Want to build an ICE motorcycle company today? What powertrain do you choose to build your company around? Build your own? Can you say insane capital expense, not to mention the cost on the certification side. Very few opportunities exist to purchase a ready made powertrain, a chinese or korean outfit perhaps? S&S, Rotax, or HD? Maybe get lucky and pimp Suzuki for a powerpack?

Electric motors and their manufacturers are far more prolific, far more competitive, and far more accesible when the time comes. Noise and emissions compliance are a moot point. I can see “mail in service” for anything regarding tear down/build up (dump the motor in a box and ship it), after running diagnostics with easy USB communication with the bike itself and emailing a file in for further diagnosis.

Emotorcycles, when the time comes, will most certainly radically change how we enjoy our two wheeled vehicles……

I like zero’s approch better than brammo’s, there is no pretensions, they are not out to save the world, just build some bikes and perhaps make a living. They made the mistake of going street/motard, stick to dirt, the expectations are lower. $7.5k is almost cheap enough to have a real impact, but they are building their street bike for $10k, you can buy alot of bike for that.

It will be interesting to see where KTM prices their bike, if it comes to market. If they come in at $5-6k, and the power is good(it can’t have range, again Reality), it may tempt off roaders to ‘see the light’. Two out of three(power/price) ain’t bad.
Silence, at least, is a feature no gas bike can have.

The real problem is batteries, 3-4kwh is just not very much energy, a gallon of gas is about 33kwh and weighs about 6lbs. 3kwh of high tech battery weighs 60-70lbs.
Batteries need a ten to twenty-fold increase in energy-to-weight to start to be close to gas.
That may happen in our lifetime, but I stopped holding my breath.

I always forget kawasaki in the big 4…

Motorcycling is dangerous, and nothing about riding every day is easy, you have to realy want to ride. This is the biggest miss that I see in the quotes from brammo.
Motorcycles are intimidating because of the death and dismemberment, not styling or design. No amount of iphone apps will make a suv not drive you off the road. Casual motorcyclists are just not a market, in the states. Europe, asia, sure, everybody(or 20-50%) rides, but the car rules in the USA. Capturing non-motorcycling market is imposable in the states, there is none. Although scooter class vehicle sales have been increasing, it is one of the smallest segments (less than 120,000 sales per year, or thereabouts). Going after non-motorcycle-rider is no-brainer, you need to remove your brain think it will work.

Basically an S&S for EVM’s… :)

Get the drivetrain into the hands of people that know how to build bikes.

It’s obvious that none of the EVMoto companies (based on online and in person comments) have the ability to style a motorcycle that appeals to hardly anyone outside of design school graduates.

Comments at the Laguna GP outside Zero’s display were all pretty much along the lines of “god, that’s ugly.”

The core issues of highly efficient motors, ultra-smart controllers with the ability to handle kinetic energy recovery (i.e. engine braking converts the motor to a generator to put charge back into the battery), and of course the huge invisible elephant in the room, batteries that can allow a decent range and performance that are not based on Star Trek technology.

It seems to me that those three challenges are MORE than enough for any one start up to handle without the extra complexity of building a complete vehicle/unit (safety issues, regulation, registration complexity, other systems issues etc. etc.)

I’d love to see a real market for EVM’s build up, but none of the ones out there now “smell” right to me.

Nice series. I look forward to reading more!

I was going to touch on where the big 3 (4) are at regarding E-products, but was running a bit long anyway.

That said, I agree completely with you – Brammo and the like have the luxury of “no reputation”, it affords them a bit of safety when producing a “motorcycle” that forces the consumer, to as you said, “price, range, or power” pick one. If Honda dropped an electric motorcycle and asked the consumer to do the same, we’d be here bashing a product that was launched prematurely.

Which is interesting when you look at what they are doing – take a spin through Honda and Yamaha’s global sites, and see what they are bringing to the Tokoyo show – their E-two wheelers are along the bicycle/scooter lines, which to me indicates that’s what they feel the techonology is compatable with at this point.

