. A red plate license involves big bucks (relative term) and I think an actual driving school.[/quote]
AFAIK it’s the same. You need to take the “special” course and test for riding any of them. If you have first hand info for the yellow plate, please share.[/quote]
In theory, weren’t the red plates supposed to be “above 550cc” and thus, eligible for entering the highways? I heard they wanted to allow it, then backpedaled, then wanted to allow it again, and so on.
Sure thing, I think that’s true in all Europe. I’ve done a 250Km trip on highway in Spain with my 125cc bike, almost all the time between 90-100 Km/h, and as long as the bike can stand it, you can do it. The only bikes not allowed into highways are the 50cc ones that can’t drive at 60Km/h (half the speed of the highway, which is the minimum velocity to use them).
AFAIK it’s still illegal to take a 125 onto a UK motorway, but back in the day they were restricted to 8kW (practically speaking, ~50mph, which is too slow to keep up with traffic). Possibly this regulation is now harmonized with Europe?
No. Every motorcycle (not sure about greens, actually) can enter highways, well, the PROVINCIAL highways. The (un)famous Number 9 (BeiYi) is a highway and I’ve been riding it with all the bikes that I have had.
What you mean is “expressways”, and they used to be opened to only cars and red plates. However, if I not wrong, this has changed and also yellow plates can take these roads. The problem, I believe, is that some boards are old so you can still see some of these signals that have written on them “>= 550cc”. But again, I believe that these boards are outdated. Well, I might be wrong as well. But the test is the same.
Then you have the “Freeways”, which are NATIONAL highways. There have been some rumors about some of these freeways opened experimentally to the bikes in the South, but TBH I don’t think that has ever happened. Will they be opened? it would make a lot of sense, but because there are always lots of traffic accidents, the law changes tend to be slow and conservative.
Oops. Somehow I thought the big test was only for red plate but it’s also for yellow plates. It should be since they largely have the same benefits.
The latest issue for big motorcycles on the tollways is that they don’t have front license plates and they would have to install all new cameras to capture rear (in addition to front) license plates. It doesn’t sound like a big deal but they claim it would cost 1.2B NT which is a waste of money (colossal waste). Seems like it would be easier to give yellow/red plate motorcycles the option to put a large front plate on their motorcycle if they want to use the tollway.
