"Make hay while the sun shines 'cuz we're on our way and we're bringing some serious rain," is the message Honda and Yamaha are sending to the new electric motorcycle companies that have been springing up like daisies. Only one of the two long-established Japanese brands has shown off battery-powered concepts in the recent past and neither has offered any for sale to the public. This has allowed new start-ups like Vectrix to begin establishing a strong presence. No more. Well, in a year or two, no more. Maybe.

Honda and Yamaha have reportedly both set launch dates for electric motorcycles. YaMoCo is looking at 2010 to offer a bike with 50cc-like performance with a 100km (62 mile) range. Not too impressive, but it's a start. HoMoCo Honda, for their part, is targeting a model for a 2011 launch that is suited for the Japanese postal service who are said to be moving their 90,000-strong bike fleet to electric power. Lithium ion seems to be their battery chemistry of choice for the Japanese firms. While not seemingly overwhelming in the performance department, we suspect the two may be able to offer their wares at very competitive prices.

[Source: Reuters]

Yamaha certainly has plenty of experience making sporty two-wheeled vehicles, as riders of the firm's R6 and R1 sportbikes can certainly attest. Now, though, it seems that the Tuning Fork company has decided to branch out into human power, specifically with a new hybrid bicycle. What makes this particular machine, knows as the PAS Brace, particularly interesting is how it manages the electrical assistance. First, an eight speed rear hub is used and allows shifting at any time, even from a dead stop. Depending on what gear the bike is in, a computer controls how much electrical power to send to the motor for assistance. Once top speed is reached, the system completely shuts down.

We've seen similar machines from other manufactures on these pages before, but what makes this Yamaha stand out is the low pricing. When equipped with the standard 4.0 Ah 25.9 volt lithium ion battery, the PAS Brace will sell for just $1,150, though it will only be available in Japan to start. There's always eBay...

[Sources: Nikkei, Engadget]

Yamaha recently filed a patent in the United States for an enduro motorcycle with a continuously variable transmission. The CVT, as it's better known, is one of the most efficient means of transferring power in an automobile application. Yamaha, as well as nearly every other manufacturer of modern scooters, already uses simple CVT transmissions in its line of small-bore scooters, but the gearless transmissions have yet to make an appearance for off-road applications. While the inherent efficiency of the design is one reason we are interested, we also imagine that the single cylinder engine design used by nearly every off-road motorcycle would be well suited to the CVT's strengths. New riders would likely appreciate the ease at which the machine would operate, as no gear lever or traditional handlebar-mounted clutch lever would be necessary to access the smooth and steady acceleration. While durability could be a potential concern, we're looking forward to seeing what the tuning fork company is able to work up.

[Source: Gizmag]

It's not often that consumers choose a V8 engine for its low fuel consumption, but that seems to be exactly what is happening with the Yamaha F350 outboard motor. This sixty-degree engine is a rather high-tech design, featuring 32 valves and double overhead cams to produce some 350 horsepower at the prop shaft. One reason cited for its ability to save fuel is that the engines don't need to work as hard as smaller, high-strung engines.

According to Shane Kearns, who operates a water taxi in Australia, "Over the 35 engine hours clocked so far I have nearly halved my fuel bill with the twin F350 outboards returning a combined 31 liters per hour across a range of harbor conditions and boat loads. I originally thought my fuel gauges were wrong until I started closely monitoring my fuel intake." When first built, his boat featured twin two-stroke engines, which were later replaced with Yamaha four-stroke outboards. His latest F350s not only reduce fuel consumption but also provide additional speed and power, things which don't normally go together.

[Sources: Yamaha and Gizmag]

Click on the image for more shots of the Deus Ex Machina concept

Bumsuk Lim, a professor at Art Center Pasadena in California, has started a new program which aims to push the boundaries of future motorcycle design. Lim projects two-wheeling as a possible green revolution of sorts, saying, "There is no point in designing existing vehicles and simply adding green technology to the same old problem when we have the opportunity, and the moment in time, to make a greater change! Why not use these new environmentally safe technologies to change the way we ride?"

