Electric motorbikes

Too expensive to buy at the moment so I wouldn’t worry.

would imagine test is same as it’s two wheels

watch for Eicma at end of November for what’s coming in 2022

yeah if you do your test on the zero, you've limited yourself to automatic motorcycles in the future

https://www.irishmotorcycletraining.com/motorcycle-learner-permits-and-licences/

But i believe most electric bikes are category A2 due to their power to weight ratio.

Insurance is still going to be high as you have a brand new and expensive motorcycle on a low to zero NCB, you would need to work out your average yearly commute, then the cost of petrol versus Electricity, there is an excel sheet I did up somewhere on my laptop when considering the same thing, but what put me off in the end is for long euro trips I didn't want to be stopping every 200km to refuel for an hour, plus battery degradation.

But i think if your travelling everyday to work on bike, then the cost of your fuel savings is put into buying the bike on a hire purchase lease, plus the lower maintance

Don't buy any electric motorcycle that you can't remove the battery on, they may have less power storage capability but the ability to swap a battery when it degrades and also just being able to pop the battery out and charge it inside is a huge advantage.

I'm in the middle of the IBT so no experience on bikes yet but they do look an interesting proposition. As others have said though they just don't seem to be 'there' yet with the tech and price point. The Zero SR/F is a great looking bike IMO.

There's a suggestion that electric cars are just soulless compared to their ICE counterparts (I'd prob agree) but on a bike there may be an argument that electric might work better, having watched a few reviews? Better connection to the surroundings, being more exposed to the environment etc. but like I said I've no experience on a bike so I could be way off.

I would love one myself at some point, my friend use to work in Harley and he said the livewire was amazing to drive.

But the pricing and current battery technology puts me off them.

I wonder if there will be EV motorcycle retrofit services in the future. I have a ST1100 Pan European that I am sure could be loaded down with batteries and get some decent range and reasonable performance from it (probably not near what I get from the petrol in the tank though).

EV motorcycles have a place but I think the limitations of frame size and weight are the biggest factors right now (along with eye watering purchase costs of course). Once battery technology becomes a lot more energy dense, then we might see an overall increase in availability of longer range motorcycles. For the moment though, I think, even with the Harley ones (at €35k for about 150kms range), the range offered will be fairly limited and if you use the full performance potential, you could be begging for a charger on your way home.

I will stick with the dino juice for a few years and watch developments in the EV area with keen interest. 🙂

Apparently costs STG£5K in the UK

This is the Silence S01 Connected electric scooter. And it's ridiculously inexpensive to run. According to its makers, it'll travel 100 miles at a cost of just £1. Plus it has a removable battery pack that lets you charge it without having to plug the bike into an outlet. Rory takes it for a spin to see whether it's any good

I've driven the HD Livewire (soon to be rebranded to just Livewire) and a couple of the Zero bikes. None of the Zero's came close to the Livewire. It was blisteringly fast and a hoot to drive. It was easily comparable to a Kawasaki ZZR1400 in terms of handling and power delivery.

Comparable to 60mph yes, which is the main trick all electric things have up their sleeve. It has a top speed of 180kmh which is more comparable to a parallel twin 650 commuter bike. If you go above 80mph for any length of time it is pretty slow and will drain the battery really quickly. So pretty much a 0-60 town bike like the others. On an open road at any pace the ZZR will murder it. Both are fairly hefty yokes with not particularly nimble handling.

So, double the battery, double the battery weight? That has a huge effect on packaging and handling.

The acceleration potential has no effect on range if you don't use it.

Sure, you could fit a smaller motor but that'd only save a few kilos at best.

No, keep battery as-is battery, but a "smarter" motor/software package.

If you got it right you might even reduce the battery.

Only if you've bought a Zero. It disgusts me that you can now increase the capacity of the onboard battery by unlocking it !!

There are some specialist EV car mechanics out there who might look at it - getting parts would be the other issue though. How much was it if you don't mind me asking?

Makes you wonder if most of those e-scooters will be on the rubbish heap in a couple of years. How's that for the environment?

That's pretty mad with the Zero that you have paid for this battery capacity, are lugging it around the whole time but can't actually use it unless you cough up even more cash

It was around 6k, I don't remember the exact price. I'll give the EV car mechanics a ring, thanks for the suggestion, hadn't though of that.

I still use it, and it still gets me from A to B, but the range is far reduced, and it often stops or shuts down for no reason. It's a shame as it's only around 4 years old.

I'll probably ride it until it dies completely and then either sell it for parts or something, not sure.

What brand is it?

Reduction in range is most likely the Battery, but if you could disconnect the battery and find a way to do a full reset of the ECU might clear up some of the issues.

The whole battery degradation thing in BEV cars has been shown to be a crock of nonsense with the possible exception of the Gen 1 Nissan Leaf (they changed to a more robust chemistry subsequently), but even then the bad cases were in Arizona. Ireland has a pretty much ideal EV climate, never ferociously cold nor hot. 24kW Leafs are still usable city cars, 80-ish km range now but they weren't that great when they were new either, things have moved on.

With high quality electronics and some overprovisioning (like in an SSD) it's easy now to make an EV car which will be manufacturer guaranteed to retain 90% capacity after ten years - with a lot more mileage per year than the average motorcycle does.