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DARPA Develops Stealth Motorcycle For US Special Forces
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: "Allen McDuffee reports that DARPA is developing a hybrid-powered motorcycle to soundlessly penetrate remote areas and execute complex, lightning-fast raids. The idea is to develop a hybrid power system that relies on both electric and gas power, allowing special ops to go off-road and zip past enemy forces with the silence of an electric engine, while also being able to handle extended missions and higher speeds with a supplemental gas tank. Logos Technologies plans to fit its quieted, multifuel hybrid-electric power system with an all-electric bike from San Francisco-based manufacturer BRD Motorcycles that uses an existing racing bike, the RedShift MX, a 250-pound all-electric moto that retails for $15,000. The RedShift MX has a two-hour range, but will be extended with a gas tank the size of which will be determined by the military in the research period. The focus on the electric element suggests that DARPA is more concerned with the stealthiness of the motorcycle than it is efficiency."
Elon Musk already has one that goes twice as fast for ten times the distance and it's invisible too. He's just waiting for the right time to announce it so people don't think he's a publicity seeking twat.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"DARPA Developers Steal Motorcycle From US Special Forces" :)
Knew my name, let it slip I had, I had, all it took, took it all!
been done.
Does it come with a heads up display?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
the sound of the tires rolling on the ground, the sound of the chain & sprockets, the electric motor will have a little noise too,
at least it wont sound like these fags: http://www.southparkstudios.co...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
The focus on the electric element suggests that DARPA is more concerned with the stealthiness of the motorcycle than it is efficiency
Wha? Electric motors are way more efficient than IC engines (90%+ vs. 25%), so having an electric drive makes this more efficient. Stealthiness also follows from efficiency - sound is energy, so a lot of sound is an indication of an unnecessary waste of energy.
Add some mini rockets and machine guns, and you've created the MegaForce
Not very stealthy against a fishing line on the ground, anyway.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Megaforce:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...
Makes me wonder if some ones been watching MegaForce. Now if only they'd make that dune buggy with the friggin laser beam on it.
Imagining those guys doing a raid, and then popping wheelies on the way out.
But the higher cost of such a vehicle cuts into possible savings due to fuel efficiency. Places where fuel costs are high, say India, capital to buy more expensive motorcycles is scarce. Still I expect this configuration come out of China, India, and other scooter/ motorcycle/ moped dominated markets of South Asia. Not DARPA.
I heard about an innovative financing of solar panels for such capital scarce regions. Instead of trying to sell the panels to the customers, they try to rent it or sell only the electricity to the customers. So people look at it as so many nyra/rupee/dinar per month instead of total cost to buy it out right. It was an NPR report from couple of years ago. Not much news about it since. So it must have died soon after the report.
It is so illogical and insane it is so frustrating. The world capital markets are sloshing around with some 2 or 3 trillion dollars in cash. They don't find opportunities worth investing. At the same time converting free solar energy into usable form of electricity is deemed unviable because the capital costs are high. The only cost for solar and wind energy is the amortization and debt service. There is no more recurring expenses like buying coal or natural gas.
If you believe in free markets, Adam Smith and invisible hand of the markets, at least a few billion dollars will flow from these capital market to projects of solar energy and efficient hybrid motor cycles and pure electric mopeds. But the pundits of Wall Street keep saying the investment is not worth it. Mostly people are comparing the average cost of electricity production by solar with that of natural gas or coal. But Solar energy production peak comes close to peak electricity demand and peak spot price of electricity. Still it is not worth it?
May be if we link the western grid with the eastern grid and couple peak demand of eastern seaboard demand at 4 to 6 pm with peak production in Arizona may be it would become more profitable? Don't know.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I want a pedal/electric street legal hybrid motorcycle which I can drive on the freeway to work.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
You forgot that the Musk Bikes are so light they practically FLY !
includes the the kitchen sink & solar powered appliances,,, one ensembler can 3 hot & a cot 100s of starving infants per day for less (99%) than the cost of 1 guaranteed fatal WMD on credit cabal missile... more (r)evolutionary advances from mom almighty.... what a gig
They do have the "black helicopters" that fly almost soundless, by using noise cancelling devices, essentially loudspeakers that emit sounds that cancel out the rotor / engine noise.
