PeachPie 🍑Forget electric bikes, Kawasaki is building an electric horse for actual production
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My first reaction: LOL. LMAO, even.
My second reaction: … Wait, this could actually be really useful if it’s actually functional and affordable though.
I’m not holding my breath, but like, in theory this could actually be really good?
Yeah people still use horses in many places where any wheeled or even tracked vehicle can’t go. It’s pretty smart.
Will this be better than a horse though? You don’t have to charge a horse, just feed it and water it (on the other hand, you can’t repair a horse like you can a machine).
I think it depends, but considering pure practicality, horses tend to require a fair amount of pasture and food that an electric “horse” wouldn’t. You can’t just leave a horse in a garage for a few months.
LOL a horse is a living creature. It can be temperamental or ill and needs a barn and you have to clean it’s shit. This will absolutely be better.
Uh, you could technically have this in an apartment building, depending on the type of storage / parking available. There’s gated parking places in some apartments nearby me and if this fit through the door, you could technically keep it in the bikeshed, I guess.
But a horse? Nah, a horse needs shelter from the weather, food, cleaning, medical attention. Also they’re brittle af. If a horse breaks its leg, it’s still more or less the only thing to do to put it down. Perhaps if you’re obscenely wealthy you could try and have all sorts physical therapy devices and just supports designed for them and have them held up each night while sleeping or something but I still don’t know whether it’s even possible.
Oh, yeah, apparently they can survive minor breaks with modern veterinary care, but above the knee or serious, like a compound fracture and the main go-to is still euthanasia.
Anyway yeah horses are expensive af and take a lot of caring. Whatever this thing costs the cost of use should be waaaay cheaper than a horse. And horses aren’t cheap to get either.
In theory, it could actually be surprisingly good at uneven terrain, and Kawasaki isn’t really a company known for fucking around, but on the other hand, they seem ridiculous.
Hybrid electric motorcycle. No one bought them.
Just because you don’t fuck around doesn’t mean success is guaranteed. Was it a terrible bike or just unpopular?
Just unpopular. Some dude bought one near me. I can’t say I get the reasoning.
I suppose the added cost of a hybrid motorcycle might put some off when motorcycles are already really fuel efficient in comparison to a car, maybe that’s why it wasn’t more popular?
I would imagine an electric bike would be too quiet. Don’t some people put loud pipes on a motorcycle to increase road presence in the name of safety?
Motorcycles are not more fuel efficient than an efficient car. It all falls apart when a car can carry 4 people.
Both. Heavy, needlessly complex, trying to solve a problem no one had, expensive. They had an EV bike that also sold poorly.
This is more about compliance for Japanese grants than sales.
30 years from now, people will buy them for YouTube channels but Kawasaki had to clear these below cost.
So they did have a practical reason for doing it, it just wasn’t to make a great bike.
Sometimes life isn’t about efficiency.
But was it low quality stuff like the Cybertruck?
Yeah, exactly.
Kawasaki is a huge zaibatsu, mostly driven by heavy industry sales. They tend to float some quirkly ideas no one buys, like the hybrid electric motorcycle.
Yeah … in theory, this could be an electric ATV capable of handling extremely rough and difficult terrain that would stop any other vehicle.
They need to call this a Battle Cat instead of an electric horse.
Can’t wait to be hunted by billionaires riding these fucking things in our dystopian future…
They’ll just mount a minigun on it and hunt from their bunker living room using an OceanGate© controller
Behold a pale horse…
Frankly I don’t see how the carriage-less horse will ever catch on.
Just attach a carriage to yours. Easy
I’m not going to get one, but I do want to see this concept in anime
I doubt I’d pick one up, but I’d watch videos of people falling off of them.
I want to get two of them and have them haul my pompous ass around in a chariot.
Why not 4? or 6?
In this economy?
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Giddy-Up Buttercup?
Hah, joke’s on them. I’ve got a regular horse. Very green (actually brown), runs on grass (both literally and figuratively).
Are you, by any chance, Professor Elemental?
People always wanted faster horses
Good that we already have a dealership called Electric Horses in my city :-)
As a rider of a Kawasaki bike I quite like, zero chance you catch me on that thing; I’d rather an actual horse
Careful, it might hear you…
Get an actual horse. It’s a pet + vehicle all in one !
I’d love to but apparently the landlord of my apartment building has some issues with it.
When are they gonna make this electric?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03szt5Ln9bs
One electric horse power