Judging from the first design we've seen from Jake Loniak, convention has taken a back seat to design. Called Deus Ex Machina, which means God Out of a Machine, the three-wheeled vehicle is a melding of motorcycle and exo-skeleton, complete with artificial vertebrae and pneumatic muscles. A built-in helmet, which sits atop the machine at rest, tilts forward with the body of the rider, making for a leaned-forward riding position. If it were ever built, which seems rather unlikely, the vehicle is projected to accelerate to sixty in three seconds and travel up to sixty minutes at a speed of up to seventy-five miles per hour, all after a fifteen minute charge of the Doped NanoPhosphate batteries and ultra-capacitors.


[Source: GreenCarDesign via Hell For Leather]

The video above is of Yamaha's very unusual Tesseract concept bike. The Tesseract has four wheels but the appearance is much more like a bullet bike than a traditional four-wheeler. The Tesseract is powered by a liquid cooled, V-twin, 2-cylinder gasoline engine and an electric motor. The clip above not enough for ya? Look below the fold for two more videos of the Tesseract.

The first is from CNET, which questions just who might want a leaning, four-wheeled bike? The second video is a look at lots of the bikes at the Tokyo Motor Show including smaller electric scooters, which is the usual type of electric bike you see. The Tesseract and Crosscage concept are slowly changing our images of electric bikes.

[Source: YouTube]

The last, and extremely belated, two-wheeled prototype displayed in Tokyo this year by Yamaha is the FC-AQEL concept. Using a hydrogen fuel cell and batteries, the machine uses what appears to be the same super-thin YIPU (Yamaha Integrated Power Unit) that the LUXAIR uses. The on-board 35MPa tank holds the hydrogen gas which powers the fuel cell which in turn powers the battery. Like the other prototypes shown by Yamaha at the 40th Tokyo Motor Show, don't hold your breath waiting for this machine to reach your local Yamaha dealer's showroom.

Related:

• Tokyo 2007 Preview: Yamaha on two-wheels - C3+ - Part 5 of 6
• Tokyo 2007 Preview: Yamaha on two-wheels - BOBBY - Part 4 of 6
• Tokyo 2007 Preview: Yamaha on two-wheels - FC-Dii - Part 3 of 6
• Tokyo 2007 Preview: Yamaha on two-wheels - Tesseract - Part 2 of 6
  
• Tokyo 2007 Preview: Yamaha on two-wheels - LUXAIR - Part 1 of 6

[Source: Yamaha Motors]

If you like the Enertia but not the price tag, consider Yamaha's Electric Commuter EC-02. It's just $2,000. It looks a lot like the Enertia electric bike, just smaller and much slower. The Enertia's top speed is 50 MPH while the EC-02 can only go 18 MPH. Enertia says their "bikes are not associated with Yamaha. The Enertia design is a clean sheet (not a conversion or extension of a previous design) and was built from conception to be the first street legal production electric motorcycle."

EC-02 is 30 percent recyclable and it can fold away easily. There is a special Ipod edition of the EC-02. That version lets you drop your Ipod in a special dock. You can also swap out the battery in the EC-02. It's pretty tiny and slow but I guess it shows the Enertia is worth the cost. If you ever said, make a cheaper Enertia, well, here is something like what you would get. Go below the fold to see the EC-02 in the wild.

[Source: Gizmodo]

At last year's Tokyo Motor Show, Yamaha introduced a fuel cell scooter called the FC-me. It ran on a liquid methanol-water solution and its size and performance would have fit nicely in the 50cc gas-fueled class. This year, Yamaha is upping the ante with the FC-AQEL, a 125cc comparable two-wheel fuel-cell that they'll show off at the 22nd Electric Vehicle Symposium in Yokohama, Japan.

The biggest difference between the FC-me and the FC-AQEL, other than size and weight, is that this time they're fueling the stack with two high-pressure hydrogen tanks rather than a methanol solution.

Now, how long is it going to take Yamaha engineers to create an 800cc comparable fuel cell race bike for Rossi?

You can read the entire translated press release after the jump. Here's a link to the original if you prefer reading it in Japanese.

[Source: Yamaha via Digital World Tokyo]