They could do that for the bikes as well. Plus, I doubt they will use "chain" on these bikes.
on the runway at jfk? everbody knows baby's got new clothes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F8QM3tjkTE
..and you end up with a Razorback straight out of Suarez' Daemon.
http://jamie3d.com/razorback
our genuine history & heritage remains unvisible yet today http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=unrepentant&sm=3
It is so illogical and insane it is so frustrating. The world capital markets are sloshing around with some 2 or 3 trillion dollars in cash. They don't find opportunities worth investing. At the same time converting free solar energy into usable form of electricity is deemed unviable because the capital costs are high. The only cost for solar and wind energy is the amortization and debt service. There is no more recurring expenses like buying coal or natural gas. ...
If you believe in free markets, Adam Smith and invisible hand of the markets, at least a few billion dollars will flow from these capital market to projects of solar energy and efficient hybrid motor cycles and pure electric mopeds. But the pundits of Wall Street keep saying the investment is not worth it.
That huge pool of capital is privately held. They're not just looking for things to spend it on - they're looking to spend it on things that MAKE MONEY.
Sure, the people of India could use solar panels. However, they don't have money to spend, so this huge pool of capital isn't going to do a thing for them. The only reason it would get spent on panels is if they could produce electricity cheaper than what the Indians are already paying, or if the Indians were willing to pay more for the privilege of not having brownouts when it gets hot out.
People used to have $30/month cell phone plans with freebie phones. Now they're willing to spend $100/month on a plan and $200 for the phone as long as it has a touchscreen and internet access. As a result gobs of money get spent on making fancy phones. Sure, the first company to do it took a much bigger risk, but the risk to the follow-ons is from the competition, not the uncertainty of the market. Companies didn't just decide to spend lots of money on smartphones to be charitable - people are spending a lot MORE money than they used to on phones, and the investment is chasing that money.
This sort of issue isn't limited to India. The US has crumbling bridges all over the place, and yet is the home of that huge capital pool you speak of. However, not a dime of that money is going to get spent on fixing bridges, unless people decide that they're willing to pay a toll to cross every little creek in their town just for a bit more assurance that the bridge won't collapse under them.
The only way this pool of money is going to get spent on projects that have no likelihood of return is if somebody taxes it and just spends it (not caring about there being a profit).
The Saltville PD in SW Virginia has just started using a fully electric motorcycle to patrol areas where miscreants are likely to hear traditional vehicles approaching, in order to better apprehend them.
Saltville PD running electric motorcycle
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
The Forbes guy says the cost reduction is largely due to subsidies and incentives. But he also says we need to worry about depletion of silicon too like worrying about depletion of fossil fuels.
Also, Clean Tech supporters often assert that the point of competitiveness will be accelerated because conventional energy prices must rise, primarily because of depletion of fossil fuel resources. But they don’t seem to think that the depletion of silicon needed to make photovoltaic cells; depletion matters, but the rate of depletion is often exaggerated.
. This guy says depletion of fossil fuel is over estimated and depletion of silicon is something to worry about. This genius does not seem to understand half the mass of planet Earth is silicon! Silicon dioxide is sand/earth/mud/rock. Of course it costs tons of money, energy and effort to separate silicon from sand. But we are not going to run out of silicon before we run out of fossil fuels. And the capital markets will listen to this Einstein because he writes for Forbes. Not to you and me because we are Dilberts who work a wage and write in Slashdot. Eventually solar will become cost effective, and there will be a mad rush into it. This is how booma and busts are created, methinks.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I want a pedal/electric street legal hybrid motorcycle which I can drive on the freeway to work.
Mixing the words "pedal" and "freeway" will allow you to get to the morgue efficiently, not work.
Besides, I owned a pedal-augmented moped 30+ years ago. Pedal to start it, pedal if you ran out of gas, otherwise 35 - 40MPH top speed and 100MPG. They've been around for a very long time. Your demands are too high.
Hugh Pickens dot Com comes up with last week's news!
I tend to agree that its time will come, and I'm fully supportive of public R&D to make it happen. But, the difference between an iPad and a Newton is timing, and Wall Street is probably concerned about that.
Clearly there is no fundamental limitation on the supply of silicon - it is only about the cost to refine it/etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Mostly random stuff.
