It’s not hard to find someone, be it a journalist or everyday person, who thinks electric cars are the future. While some companies struggle to sell electric cars, Tesla gets so many people in EVs that it’s making best-seller charts. The same cannot be said for the electric motorcycle industry. As of this month, things are looking bleak. Fuell, Erik Buell’s venture for electric motorcycles, is dead. It joins a list of other freshly dead companies including Energica and Sondors as well as struggling brands including LiveWire and Cake. Now, Zero Motorcycles is asking for more money as it seems everyone isn’t having a good time selling electric motorcycles.
I’ve known for a while now that electric motorcycle manufacturers have been struggling. However, I didn’t realize things were as bad as they were until I ran into a Tech Crunch article from yesterday. In it, Sean O’Kane points out which brands are struggling and which brands are dead, and what I read shocked me. A couple of these brands died just days ago with their corpses still warm, leaving the whole industry feeling uneasy.
One thing is clear, and it’s that electric motorcycles aren’t catching on nearly as well as electric cars are, and there could be more stormy weather ahead.
The Dead Ones
I think I’ll start this with the companies that have already died.
On October 17, Electrek reported the Chapter 7 bankruptcy of the promising upstart that was Fuell, a company co-founded by motorcycle legend Erik Buell.
In the report, Electrek‘s Micah Toll writes about how Fuell successfully delivered on its Flluid-1 eBike, but failed to deliver the Flluid-2 and Flluid-3 at scale despite the company getting over $1.5 million in crowdfunding. These electric bicycles were supposed to fund Fuell’s flagship product, an electric motorcycle designed and engineered by Erik Buell. This was supposed to be Buell’s answer to the future of motorcycles and the one product that would have his name on it that was actually designed by him. The Autopian had been in contact with Fuell and we were supposed to ride the Fuell Fllow when a prototype of it was ready.
Contacts to Fuell are met with this response, emphasis mine:
To the creditors of Fuell Inc,
I am currently representing Fuell Inc. in a chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin on October 16, 2024 as case #24-25492. A trustee has been appointed to liquidate the assets of the Company. All creditors will be advised to file claims in that proceeding as it appears that there may be assets for payment of unsecured claims after all of the secured claims are paid or otherwise dealt with. A copy of the Notice of the Case is posted nearby.
Management regrets the Company has been forced to take this path. Unfortunately, the Company lacks funds to pay for the labor costs and other required services necessary to assemble and ship products to its customers, and additional funds could not be raised to pay the Company’s outstanding current liabilities or to pay for the assembly and shipment of pre-ordered electric bicycles. I hasten to add that the Company has on hand what it believes to be the parts necessary for the assembly of the bulk of, if not all of the pre-ordered electric bicycles.
After consultation, management has determined that a promptly filed chapter 7 was the best way to provide value for the significant assets held by the Company including, but not limited to, a purchase from the bankruptcy trustee of substantially all of the assets of Fuell Inc. by an interested party who may subsequently, with effort and negotiations, potentially restart the operations and move forward. Obviously, this is the route preferred by management, but it is complicated and fraught with risk. Any creditor or interested party that has such an interest should be contemplating retaining experienced bankruptcy counsel to negotiate with the Trustee for such a purchase.
As the Company has little to no funds, and no employees, it is unable to directly answer creditors’ questions concerning specific orders. Creditors may direct questions to the Trustee who will be apprised of the situation. Since there are no employees at the Company to respond to questions at this time, current inquiries to the company will go unanswered.
All known creditors will receive the notice of the bankruptcy filing and advised to file claims. If you have placed a deposit for the purchase of a product, your claim may be entitled to priority to an extent. You may want to consult with a lawyer on this issue.
Great effort is being made to provide enough information in the bankruptcy schedules so that there is at least a possibility that a potential purchaser of the assets may be able to restart the Company or otherwise redeploy the assets to produce the product intended. Current equity will lose everything that is been invested in the company through this chapter 7 bankruptcy filing.
We trust that this information may be of some cold comfort to you as a creditor of the Company and will certainly give you an idea of what you can expect in the immediate future. As indicated above, you will be notified of the bankruptcy filing as a creditor or other interested party.
