Electric motorcycle?!?

[Fubar]

Well, this company, ZERO Motorcycles has quite the line-up of city and dirt bikes, even a dualsport. One urban/commuter model weighs just over 200 pounds. Battery recharges in 2 hours, goes 30 miles on a charge. Who's gonna be the first to pick one up? Any one? Bueller?

[Sweendog]

If I had a spare $9K rolling around, I'd definately consider it. The street bike would make a nice little commuter, with a topbox added to the back...

[Peter Parts]

Very zippy bikes. Seem a bit more like dirt bikes to me but pretty good on roads when I took a test drive (there's a thread around somewhere that I started back when).

 

They've changed management. The leading guy, a bicycle type, is gone. Now their offerings will look more like motorcycles, like the kind Brammo makes.

 

Each day new R&D making batteries better. Can't be long....

 

Question for me is will electric bikes be fun enough by the time I gotta move to a light, old-guy's bike? Hope so. Just a couple of years left to my riding season.

 

Ben

spring in Toronto

[upflying]

An electric vehicle car/MC today is like a 1980's analog VCR. Too expensive and limited. When an electric vehicle becomes cheaper and battery range and recharge technology catches up to the gasoline powered equivalent, I'm buying.

[JohnnyJ]

When an electric vehicle becomes cheaper and battery range and recharge technology catches up to the gasoline powered equivalent, I'm buying.

That is pretty much how I see it.

 

 

If I were concerned purely about economics I would get a used 250cc Honda Rebel (or something similar) for under 2 grand and fairly new. At around 70 MPG you can go a long way pretty cheaply.

 

JohnnyJ

[Peter Parts]

"Early adapters" have other values in mind besides trying to duplicate some experience that might be satisfactory today.

 

I'm not sure as buying an R69s in 1967 didn't make me very slightly an "early adapter" of a minimum kind at the time.... and everybody posting to this forum today as a kind of beneficiary.

 

Ben

[skinny_tom (aka boney)]

There's a company called "Brammo" that's making some longer range bikes that should be comparable in price to a high end like gasser model. They claim 100 MPH and up to 100 miles range depending on the model you buy.

 

I was interested for a while, as this would be a good commuter. But then I realized that it's common for me to far exceed the 100 mile limit on my "long way home."

[EddyQ]

These guys have a cool electric bike: http://www.ridemission.com

 

[UberXY]

The Mission bike is awesome. Even though I've been riding 30+ years and have a hitherto untreatable addiction to internal combustion engines, I'm looking forward the day when an electric bike like that will have a 300 mile range and a roundel on the side.

[IT_Mike]

My biggest question is...Why?

 

Considering the power generation to 'fill the tank' on these bikes is generally more polluting than a well tuned K1200, and the environmental impact of the batteries (both in manufacture and disposal), why purchase one? I'd even go so far as to say it might cost more to 'fill' than the IC engine and it definitely would reduce the size of the trips you could take. I'm currently looking at another 5000ml trip with a few 800ml legs and camping. I have this option because I ride an IC bike.

 

Granted, the wow factor and silent running might be interesting.

 

[upflying]

My biggest question is...Why?

 

Considering the power generation to 'fill the tank' on these bikes is generally more polluting than a well tuned K1200, and the environmental impact of the batteries (both in manufacture and disposal), why purchase one? I'd even go so far as to say it might cost more to 'fill' than the IC engine and it definitely would reduce the size of the trips you could take. I'm currently looking at another 5000ml trip with a few 800ml legs and camping. I have this option because I ride an IC bike.

 

Granted, the wow factor and silent running might be interesting.

Excellent, you forgot to mention "implied social consciousness that you are somehow helping save the planet" as the wow factor.

[moshe_levy]

My biggest question is...Why?

 

Considering the power generation to 'fill the tank' on these bikes is generally more polluting than a well tuned K1200, and the environmental impact of the batteries (both in manufacture and disposal), why purchase one? I'd even go so far as to say it might cost more to 'fill' than the IC engine and it definitely would reduce the size of the trips you could take.

 

Wow... So many assertions, so little proof. We went through this on the hybrid thread, and the same cycle repeats here. Where do you have any proof that charging a battery is more polluting that running an IC? There are so many variables there that you wouldn't be able to generalize about generalizations and make a statement like that factually. Where do you have any proof that the manufacturers in question don't have recycling procedures in the manufacture of the batteries, or that manufacturing an IC is any less polluting? Where did you come to the woefully incorrect conclusion that it costs more to charge a battery bank than fill an IC's gas tank, or that the cost per mile of an IC is less?

 

Besides all these incorrect assumptions, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the fun aspect of an electric motor, which produces maximum torque at barely above 0 rpm. That's GOT to be pretty fun.

 

-MKL