Toward a Hybrid motorcycle

I was all excited about the Piaggio hybrid MP3 until the specs came out. Seems like the same lesson learned by the 4-wheel hybrid rush of a few years ago: If the gas milage and performance aren't significantly BETTER than the gas only counterpart, people won't buy 'em. Wonder who will be the first to apply the new plug in model to the hybrid motorcycle -- namely -- high performance electric motor with a range extending gas engine.


Unhitching the ICE engine from the drivetrain allows for it to be optimized for recharging batteries. Meanwhile, the lightweight, high performance electric motor can drive the wheels. Keep the overall weight down (by using the ICE range extender instead of batteries) and you could have a fun, economic commuter that  doesn't use ANY gas for most in-city trips. 


The big challenge is that there are plenty of scooters that already get over 100 mpg on gas alone. My mom's old Honda SuperCub (Passport) could do it 30 years ago. So two-wheelers have a much higher road to climb to make the switch to hybrid power economical. The other problem is that -- like cars -- the increasing range and performance electric only power is making hybrids unnecessary. With production electric motorcycles exceeding 100 miles on a charge, it is a wonder that Piaggio doesn't just come out with an electric-only MP3. If the specs were right, I'd buy one.  
Links: Hell for Leather: Hybrid Mp3 Grows Up | Piaggio USA

The Launch Pad

Here's the new launch pad at Dun Elsie. This is an area with our cell phones and a place to put anything we don't want to forget to take out the door with us when we go.

This is the culmination of a long term project that I've been working on for over a year. As you can see we have our cell phones on two Touchstone wireless chargers and our kitchen phone all in the same place. This way if something rings, you always go to the same place.

Also, cell reception is lousy in our house other than in the kitchen by this wall.

You walk in the door, put your phone down on the charger and it magnetically "sticks" and starts charging.

The launch pad itself is just a simple corner shelf with the power cords to the charging bases hidden in a tiny gap. The cords themselves go through a small hole drilled into the cabinet you see on the left, where they plug into a powerstrip.

The result is -- even up close you see no cords at all. Pretty nifty!

The power strip lives in the charging cabinet which I created to charge all of our electronic devices out of sight, without any visible tangle of cords.

The girls' DS games, the electric toothbrush base and other devices can be charged in the cabinet and easily found when preparing to head out on a road trip.

I also have my watch and change catcher, as well as cases in the charger cabinet so that everything is centralized.

More information on the charger cabinet. I needed a pantry for our kitchen when we were fixing up our kitchen but all the ones I could find were too expensive or two feet deep. Instead I took three wall cabinets and attached them to the wall one on top of each other. At the base I installed four bun feet simply screwed into the base cabinet and finished with tounge oil. This cabinet works out great and actually cost less to construct that many of the pre-fab pantries.

The small middle cabinet was planned from the begining as a charger cabinet and has a hole cut into the back to allow access to the wall outlet before it was hung. Works great!

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Zep'lin by Renault

In my latest them of cool things in the air -- this is a design project by the Renault autogroup. Solar powered airship. Very cool.