An electric sidecar is in the works per a patent application from Honda. The sidecar will apparently have an independent electric motor and be equipped with load sensors to mitigate the otherwise common issues associated with conventional sidecars.
Sidecars have more or less disappeared from modern two-wheelers, with only a handful of niche bike makers designing one-off prototypes as an ode to bygone times. Those of us who are old enough to have experienced motorcycle sidecars in their time will testify to just how unstable the things were.
In a sidecar setup, it is still the bike’s wheels that power the whole unit. So, acceleration and braking were offset with the bike’s wheels. Handling on corners was equally messy. Due to the asymmetrical layout and weight distribution, the bike would no longer lean, which would cause the steering to behave differently than as was intended. Above all, there would be yaw that had to be compensated for. These are some of the reasons why sidecars as a concept didn’t take off.
So, is Honda really dumb enough to dip its fingers into something that the industry dismissed collectively? Well, not really. According to Honda’s design patent that was filed in late August of this year, the two brackets that attach the sidecar to the motorcycle are modified to include load sensors. These will do the job of providing information to a control unit within the sidecar, which in turn will drive an electric motor that powers the sidecar's single wheel. That motor will run on independent batteries within the sidecar.
In the event of acceleration or yawing towards one side, the sensors will come into play, signaling the control unit and in turn the motor to counter the forces on the sidecar's wheel. As for braking or deceleration, the sidecar will brake alongside the bike's wheel per Honda's design. In corners too, the system is meant to intervene the same way automatically. If bolted onto the right side of a bike, the sidecar will brake and decelerate in right-hand turns and accelerate in left-hand turns.
All of this info is per Ben Purvis of Cycle World, an old colleague of ours who first reported on this patent. The important part is that the sidecar design is independent of what kind of motorcycle is used. It would be equally compatible with an electric as with an IC.
The whole point of this patent is for the sidecar to be as integrated with the motorcycle as possible, in order to minimize any effects on the bike's dynamics. Having a separate power delivery for the sidecar solves a lot of problems ... in theory.
As of now, the efficacy of this system has not been established. It would be intriguing to follow this patent's progress. Sure, it will help make sidecars become widely accepted in the future, but the pertinent question remains: is there a market for it?
Sidecars were first introduced for bicycles, before motorcycles went through a phase of transporting passengers in such a form. However, that was many decades ago, and sidecars slowly declined. Even if this patent comes to fruition and we do see Honda offering sidecars with some of its products, would you get one? Even if you did, how often would you use it?
There are plenty of questions at this point of time. But no one can hate Honda for envisioning a technologically advanced revival. Ballsy! Outside of the finer points, when the time comes, we'd really like to take one out. Wouldn’t you?
Via: CycleWorld