There are 2 or 3 companies that use that "innovative financing model" in the US, one of which is SolarCity, run by Elon Musk. It's not dead, not at all, but it seems to still rely on a functioning grid (they make the most money by selling excess energy to the grid while people are at work and then when people are at home or at night they pull from the grid, so no need for expensive batteries).
As long as they give a demo model to Anne Hathaway, it's a win for everybody.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REeeYtp-8qE
Do THIS with a conventional internal combustion engine!
Electric power allows instant on/off, and not frying your leg on a hot exhaust.
Finally! A hybrid vehicle that conservatives can believe in!
Shut up and take my money already!
My rights don't need management.
Back in my day, that thing would've cost $500 per bolt, minimum.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
All I heard is a lot if shrieking with a crescendo of "DON'T LIKE WHAT I DON'T LIKE!!!1oneone!"
That huge pool of capital is privately held. They're not just looking for things to spend it on - they're looking to spend it on things that MAKE MONEY.
And have zero risk.
Following the collapse of the CDO market in '07, they don't have many good places to dump the high risk tranches of investment risk. And now, with the Federal Reserve backing out of their quantitative easing role, what's a wealthy capitalist to do?
Keep in mind that the biggest, most evil capitalists who are seeking guaranteed high returns aren't a bunch of fat capitalists. They are outfits like CalPERS, who absolutely must protect the pensions of their clients with all the political clout they can muster. Financial markets are now geared up to do their bidding. Screw the little guy who needs funding to run a business.
Have gnu, will travel.
I'm not saying a hybrid electric motorcycle is bad, but I wonder if they've really done the due diligence necessary to completely write-off the internal combustion engine? A decade ago I had a Honda VTX 1800, which had a 1795cc V-Twin on it, and with the stock pipes it was *unbelievably* quiet. Other bikers - proponents of the "loud pipes save lives" school of thought - would warn me that I should swap out the pipes to make more noise lest I get killed by some inattentive automobile driver. I'm sure an electric bike can be very quiet - but with current muffler and noise cancellation technology, I wonder if they could achieve the same results with lower cost / less complexity / higher reliability than the proposed hybrid electric.
Fortunately, that is not true. Solar adoption is increasing very rapidly. From an article 6 months ago:
Yes, it will still take a while to make a real dent in the world's huge energy demands, but doubling every few years is pretty impressive!
seems like the way to go. The car will have limited (single hop) range, but could recharge itself while parked. Since the engine is small and running just to drive a generator, it can be very light and efficient. Not big enough to push a car, but big enough to charge the batteries over several hours.
US has a reliable grid and the utility companies are flush with cash fighting to protect their entrenched interests. The PBS report was about places like Nigeria, Libya, rural India, rural Pakistan, and such places. There is no grid or the grid is not all that reliable. There there is real demand for electricity and lack of capital. They are mostly using portable gas generators. Solar easily competes with them. But the large scale adaptation is lacking because of lack of capital and investments.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Gasoline Tanks make great targets !
Ha ha.
"Hay dip shit ! Your safety's on."
No credibility.
motor probably built into the hub of the rear wheel eliminating drive chains/shaft
Bad idea, actually, would increase unsprung mass, greatly affecting the handling of the bike in general, and it would also limit the physical size and dimensions of the motor itself. Better to use shaft drive and have the motor close to the center of mass of the bike, which would also keep it closer to the power source and control electronics.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
That huge pool of capital is privately held. They're not just looking for things to spend it on - they're looking to spend it on things that MAKE MONEY.
And have zero risk.
Following the collapse of the CDO market in '07, they don't have many good places to dump the high risk tranches of investment risk. And now, with the Federal Reserve backing out of their quantitative easing role, what's a wealthy capitalist to do?
Keep in mind that the biggest, most evil capitalists who are seeking guaranteed high returns aren't a bunch of fat capitalists. They are outfits like CalPERS, who absolutely must protect the pensions of their clients with all the political clout they can muster. Financial markets are now geared up to do their bidding. Screw the little guy who needs funding to run a business.
Understood, but I think the last thing we as a society ought to do is have economic policies that encourage people with wealth to just park it somewhere so that they can get free money. That includes pension funds - those funding them can either not promise pensions in the first place, or they can actually put enough money into the fund to pay for them.
