Could Honda begin including electricity with electric motorcycles?

HONDA has reportedly purchased 320 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy from solar and wind farms in Texas and Oklahoma. The move is claimed to be the biggest clean-power purchase ever by an automaker. But why have they done it?

A statement issued by the automaker suggests that it is to help cut the firms C02 emissions in North America. Offsetting the effects of production and retail facilities by up to 60%.

For comparison, 320 MW is 320,000,000 watts of power. A typical coal plant is about 600 MW in size, so 320 MW could keep the lights on in a sizeable number of homes.

But why stop there, wouldn’t it be just as easy to use the electricity to power vehicles too? One theory is that electric motorcycles and cars could be sold with a pre-paid plan of clean electricity to use to get around. The scheme could work much in the same way as a just add fuel scheme works.

How could the Honda deal work?

You buy the bike from a dealer as normal, with a pre-agreed amount of ‘free’ electricity thrown in. With cloud computing, the bike could notify Honda of how much energy you’ve used, and they could pump that amount back into the grid from their newly acquired green and renewable source.

As it stands, any deal like this would be some way off – for motorcycles at least. While Honda has a few electric cars in the range, the number of serious electric motorcycles is small. With just the off-road CR-based motocross machine appearing in recent years, although Honda is never far behind when it comes to new tech and ideas.

Would the idea of an electric motorcycle with a year’s free fuel tempt you over into an electric future?

Let us know in the comments below.