Brammo and the others seem to be attempting to run before they can walk, and stumbling along the way.

Matthew makes a valid point as well, but one that is already illustrated so well by the guys rolling on $800 chinese scooters, barely clipping 35mph, on my way to work.

Take the lead on marketing electric motorcycles. Great!

Sell your bikes at Best Buy to capture the non-motorcycling market. Great until you realize that because these people aren’t going into the motorcycling world through traditional paths you’ve created an even wider segment of the community that has no idea what they are doing when they get on the road than already existed.

Now your enlarged the hazardous portion of the population that hasn’t taken the MSF classes, doesn’t read about riding technique, and thinks that this is easy-breezy and rides into the side of an 18-wheeler on the freeway wearing flip-flops and a tank top.

KTM is coming into the market next year, with an off-road EV product, there is a true paradigm shift, silent dirt bikes. If they sell.

Firstly, there is no prisoner’s dilemma here. Such a state would require a market void of electric two wheeled vehicles, and such a state does not exist. Yamaha (Passol, EC-02) and Honda (EVE-neo and electric Cub!!??)are both two cells down, next to Trek and Schwinn, and the host of “convert a bike” web folks, blabbing to anyone who will listen. Their stories are a bit different, focused more on the scooters and bicycles as products, however their technology is certainly driving and contributing to a single point of convergence, a full on electric motorcycle.

While Brammo may espouse the Green feeling, “responsible”, “for the kids”, save the environment mantras, the fact is they are trying to sell a product (at $12k), to a market saturated with less expensive, higher performing alternatives. I’d push an ideology too, if facing such a situation – heck if HD can push “it’s a Lifestyle” and convince people to fork over $20k for a lumpy, air cooled antique, more suited for a tractor than a motorcycle, why should EV’s not follow a similar path?

Paradigm shift? Where and how? The problem here is Brammo fails to understand their customer, and at the same time underestimates that same customer. They are not targeting motorcycle folks for the simple fact motorcycle folks wouldn’t see their product as a “motorcycle”. They’ve priced the product beyond the reach of most sympathetic “green” folks. The design that is neither electric motorcycle nor electric bicycle has left even bicycle guys looking for alternative transport scratching their heads. The sell is that the vehicle is easy to operate, no shifting, no trans, no greasy bits – as if such attributes are the only ones considered prior to purchase, all nice to haves, surely, but I’ll pass on most products that seem to say, “it’s soooooo easy, even a moron like you could handle it”.

In order to accomplish a fully effective shift in paradigm, the product and its use must offer an order of magnitude improvement over existing like similar product or be completely new. The Ipod is often offered up as a product that accomplished such, the pod, its derivatives, and its knock-offs achieving a ubiquitous nature likely only matched by cell phones. The combination of a device and file type that would allow a user to maintain a vast library of skip free, high quality, audio in a package not much larger than a credit card, instantly became a gotta have – completely changing the way most listen to, purchase, collect, and use audio fare. Where are such values with the Enertia? Am I expected to plunk down $12k because I love the environment so much that I’m committed to only polluting through coal fired electric or nuclear plants? I can enjoy impressive sprints to 60mph, maybe once or twice per charge? I ride 40miles (in surely a most conservative fashion), then must cool my heels for 4 hours waiting for a charge? Americans are selfish – a paradigm shift will not, cannot occur, unless the product and its use delivers the cake, and allows us to eat it too (same simple reason EV cars have not become a fixture on our roads).

I will say, I like the product. I think it looks reasonably appealing, seems to have a bit of attitude without being intimidating – which I’m sure was the plan. I think the “innovation” here, for Brammo, is on the retail side – teaming with Best Buy for sales distribution is a unique thought. I still wonder about service, however, does the Geek Squad provide roadside assistance?