...my one question here...if the battery receives a 'charge' when you close the throttle...why then can't it receive a charge when it's driving?

I don't know, but I think electric is the future of motorcycles.

At New Jersey Motorsports Park this past summer, the head technician for a Triumph dealership in my area was racing this nice looking electric bike.

.

I have no idea either grn, but I would guess it would take to much power to run a generator and that would kill the performance, and on the deceleration side of things the generator would act as engine braking does on a compression type motor and that would charge batteries and slow your crazy ass down. That's just a guess from a guy who barely graduated high school and majored in shop class. lol.

.if the battery receives a 'charge' when you close the throttle...why then can't it receive a charge when it's driving?

Conservation of mass. Basic law of physics. You can neither create or destroy matter/energy, you can only make them change forms. If you propel your bike on electricity so that it makes electricity, the end result is that the bike makes less hp. With the current technology (generating electricity by turning under power or decel or both), I doubt it's possible to make a tenth of the power required to run the bike. Considering the small net output of electricity, it isn't practical to use the engine to make electricity. You will be charging it up at the charge station just as soon as if you had no generator on the bike.

Think of how much power your internal combustion engine would need to make to turn oil into gasoline. I suppose you could make a few ml/mile if you used maybe 15 hp to do it. but that still wouldn't keep you away from the gas pump for long.

Definitely they'll need to come up with something that'll do that.The crossover to electric 'filling stations' and such is gonna be a HUGE undertaking.Not to mention the charging times.

The "motor" on an electric bike works in two modes, it works to provide propulsion when accelerating and when you let off the throttle it changes over to a generator. Basically it can only either propel or generate, it can't do both.