The world of personal transport began with the horse. The American cowboy became an icon and a movie myth shrouded in historical inaccuracy. We still love the idea though even if the reality was a long hard day in the saddle with both horse and rider wishing for an easier life. It was, of course, better than walking.
The age of coal replaced the horse with steam-driven mechanical transport. Although there were a few steam-driven motorcycles they, like the car, were not very successful and the era of steam was marked by the train. The train changed the world and made long distance travel a reality. The desire for individual transport was still there, and it came to pass with the discovery of mineral or ‘crude’, oil left by the plants of the carboniferous period in earth’s history.
At first refined crude found a market to replace whale oil in lamps, but soon its ability to provide propulsion in an internal combustion engine showed its real potential. Early oil deposits were found in North America and the USA quickly began to dominate the world economy as the global demand for oil increased.
The USA also began to dominate the business world as its new-found wealth created entrepreneurs and manufacturers keen to exploit the opportunities that these new distillates offered. Petroleum, or gasoline as it is often called was an ideal fuel for light transport units as well as tractors and other agricultural machinery. In the US the term gasoline was generally shortened to ‘gas’, in other countries petroleum shortened to ‘petrol’. Whatever you call it, it changed the world, more so than coal.
At first both cars and motorcycles were the plaything of the rich. Once again the USA led the way. Whilst the governments of Europe began to move towards workers rights and away from the exploitation and child labour that had created the wealth, in the USA it was an industrialist that changed the model. Henry Ford understood that making toys for the rich would not be a long term sustainable economic model. There were only so many rich people to sell the toys to.
Ford understood that to sell in volume the workforce had to be able to buy the industrial output. This called for two things; mass production with low unit cost of labour and a workforce paid enough to buy the output of the factory. Henry Ford was no socialist, his thinking was about how to make profit and to build what we now call consumerism. The model T Ford car entered production in 1908 and was affordable to the newly emerging middle class of educated workers. Some five years earlier the US icon Harley-Davidson had entered the motorcycle market first as an engine builder and then going on to build their first factory in 1906. 1907 production was just 150 bikes.
The world was in chaos back in Europe and tensions between imperial rivals came to a head in 1914 resulting in the first World War. The new technologies of mass production and the petroleum based internal combustion engine were quickly adopted in the war effort and the motorcycle was seen as a superior method of moving information than the horse. The motorcycle dispatch rider was born, and European motorcycle manufacturers geared up to take advantage of the circumstances. In Britain the Triumph motorcycle company build some 30,000 motorcycles for the war effort. When the US entered the war Harley produced the model J for the military which bought some 20,000 of the green painted bikes.
So far we have been lucky and there has been no third world war. The motorcycle market has largely followed the economic fortunes and trends of the countries where bikes are sold. The USA became an economic powerhouse with its world dominance of the oil market. Harley became a leading brand as the world bought into this US-centred view. The mythology of freedom and the so-called ‘American Dream’ were embodied in the brand. The cost of petroleum was cheap, and the big engine became the feature of both bikes and cars in the US. Meantime in Europe the smaller bikes were slowly being replaced by small cheap cars. The British bike industry saw a future in high performance leisure vehicles; the Triumph Bonneville, Norton Commando. The Italian market saw performance bikes from Laverda and Ducati. This is still – more or less – the current ‘big’ motorcycle market, although the bikes now are Japanese rather than American or European. One change is the steady decline of Harley as its user base ages and younger riders look to cheaper and better brands.
In Europe and the US younger people are moving away from motorcycles as road congestion gets worse and cars are seen as a much safer option. Bikes are still a somewhat cheaper vehicle but insurance costs are significant and for young riders this is a major barrier to getting the first real bike. Small bikes (50-125cc engines) for learners are usually just ridden until a car licence can be obtained, if they are ridden at all. The European baby boomers, like their US equivalent, are getting older and less inclined to have a motorcycle. European housing is expensive and fewer houses have the garage and space for a bike. Leaving an expensive bike out in the weather doesn’t improve the desire to own one.
Certainly not. It might feel that way at times, but there are some really important facts to bear in mind. If we include the smaller commuter bikes then in global sales bikes outsell cars. More two-wheelers are made and sold than passenger cars. More people in the world today ride a motorbike than drive a car. Motorcycles still represent a cheap and effective form of transport for ordinary people and are the world's most accessible form of individual transport. Bikes do not have the issues of congestion that cars do, they need fewer roads and less fuel. They remain as brilliant an invention today as they did in 1880. Perhaps even more important, bikes are fun. Cars are boring tin boxes and getting ever more boring as technology advances.