If you have an interest in purchasing the assets through the bankruptcy process or know of anyone who may have such an interest, you may contact the Trustee or the undersigned to discuss potential avenues to accomplish that.
Sincerely,
PAUL G. SWANSON
Attorney at Law
Ouch. It’s a shame, because I’ve been following Erik Buell for years and was excited to ride the Fllow, even if Buell’s expectations for it were a bit too ambitious. Now, it’s gone. Unfortunately, the pain isn’t over for Fuell’s customers, either. As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, anyone who put money into the Fuell project and got the shaft now has to chase Fuell into bankruptcy court to get their money back. The company no longer even has employees who could issue you a refund.
Then there’s the Italian electric motorcycle firm Energica. This company was known for making electric motorcycles with enough range and charging speed to complete actual cross-country trips. Unlike Fuell, Energica was not a crowdfunded startup. This company was founded in 2014 and had an established line of motorcycles. For example, an Energica Experia (below) had a chunky 19.6 kWh nominal battery, which gave the motorcycle 261 miles of city range and 130 miles of actual highway range.
Unfortunately, its focus on huge batteries and touring range also meant the company’s bikes were expensive. For example, the Experia was $23,250 before any options. Still, along with Zero, Energica was sometimes considered one of the closest brands the electric motorcycle world had to Tesla.
On October 15, Cycle News reported that it, too, had thrown in the towel. Energica first thought it could get through by shaving its workforce by 70 percent, but ultimately, it also decided that to completely shut down its operation. From Energica:
“Despite the efforts from the management in actively and extensively pursuing a search for new investors – always with the aim of preserving going concern in the best interest of creditors – it has become clear in the last few hours that these alternative options are no more viable, thus leaving the company with no other choice than resolving for the opening of a bankruptcy judicial liquidation.”
Yikes! Another known name in the electric motorcycle world that has failed is Sondors.
The makers of the futuristic Metacycle struggled almost from the beginning. Remember, the Metacycle was supposed to be a quick, highway-capable electric motorcycle for just $5,000. Unfortunately, it launched with specs roughly half that as promised, eventually with a higher price than advertised, and as Electrek reported, the motorcycles may not have even been actually road legal, anyway. That company went belly up in late 2023 with the fallout bleeding well into 2024, leaving existing owners without spare parts or any support. Like Fuell, Sondors was also sitting on a stack of money given to it by prospective customers.
Sondors was such a blunder that, as Electrek reported, thousands of bikes were abandoned in the company’s Chinese factory and bills went unpaid as the company effectively just vaporized. Fans and customers aren’t thrilled, to say the least. It’s believed Sondors may have sold perhaps “nearly 2,000” motorcycles. The company was founded in 2015, but didn’t start its first deliveries until late 2022. So, Sondors didn’t even really survive a full year on the market before failing.
Somehow the bloodbath continues.
Cake, the Swedish manufacturer of seriously cute electric motorcycles, filed for bankruptcy in February of this year after it too, couldn’t keep enough money to stay afloat. Cake was a startup that was founded in 2018 and its original mission involved the creation of lightweight minibike-like motorcycles. While the company never got big, it did become known enough to collaborate with the likes of Polestar.
Yet, like the brands above, Cakes were also premium machines, or at least had premium prices. It sold the Makka moped with a top speed of 15 mph for $3,800 and the tiny Bukk dirt bike for $9,470.
Weirdly, Cake didn’t stay dead. After Cake failed, its assets were scooped up by Norwegian car dealer Brages Holding AS, which plans an “ambitious quest to lead the premium electric two-wheeler segment in targeted markets.” That one’s a head-scratcher since, as you’ve read thus far and will read in a little bit, selling premium electric motorcycles is a struggle. But, we’ll see if Cake manages to stay alive this time.
If I keep naming dead brands this article will go on forever. Two more names that started the year alive but didn’t make it through 2024 are Arc Vector and Onyx Motorbikes. If you expand the list further to brands that died years ago, you’ll see Brammo, Mission, and Alta all on the list of failures.
Burning Cash
There are probably other dead motorcycle brands I’m missing here, but those are a handful of the bigger names. Sadly, we’re not done yet because there are still two companies out there that are alive, but are still struggling.
