[HN Gopher] Honda Monkey Breaks World Record Covering 4,183 Km o...
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Honda Monkey Breaks World Record Covering 4,183 Km on Single Tank
Author : harambae
Score : 101 points
Date : 2023-06-28 13:49 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.advpulse.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.advpulse.com)
| phlipski wrote:
| There doesn't appear to be any aerodynamic fairings used. I
| wonder how much efficient they could get with some drag
| reduction...
| sacnoradhq wrote:
| 4,061.8 km with 0 L fuel, 12 years ago (2011).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokai_Challenger
|
| The best ICE still isn't cool because it's fundamentally Earth's
| chain-smoker with terminal lung cancer failing to light a
| cigarette while almost blowing up their oxygen tank.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Our whole global supply-chain is centered around fossil fuels.
| Don't be so smug about high-tech electric vechicles.
| spookie wrote:
| That's impressive, nevertheless I also find this pretty cool.
| Must have taken a lot of hard work to pull it off.
| serf wrote:
| >The best ICE still isn't cool
|
| weird metaphor. Given that ICE isn't going anywhere for some
| time I wish that people would realize that the choices are
| _never_ a binary "perfectly clean EV" vs. "Coal-powered tree
| crusher" -- advancement in ICEs still represent an
| environmental benefit to the world. The Honda Monkey is one of
| the most efficient ICE vehicles that a consumer could hope to
| find, but i'll bite : where might I pick up a Tokai Challenger?
|
| The way towards EV isn't by demonizing the things that have
| made the world tick throughout every industrialized society,
| it's by incentivizing the use of alternatives.
| dieselgate wrote:
| Thanks for mentioning this, could not have worded it better.
| I see EVs being shipped/distributed all the time on top of
| ICE semi-trucks
| ant6n wrote:
| Where will u pick up that Honda Monkey with 100L tank? ...see
| how that is a non argument?
|
| Anyway, in the next 20 years, virtually all ICE vehicles need
| to go away. There's basically no option for them except
| perhaps e-fuels, but given the 5x energy use compared to EVs,
| they will have extremely limited scope.
| jebarker wrote:
| > Anyway, in the next 20 years, virtually all ICE vehicles
| need to go away.
|
| Is this actually possible? i.e. are there actually enough
| resources and production capacity to replace all ICE
| vehicles on the road in two decades. I remember hearing
| Elon Musk suggest it'd take about double that.
| ThrowAway1922A wrote:
| It's completely impossible when you bring trains, planes,
| and boats into the conversation.
|
| It's almost surely impossible to replace the global fleet
| of cars in that time too.
| nomel wrote:
| > The Tokai Challenger covered the 2,998 km (1,858 mi.) off in
| 29 hours 49 minutes and it took an average speed of 100.54 km/h
| (62 mph).
|
| Wow, faster too! When comparing the aerodynamics of a dude in a
| jacket to a wing, I suppose being an average of 20mph faster
| makes sense.
| adolph wrote:
| An advantage of the Honda Monkey 125 over science projects is
| that it is a workable product that is economically viable even
| in relatively resource constrained parts of the world.
|
| The Monkey 125 has peak power of 7.5 kW and an area of 1.7 m x
| 0.75 m or 1.3 m^2 [0,1]. The sun delivers a theoretical maximum
| of 1.3 kW per m^2. In the same area as a Monkey 125 the max
| solar energy would be 1.7 kW, or 23% of the Monkey 125's peak
| power (which was probably all used as the team travelled over
| mountains). Fraunhofer claims a photovoltaic cell with 47%
| efficiency so a solar Monkey would have about a tenth of the
| petrol Monkey's ability to move.
|
| 0. Specific model used was probably a variant of this Honda,
| not the OG Monkey that stopped production in 1999:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Grom
|
| 1. https://www.hondaprokevin.com/2021-honda-
| monkey-125-review-s...
|
| 2. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/05/30/fraunhofer-ise-
| achiev...