The world has moved from biological power, through coal power and to oil. The new change, happening right now in real time, is to electricity and to the generation of electricity from renewable sources. This change is one of the most significant our species has experienced, at least on a par with the industrial revolution. Energy is soon to become so cheap that it will no longer be the factor of consideration for the economy. Like all paradigm shifts it is being resisted, but the change is real. Solar and wind generated electricity are getting cheaper year-on-year and are already about half the price of electricity generated by fossil fuels.
In the world of passenger cars and goods vehicles, electricity is becoming the clear winner. The cost saving over oil based liquid hydrocarbon fuel is significant, both in fuel and in maintenance costs. Despite all the attempts of the oil industry and the politicians that it pays for, the end user is adopting electric powered transport at a fast pace. New brands are displacing the old companies. Companies like Tesla are looking to displace Ford as the face of US car manufacturing.
Part of this process is the relentless growth of China as the world’s manufacturing nation. Both the USA and Europe are falling behind as their political and economic model is superseded. Understandably this causes tension both in the population and the big companies of North America and Europe, but it is accompanied by Chinese investment in manufacturing in the global North. In Germany Volkswagen is in talks to sell manufacturing capacity to a Chinese company, in the UK Nissan is also in talks. The car industry has being making deals of this type for many years to get around government restrictions and tariffs.
Are electric bikes about to make the same breakthrough as cars? Maybe not. Not big leisure bikes anyway. The newest development is the Honda WN7. It is expensive and has only a modest range. Waiting in the wings are the Triumph TE-1 and the Ducati V21L, both superb sports bikes, both needing new battery technology to give them the range needed to going mainstream.
Cars already have the range and cost advantage. In the truck market the Tesla semi has a lower operating cost than the diesel equivalent. In China the BYD semi is a market leader and China is quickly moving from diesel to electric for the majority of its trucking operations. These four (or more) wheeled machines can use regenerative brake systems to recapture the kinetic energy when slowing down and return it to the battery. Bikes power the rear wheel and brake on the front. It is much harder to capture that energy and the electricity it provides.
Although the Chinese are the world leaders in electric vehicles by a long way the US company Tesla is still a major player. The Tesla company has a marketing strategy that – so far – the Chinese companies have not followed. Tesla is integrating car ownership into household power provision as part of a package that ties the consumer into their brand. To do this Tesla offer a battery pack, the Tesla wall, that allows the consumer to store electricity. Thus, you can buy electricity when it is cheap and use it at peak time, when it is expensive. The company also offers packages that include solar panels (photovoltaics, aka PVs) to generate on-site electricity. The next idea in this development is to buy back the computing power of the car. The consumer rents out the car’s AI capability back to Tesla [Webmaster's note: I'll believe that when I see it.] to set against the cost of buying electricity (if you cannot generate it from the PV yourself).
So let's just think about this for a minute. For the end user a domestic car can store electricity and act as a battery for the house at the same time as it generates revenue ‘selling’ its IT capability. The sporadic nature of renewable energy – solar in the daytime only for example – is smoothed out by all the cars plugged into the grid and all the home batteries. The cost of car ownership is offset by a huge saving on domestic electricity and further by renting out the car’s IT. If you buy into this concept then the cost both of the car and the household electricity move very close to zero.
The average American spends something like 30 percent of their income on car ownership. For Europeans, it is 15-30 %.
The electric revolution in personal transport will change the disposable income of hundreds of millions of people in a positive way. Sadly many of the poor will be left behind, and the existing inequalities will get even larger. That said the PV may be a feature of a lot of trailer parks in the near future. PV prices are falling almost as fast as the technology is improving. A small battery can pretty much take you off grid altogether if you live somewhere with enough sunshine.
Bikes will not have a big enough battery any time soon that these advantages will be gained by bike owners. But most of us have a car as well. Less money on the car frees up money for a bike (or two). Charging a bike for free at home will be a welcome cost saving if we can ever get round the range problem at a price that makes an electric bike sensible.
Meantime it is dirt bikes that lead the way. This is just the start.