The first we’ll talk about is LiveWire, the Harley-Davidson-controlled spin-off electric motorcycle brand. The company keeps launching new models, but sales are slow. LiveWire sold 597 motorcycles in 2022 and just 660 motorcycles in 2023. The company says it lost $85 million in 2022 with the losses deepening to $125 million in 2023. How rough is it for LiveWire? The company sold exactly zero of its flagship LiveWire One motorcycles in 2023. LiveWire is expected to burn up to $115 million of Harley-Davidson’s money by the end of this year and still end up selling well under 1,000 motorcycles doing it.
According to LiveWire, the motorcycles aren’t even bringing in that much money. In the third quarter, LiveWire sold $3.2 million in children’s balance bikes compared to just $1.2 million made from selling 99 electric motorcycles.
Zero Motorcycles seems to be going through its own thing. Zero doesn’t have a big parent like Harley-Davidson to keep on giving it money, so it gets rounds of funding to support its projects. As Tech Crunch reports, Zero is currently in the process of closing a funding round of $120 million. That goes on top of another funding round of $107 million from back in 2022 in which it got money from Polaris Industries and Hero MotoCorp. The investors aren’t disclosed this time around, but Zero says it’ll use the money to fund expansion and the development of new motorcycles.
Zero does not release sales numbers, but in 2022, it did say that it sold over 20,000 vehicles since its founding in 2006. In 2020, the company reportedly sold 3,500 electric motorcycles.
Why Are These Brands Struggling?
Of course, this begs a big question: Why are electric motorcycle brands struggling? As a motorcyclist, there are a few factors that I think make electric motorcycles unattractive as compared to something like a Tesla.
Back in September, I chatted with engineers at Canada’s BRP. The powersports manufacturer is just now hitting the market with electric motorcycles right in the midst of this industry struggle. One of the concerns of the engineers was trying to find a perfect balance. BRP’s engineers told me that current battery technology limitations mean that they have only so many levers they can pull.
They could make a motorcycle with lots of range like an Energica, but the current way to do that would be to pile on the batteries. The result would be a heavy electric motorcycle with an extremely high price. They could make a motorcycle that is super lightweight and agile by taking batteries out. This would cut down both cost and weight, but nobody wants a motorcycle that can’t actually go anywhere. Unfortunately, until there’s a breakthrough in battery tech, this is what things are like.
So, BRP’s engineers found something sort of in the middle. The question now becomes if buyers would be willing to pay $13,999 for a motorcycle with 80 miles of combined range and 47 HP on tap.
Pretty much all of the world’s electric motorcycle manufacturers are pulling similar levers. Cheaper electric motorcycles tend to have bad range while the ones that have good range cost too much.
Take the 2023 Zero DSR/X that I’ve been testing for a year and four months now.
Zero says this electric adventure motorcycle costs $22,995 and in my experience, you can reliably get 120 miles of range out of it if you stay off of the highway. However, it takes nearly 3 hours to charge, if you can find a functional level 2 charger wherever you’re headed. As of right now, a BMW R 1300 GS has a starting price of $18,895, will go lots of miles on a highway, and takes less than 5 minutes to refuel to get you back onto a road or trail.
In other words, you really have to be into EV technology to want the Zero over the BMW.
Let’s pick another bike, the $6,495 Ryvid Anthem.
We love the Anthem for its trick technology, but there are compromises here, too. It gets 48 miles of combined highway range and the standard model makes 20 HP. A Honda Rebel 300 makes similar power for $4,849 and doesn’t have to stop every 48 miles during your commute.
This isn’t to say that the electric motorcycle market isn’t growing. Data shows that there’s still tons of interest out there. China and India both buy electric two-wheelers in the tens of millions of units. Here’s what it looked like in 2021, from McKinsey Insights:
In 2022, around half of the millions of motorcycles sold in China were electric.
However, look at how small the numbers are for North America and Europe. One thing to remember is that in America, motorcycles tend to be more for leisure than for transportation. Someone in China or India may buy an electric motorcycle as their daily driver to scoot through their congested city. Range doesn’t really matter as much for that use case. In addition to that, electric motorcycles out there tend to be dirt cheap. But here in America, motorcyclists like to go on long rides across vast expanses of places where charging infrastructure sucks.
