Some of the attractions of a motorcycle are its sights, sounds, and vibrations. You're connected to the thing more so than you are in your average car—supercars aren't average, btw—and you feel as if you're a part of the machine. You're exposed to all those senses, and that's why a lot of us ride. To feel something out of the ordinary.
Yet, in the oncoming electric revolution, the sights may stick around, but the sounds and the little chatter and movement from an internal combustion engine are dead on arrival. EVs don't vibrate. They don't sound like anything outside of the EV motor's whir or the slap of a chain on the bike's sprockets. And the latter may not be around at all, as belts and shafts have been favored by some electric motorcycle manufacturers.
Yamaha, however, doesn't want to lose those quintessential motorcycle attributes when it finally goes electric. The company wants an EV motorcycle that feels and sounds like one powered by ground-up dinosaurs. It wants an EV motorcycle to feel like a motorcycle, which is why it's just patented that very concept.
The patent itself is titled a very innocuous "Saddle-Riding Type Electric Vehicle," and doesn't give much in the way of proving the concept above. That is, until you start reading what exactly Yamaha's up to with it.
According to the patent's abstract, "By burning a mixture of fossil fuels, gasoline, etc., and air in the cylinder, a 4-cycle reciprocating engine that generates power, has an intake sound, exhaust sound, and vibration in each stroke of the intake stroke, compression stroke, explosion stroke, and exhaust stroke. Generate movement, etc. The driver of the saddle-type vehicle, which is powered by the aforementioned reciprocating engine, feels excited by experiencing the sound and vibration generated by his own accelerator operation."
It adds, "The saddle-type electric vehicle powered by the motor does not burn gasoline, etc., so it does not produce intake sounds, exhaust noises, and vibrations like conventional reciprocating engines. Therefore, some lovers of saddle-type vehicles agreed with the control of carbon dioxide emissions, but had a desire to drive a saddle-type vehicle that could experience the sound and vibration unique to the above-reciprocating engine."
But here's where it gets interesting, stating, "Therefore, a vehicle-driven motor with a similar appearance to a conventional reciprocating engine has been disclosed. The above-mentioned vehicle-driven motor described in patent document 1 rotates the crankshaft by moving the piston (linear motor mover) in the cylinder back and forth by the linear motor. In addition, the motor for driving the above-mentioned vehicle is configured to inhale air from the intake valve and exhaust from the exhaust valve as the piston moves back and forth."
Basically, Yamaha added a fake but functioning piston and cylinder to an EV motorcycle that gives it both an intake and exhaust noise, as well as vibration, as there's actual reciprocating mass. So yeah, Yamaha designed a fake motor just so you would ride an EV over a conventional gas motorcycle. I'm not sure that's the goal of an EV bike, but it's certainly intriguing.
Again, part of the reason we all ride is that sense of connection between person and machine. It's instinctual, and very baked into our DNA. Hearing the intake and exhaust, as well as feeling the vibrations between our legs, but not by burning fossil fuels could lead more to swapping to an EV. I still think range and infrastructure are more likely the culprits of the lackluster adoption, but for many who love old motorcycles, this could be a major boon.
But what do you all think? Would you be up for a vibrating and noisy EV motorcycle?
