Born to Be Mild

[totalmotorcycle]

Born to Be Mild
Tuesday, January 2, 2007 - By Daniel Dumas - Wired - wired.com



Jump on your bike, start the engine, throw a rev, and hear... silence? No, you haven’t gone deaf – you’ve traded your mighty Harley for the zero-cylinder ENV (yep, envy). Green vehicles are nothing new – the Prius and its kin have been quietly zipping along special commuter lanes for years – but engineers have largely dismissed an environmentally friendly two-wheeler as impractical. That was until Britain’s Intelligent Energy created the ENV, the first road-worthy hydrogen-powered motorcycle. The vehicle runs on a removable fuel cell, emits almost nothing, and will be street legal. The only drag? Top speed, for now, is 50 mph. Production versions go on sale later this year. Head out on the highway on this eco-machine.

THE FIRST ROAD-READY FUEL CELL MOTORCYCLE

Clean Burn
Most cycles crank out a nasty cocktail of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide from their tailpipes. The ENV’s only emission is pure H20, which, scien-tifically speaking, should be safe enough to (gulp!) drink.

High Torque
The bike’s frame is built around a specially engineered fuel cell that uses a proton-exchange membrane to kick out 6 kW of peak-load power. What does that mean? Other vehicles eat your dust at stoplights (not a bad trade-off for the snaillike top speed).

Easy Rider
Because this motor-cycle has no internal combustion engine, power is distributed evenly through a single gear – no tricky clutching or shifting required. It makes for a smooth ride.

Feather-Light
Rather than the usual solid steel frame, the ENV is constructed of hollow-cast, aircraft-grade aluminum and weighs a mere 176 pounds, including its fuel cell – about half the heft of a typical scooter.