I still cannot do my favorite local ride on the DSR/X press bike because it can’t do the trip without charging at least three times, taking up at least 6 hours in charging alone. That’s just not something a cheaper gas bike will a problem with.
So, at least here in North America, I’m not sure the troubled seas will calm soon. BRP appears to be banking on a battery breakthrough that will allow it to offer more range for a cheaper price. Maybe that’s the future. Or, maybe there are just too many startup companies competing in a market that’s not large enough to support them yet. Either way, all of this is a darn shame because electric motorcycles are awesome. But, maybe something needs to change.
(Images: Manufacturers, unless otherwise noted.)
I loved the zero that I test-drove. I think my next 2 wheel toy will be a scooter-style e-bike. Those are about the price of a good bicycle and I can go on many bike trails.
Because for the masses, which is required for success, an E-Bike does the same thing for less money with out a motorcycle drivers license and with a safer experience.
I’ll stick with my 44 yr-old airhead for the foreseeable future thankyouverymuch.
File this one under “duh”. There is zero reason to get an electric motorcycle other than a short commute and hardly anybody does that here is the US. Also – a lot of those electric “scooters” in China are little more than children’s toys capable of 30kph. I used to travel there a lot and I’d see tons of them on the sides of the highways with multiple people and or material on them going 5 mph.
It is hard enough to sell regular motorcycles.
Electric is more reasonable as a solution for scooters.
Good, be gone.
The only actually good e motorcycle niche is “commuter which I can charge in my garage or home.” I know this, because I own one and love it.
Of course, e motorcycle companies, staffed by gearheads and enthusiasts, refuse to put out 125 and 250cc equivalents.
Did that company managed to take the press bike back, you tested, before going bankrupt?
23rd paragraph.
Hate to be that guy but – what’s the surprise here ?
What homework was done by whoever created these companies ? What market were they covering ? What piece of it were they carving ? What new market were they creating ? What did their product bring as a bonus ?
Electric cars pretty much always bring at least one thing – extraordinary straight line performace compared to ICE cars. One can get supercar acceleration at a fraction of the price. It is not all that important, but it’s there. They are mostly equal to – or at least not that much different from – ICE cars, and have that one ace up their sleeve. Even my friends’ years-old Golf electric is zippy and snappy (nevermind the 120 miles range 🙂 )
Electric motorcycles not only can’t match ICE motorcycles’ performance, but are struggling to not be inferior all along the way. And are dilapidating motorcycles’ main advantage – the low weight, and the insane power to weight ratio.
Motorcycles, once past the utilitarian/commuter level, are all about pleasure. Tough luck for electric motorcycles in this regard too – more money spent for less of everything. Good luck selling that.
That leaves only the commuters as a possible market. That one is usually sub $5-7k. Chinese scooters have that bracket completely plugged at the bottom, and it won’t be long before they cover it completely.
I’ve been thinking about this for two days, which as it turns out was a perfect amount of time to let you type out pretty much everything I was gonna say, especially about the market and the “need” for their niche. I’m not sure I agree about the performance – everything I’ve read is that the instant torque is a recipe for one and one-half hoots.
However, the range, the expense, the expectation that people were just gonna fall in love with a deeply compromised experience in order to.. go half as far? Give up the best parts of motorcycling? was a flawed premise from the start. How pleasurable can it be to wander when you’ve got 45 to 90 minutes to do what you’re doing, and you’ve got to be absolutely certain you’ll end up in a place with a charger, where you can then wait 45-90 minutes to charge?
My gf is shopping for her first bike, isn’t really interested in road trips on-bike, and still EV’s haven’t entered the conversation, nor would I recommend them. I’m not opposed to electric bikes, but if this is the form they take I’m not in support of them, either. And I’m not in a hurry to pour one out for companies that tried to make up a market out of whole cloth and failed.
And the commuter market is often better served by e-bikes. If you are looking at an urban commute where you don’t need to go on a freeway, a vehicle that can operate under bicycle rules and that has power assist up to 20-ish mph (varying rules, but that’s a general threshold) can often be the faster option to get through traffic.