| nickff wrote:
| But the article isn't about an internal combustion engine, it's
| about a company that makes aftermarket fuel tanks, which chose
| to celebrate an anniversary by setting a record.
|
| Why did you feel the need to wrap your environmentalist polemic
| in such a complicated metaphor?
| phowat wrote:
| Nitpick, Acerbis doesn't make aftermarket fuel tanks. They
| make racing suites, gloves, helmets, things like that.
| nickff wrote:
| Ah, I thought they made the ones listed on their website
| under their brand; are these white-label products or
| something?
|
| https://www.acerbis.com/en/motorsport/plastics/fuel-tanks
| gpm wrote:
| So they made a super efficient vehicle, right?
|
| > To achieve this feat, the technical team at Acerbis engineered
| the largest motorcycle tank ever used,
|
| Oh.
| ankaAr wrote:
| We were two thinking the same.
| flaburgan wrote:
| I was also quite disappointed. 100L -> 4000km. In the end it's
| 2.5L for 100km, good but nothing amazing.
| mtreis86 wrote:
| The monkey gets 160+mpg, it would be difficult to improve much
| on that. Certainly not going to get a 2x multiple of it for
| cheaper than you can increase the fuel tank by an order of
| magnitude.
| gpm wrote:
| Good for a consumer vehicle. For a random stunt it would be
| pretty easy to improve on that. Start with things like
| "aerodynamic fairings" and "low rolling resistance tires".
|
| Someone above linked a solar car, which went roughly the same
| distance, significantly faster. Given that it apparently had
| 1.8kw nameplate capacity solar panels... and it covered 3000
| km in 30 hours, we know it's (substantially better than)
| 1.8kwh/100km (at 100kph!).
|
| 0.03 gallons of gasoline release 1kwh of energy when burned,
| combined with the above the solar car was getting the
| equivalent of 1150 mpg. This trip would have taken 2.26
| gallons (falsely assuming perfect efficiency, but then we get
| to ditch all the weight and aerodynamic losses from having
| solar panels on board... and I assumed the solar panels
| operated continuously at their nameplate capacity).
|
| That's still slightly larger than the Honda Monkey's 1.5
| gallon tank, but it's not unreasonable to think that someone
| could have done this. It would have been a lot cooler than
| "strapping on more fuel tanks" IMO.
| AngeloAnolin wrote:
| I initially thought that no modification that will impact the
| amount of fuel was performed on the machine. That in itself will
| be an amazing feat.
|
| This can be considered great if they made advancements in engine
| / combustion design that increased the distance traveled on a per
| liter (or gallon) of fuel.
| emrah wrote:
| On a single "largest motorcycle tank ever used, designed and
| built in-house with a whopping capacity of 108 liters (28.5
| gallons)" kind of tank that is, but still an amazing achievement
| mabbo wrote:
| Putting this into perspective, my Honda Civic has a 50L[0] gas
| tank.
|
| 0- when it reports that there's 0km left in the tank, I can
| only fill it up by 40L, so is it _really_ a 50L tank? Hard to
| say.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Typically there's a reserve of 10-15% of the tank capacity
| 'hidden' from the time to empty indicator.
|
| 10 liters seems on the high end though.
| silisili wrote:
| Not a moto rider, but wouldn't that be really hard to drive? It
| feels like sloshing would cause significant balance issues.
| ThrowAway1922A wrote:
| It shouldn't be a big issue, fuel tanks of that size aren't
| just empty spaces. They have baffles inside to prevent
| sloshing.
| bitwidget wrote:
| I'm guessing they've probably implemented baffles within the
| tank, but even if there wasn't it shouldn't be too much of an
| issue. Once they are able to get going and are not stopping
| quickly for emergencies, they should be as stable, if not
| more stable, compared to a regular bike.
| stock_toaster wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > After a grueling 304-lap test, Acerbis found they needed to
| use sponges to combat the sloshing inside the tank at the
| expense of losing some volume. The final tank weighed 15.2 kg
| (33.5 lbs) and could hold 108 liters.
| scottshamus wrote:
| In the article, it says they added sponges in the tank for
| that exact reason after they had a lot of sloshing during
| testing.
