POWA Design FF.....?

An Alan Cathcart article on the POWA Design D-10 mentions an FF Yamaha and (?) another semi-enclosed moped. Never seen any pictures 'til maybe now:

POWA Book? Catalog? (Bottom 2 illustrations on cover...) http://files.homepagemodules.de/b17661/pictures_u142_b1ec36.jpg

Different Alan Cathcart article .pdf file: http://davestestsandarticles.weebly.com/uploads/4/8/4/5/4845046/motorcycle_international_november_1989_powa_el_tox_citybike.pdf

PS: I'm not on FB, but Bottpower is - as is their "Torpedo" : https://www.facebook.com/bottpower/photos/5437620896256251/
Bottpower has a rich history of actually making, riding, and selling functionally excellent machines, hence my higher level of enthusiasm for what is usually just vaporware. The timing is also...interesting - this isn't their first interest in the subject: From 2007: https://bottpower.com/maier-and-the-torpedo/

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'The more things change, the more they stay the same'

What's changed in recent decades? Powered two wheeler use has dropped from 29% of private vehicles (1959) to 1.6% today. What's stayed the same? The attitude of 'bikers' and the manufacturers of motorised bicycles, to anything that might address that obvious death spiral.

Another thing that's changed is the urgency level in making efficient vehicles. Now electric, powered two wheelers are easily the most efficient way to move two people and some luggage. Also changed is the need for efficient delivery vehicles, responding to the online shopping revolution, an obviously missed opportunity for any corporate making PTWs.

But staying the same is the result when motorised bicycle enthusiasts set to, desgining what they call 'feet first' two wheelers. Powa, the recent Belgium competition, any number of Akira knock offs. All nose, no tail. It's been done, it doesn't work. Unstable and inefficient, giving the rider a hard time with buffet, poor indifference and high fuel/energy consumption. And don't get tail-ended! The air doesn't care how many wheels there are on the thing it's trying to flow around. It just obeys the same universal rules. Cars all look so similar because of this. PTWs will too, once their designers stop behaving like amateur enthusiasts and engage the science of aerodynamics.

Then there's ergonomics, another science unknown to the amateurs. A proper seat back. fully suporting the rider, including whiplash protection, isn't a styling affectation, it's the most important single component of an FF, increasing control authority, reducing effort and massively improving safety. It's a failure of motorised bicycles that they lack a proper seat, not a problem that FFs do. PTWs that don't incorporate this feature are stuck in some previous time loop, their designers contributing to that death spiral.

It's perfectly understandable that FFs that do feature modern erodynamics (sub .3CDa), proper seat backs and other logical developments like proper front suspension, crash protection and heating. aren't regarded as looking right, or inspiring, or whatever the current buzzword is.

To which I make one reply;- Do better.

I wish someone would! how long does it take? We've gone from first powered flight to the moon in less time than it's taken to do PTWs properly!

The Powa electric FF city bike (1989)

I've just read that Alan Cathcart article about the Powa El Tox electric city bike in Motorcycle International. Fascinatingly prescient! And a good decade in advance of the appearance of lithium batteries. I wonder what happened to the plans to make 200 of them in Taiwan? You could make that exact shape today and, with 2022 batteries and controllers, it would out-perform anything currently being made in the lightweight electric 2-wheeler market. Bigger wheels would probably be a good idea, mind, along with a seat back at least as wide as the average human's shoulders and a windscreen wiper! I remember seeing a photo of the model in MCi's news pages – must have been in an earlier issue than this one from November 1989. FWIW it was in the self-same magazine, in the January 1988 issue of MCi, that my article on the Peraves Oekomobil appeared, which led directly to the ten minute FF feature on Top Gear that I wrote and presented in April 1988. PNB.