New hydrogen-powered motorcycles are starting to appear on the scene. They are quiet, very quiet. I have always found overly-load exhause pipes annoying, and I found another article supporting this.

My neighbors have his-and-her Harleys. Their [grown] son has a 1969 Camero that’s been tricked-up. When they start them and rev them up at 11:00 at night, it frequently wakes the whole house up. The kids come into our room not really knowing what woke them up (well, maybe the 8-year old does now) but being scared by whatever woke them up.

This noise pollution issue has been in the back of my mind since I moved into this house. I am also considerate of gas mileage these days. My truck gets about 17 mpg and my Honda Odessey gets about 19 mpg. I’m all for whatever will make my gasoline bill less expensive. I hardly drive anymore since I work from home, and all the miles go on the Honda.

So I find this blog entry referencing an article from USA Today. The scooters will initially go for around $6,000 US, which is cool. However, it will only have about 8 hp and go up to 50 miles per hour. Definitely not cool. It will cost about $3 US to fill up the “tank”, which is really a fuel cell. That will be good for about 100 miles. It runs on hydrogen, which as long as it doesn’t blow up Hinderberg-style, is cool. If you equate a pretty efficient scooter with this fuel-cell one, the fuel economy is probably a little bit better on the hydro one, but not radically so.

But it is quiet.
They say it is as quiet as riding a horse.
I hope it smells better than a horse.

This is still hydro-carb energy though. It is better than almost anything else we have, but it is still a chemical or electrical-based energy conversion. (Tim, you should comment on this.)

Not much of the above supports my thesis that loud pipes are annoying, but that is ok. I am getting to it.

A complaint about the ultra-quiet scooter is that it will be less safe because of being too quiet and not noticable due to its scooter size. I say that if it is only going 50 mph, it should not be in my way anyway. However, I have a major problem with the Load Pipes Saves Lives! slogan. I love the quote from
Virginia Wind article where it says

it may make a great tee shirt slogan, but is ability to hold water is about equal to that of the tee shirt it’s printed on

Since I love T-shirt slogans, I found this to be very funny.

The Virginia Wind article speaks for itself. It may not be up to my writing standards, but then again, neither am I.

If they can get a fuel-cell powered bike that have 40 hp or so, goes 90 or so, then I might consider getting on, safety issues or not. I just like the idea of going 100 miles for $3 dollars. It will probably be less once a hydrogen economy develops.