| metafunctor wrote:
| One could drive from the south of Finland to Lapland _and back_
| without taking a piss break, in that, you could.
| dtgriscom wrote:
| How big is your bladder?
| sriram_sun wrote:
| It was on a 28.5 gallon (108L) tank. Still impressive!
| xenonite wrote:
| And there were many mountains in between. Hence, the bike gave
| 147 miles per gallon, a bit less than Honda's claimed 169 mpg.
| jandrese wrote:
| The extra 240lbs of gas at the start probably hurt fuel
| economy.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Most interesting is how sponges were needed to stabilize the
| fuel.
| nickff wrote:
| I suspect that the problem could have been solved with
| baffles (which are the typical solution to sloshing), but
| that it was impossible to add them to the tank post-
| manufacture.
| spurgu wrote:
| Baffles would remove volume as well. But I'm not sure how
| that'd compare with sponges.
| 10000truths wrote:
| I feel like baffles would be better because you'd have to
| fight capillary action to extract all of the fuel trapped
| in the sponge.
| spurgu wrote:
| Makes sense.
| RoboRy wrote:
| 2599 miles / 28.5 gallons = ~91mpg? did they claim 147 in the
| article? I'm just curious how my napkin math went so wrong
| haha.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It only went 2,599.7 miles, though? By my math that's 91 mpg.
| They gave up a lot of efficiency to carry around so much
| fuel.
| ecshafer wrote:
| It seems like it would have been better to do this at a track
| that is going to be more consistent.
| dharmab wrote:
| The sponsor, Acerbis, makes equipment for long motorcycle
| trips, so this is more interesting to their customers.
| jeron wrote:
| >An impressive 4,183.8 kilometers (2,599.7 miles) without
| refueling.
|
| this distance reminds me of the Cannonball Run from Red Ball
| Garage in Manhattan to Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach, which is
| about 2,900 miles. I don't think anyone's done a Honda Monkey
| Cannonball Run yet
| samstave wrote:
| You really need to watch the documentary on Cannonball Run -
| its fascinatingly full of historic tidbits that you didn't know
| that you knew, and those you didnt.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b7erU_DOfE
| bergie wrote:
| That is a long distance to make on a Honda Monkey! We did only a
| slightly longer trip, from Helsinki to Gibraltar back in the 00s:
|
| http://web.archive.org/web/20110310093031/http://www.deathmo...
| jacquesm wrote:
| And you did it on the 50 cc version to boot. That's a huge
| difference in speed.
| [deleted]
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| 1,000km is a tiring drive in a luxury SUV.
|
| I couldn't imagine 4,000km on a knee-high 125cc bike.
|
| They are very cool bikes though. I'd love to buy one, but I want
| to buy a Rebel first.
| jandrese wrote:
| According to the article it was a three driver team that was
| swapping out regularly. Also, the bike was made full size by
| wrapping the thing in a huge fuel tank. Still, that's a long
| ride even on a full size bike.
| mtreis86 wrote:
| Wrapping it won't lengthen the wheelbase or suspension so it
| will still turn in like a little bike. Still will be twitchy
| at speed like a little bike, and defo going to take pothole
| just like any other bike with little wheels, terribly.
| sacnoradhq wrote:
| Then you don't know the meaning of the word "comfort."
|
| The B body, culminating in the Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale
| Brougham LS (8th gen, "Body by Fisher") was a rolling couch you
| could sink into, with that ridiculously static-generating and
| uncleanable velour. Some Cadillacs and Lincolns were also okay,
| but Fisher put all other automotive brands, foreign and
| domestic, to shame in the comfort category.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| Yeah I don't know. Sitting on a rolling couch and keeping
| focused on what's in front of me is also tiring when I have
| to do it for 10+ hours.
|
| As for the specific car you mention... Umm... Yeah I guess
| taste is subjective.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Someone should do a side-by-side comparison with a Citroen DS
| Pallas from two decades before that.
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(page generated 2023-06-28 23:00 UTC)