I'm actually not a big fan of pensions in the first place. It isn't that I don't like the concept. What I dislike about them is that employees treat them like compensation and take a job that perhaps pays less now for the promise of a future pension. However, that pension isn't owned by them or managed by them, and if the company breaks its side of the deal the employee has no recourse. I'd be fine with pensions if companies didn't advertise the future value at all, but only the present contribution, and that those contributions went into a fund which was completely owned by the employee and not considered a company asset in the event of a bankruptcy. Then employees and their employers would be even at the issue of each paycheck, with neither side ever at risk of losing more than a few weeks worth of compensation in the event of a problem. I'd also forbid contributions to be based on years of service, because that encourages employees to accept less now in the hope of getting more later, when the company could very well go back on the deal.
The reason that state pensions want free money is that they've been promising fortunes to their employees for years, and as the bills come closer to being due they don't want to pay for them. If they had to pay in full each payday so that there was no future obligation, then there would be no problem. Employees would know exactly how much or little they're being paid, and employers would have to pay an honest wage to retain employees and not benefit from deception.
Modern car diesels are just under 40% efficient. The biggest diesel ship engines can just make 50% efficiency.
The current Prius petrol engine is 38.5% and the next model will be over 40%. Petrol engines are making good progress in efficiency, diesel engines less so.
You may laugh at the Prius but there's a 30% loss in mechanical -> electrical -> mechanical conversions, which is why the Prius will run directly from the IC when it makes sense to do so and load level the IC other times. Most of the complexity of a Prius is in the smarts, the mechanicals aren't terribly complex, the IC has no belts, no starter motor and the gearbox is a simple but rugged planetary gearset. "Don't do in hardware what can be done in software". Prius'sesses are reliable and get great fuel efficiency, can't laugh at those numbers.
Series hybrids are less petrol efficient at the wheels because there's always a double conversion of energy, but they can make savings if the battery is charged at home. Series, parallel, whatever, it's all steps towards no IC. Yay.
Especially on an off-road vehicle, you probably want to keep the electric motor on the frame and couple it to the wheel to avoid raising the unsprung mass.
The primary cost of transitioning to solar energy to power even a mid-size municipality is the distribution infrastructure needed to deliver the power. Do you build an entirely new power distribution grid or work with the existing utility providers to modify an existing grid? Would you need to run parallel distribution systems while transitioning to a different power source? Slapping a few solar panels on your roof is one thing. But using an large solar farms to collect energy for wide spread usage is another. The transition to electric vehicles is slow going because of the lack of charging infrastructure. You will need to run parallel distribution systems to satisfy both the new electric cars and the current fuel delivery infrastructure.
Your demands are too high.
Its the 21st century. Lets try some re-engineering.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Some good ideas. But keep in mind that in places like California, public employees represent a significant voting block. So anything you might propose to clean the system up will just get voted down.
Have gnu, will travel.
Some good ideas. But keep in mind that in places like California, public employees represent a significant voting block. So anything you might propose to clean the system up will just get voted down.
Something like this would only benefit public employees. Right now they work for the promise of a pension, which it seems fairly likely the next generation will simply refuse to pay them. What incentive do they have to uphold the deal the previous generation made?
What I propose is to replace the current form of pensions with one where the money is paid out immediately to employees in accounts they own, but which are likely treated like 401ks/etc as far as access goes. That means that there is no promise for anybody else to keep.
It is possible that the amount of the "pensions" will go down, because it is easy to promise big money to somebody when you know you won't be the one having to come up with it in 30 years. However, unlike the promises currently being handed out to public-sector employees, they can actually take the new pensions to the bank.
But, I agree that change will be unlikely to happen. Instead public employees will fight hard to keep their current pensions, and then the next generation will just have municipalities declare bankruptcy and refuse to pay up. Courts have already upheld the right of municipal governments to do this, and when they do those promises are as worthless as those made by private corporations.
There was nothing about radar-absorbing paint. So much for the civilian market.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Battery powered motorcycles make a lot of sense for general consumers, if the price is right. Most of the disadvantages that keep people from buying all-electric cars don't come into play with motorcycles, especially when they are a 2d vehicle.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
We could do with less nutjobs calling themselves Christians predicting that Obama will bring about the end times. So the quicker Chuck fades to black the better for regular, non crazy Christians.
What the actual fuck? This person is mentally ill. Also, the person I am replying to.