I would have expected e-motos to be a thing, but now that I see the actual engineering trade offs, nah, the use case just ain’t there.
I’m surprised about Energica being on the list, and Damon not. The batteries are too heavy, full stop. Solid state batteries may help.
Also, the $18,999 price on the GS is fiction. You can’t buy one without the $4k premium package.
I would love a proper electric motorcycle, but it’ll be years before I’ll be able to own one. I have a moped style ebike that I adore – it’s light, looks good, gets up to about 37mph and will do near silent wheelies all day. That bike was about $1800, closer to $1300 after a rebate. Most proper electric motorcycles are over $10,000, which is significantly more than any of the other motorcyclists I know have to spend on a fair weather commuter. I think what we’re really missing in the US is a regulatory space for the Sur-ron/Talaria style ebikes. They’re in a great place for price, speed, weight, and range, but they’re not street legal. So there’s a massive gap between the class 2 or 3 ebikes that are everywhere and the 5 digit bikes no one is buying. My ideal commuter would be a small electric supermoto, preferably with a top speed over 70mph, about 30 miles of highway range, and a price under or around $5000.
What about a series hybrid touring motorcycle? The extra-long range would be a killer app, and it wouldn’t need much in the way of battery storage, thus saving on weight and cost…
Seems like it comes down to manufacturers just not being able to provide a product at a price point that is compelling enough for customers to bite. As a thought experiment, what would it take for any of YOU readers to buy any of these bikes right now? A discount by half? Mercedes seems the most excited about these bikes, but still isn’t buying, probably due to the cost vs return of usability/charge time/fun vs what you can buy a gas bike for. Until battery tech gets MUCH better, I don’t see electric bikes ever becoming desirable to anyone in the USA interested in using them outside of a city, and even then, sound is a big part of the motorcycle experience…
A used Yamaha is like 6K, near me… for a pretty good one. It would be simply impossible.
On my second (used) Zero and it’s my main motorcycle, but I saw the future in San Francisco recently: Twelve-o’clock Boy wanna-bes on cheap Chinese electric dirt bikes hooning down Market Street. With China on the scene, Zero and LiveWire are only ever going to be boutique brands, and I hope battery tech advances fast enough to let their market grow enough to keep them both in business.
I really like the idea of the Ryvid and its stamped/folded frame, it’s a good fit for electric powertrains and they can get away with smaller production runs.
I’m an EV weirdo and will defend them to my grave, as well as a life-long motorcycle rider, but EV motorcycles, in the US and as rolled out thus far, are mostly pointless.
Street bikes just don’t have enough range – full stop. Nothing else matters if I can’t even get through a Sunday morning ride without having to charge. Don’t even get me started on adventure bikes.
EV scooters in urban areas are very promising, but the charging limitations (urban = no garage for many, and therefore no charging at home) are real, at least in the US. Unless you go with luggable batteries that you can charge in your apartment, but that seems like a huge limitation.
EV dirt bikes are another story – you could do some interesting stuff in that space since they’re toys and people generally have a place to charge them.
I’m afraid EV bikes are a niche within a niche (with possibly a 3rd niche thrown in for good measure). They just don’t make sense at scale in the US.
Counterpoint: After I got my first Zero, I should have just drained the tanks and carbs on my other bikes. Admittedly, I’m a commute/errands/cafe kind of rider but the difference in ease, comfort and ability to focus was night and day.
For sure! If your commute allows for it, then that’s an excellent case for an EV bike.
I have a scooter with removable batteries which I charge in-home. Not 100% convenient, but good enough.
Yeah, I think dirt bikes is the only actual “market” in the USA for a 2-wheeled EV.
I think there are a couple of distinct stories here as opposed to one trend. Motorcycles and Bicycles have very different expectations.
Fuell and Cake went under probably because there are so many e-bike offerings that are far less expensive and very very good. E- bike sales are massive and in many countries have supplanted mopeds and gas scooters.
Sonders is an outlier: They never really made the machine and were victims of poor management and super bad PR, more than anything.
Unlike bikes, motorcycles have similar expectations to cars: long range for fast travel. They also suffer from peoples’ generally misguided ideas of how far they actually travel. The Energica can do 120 miles of hard backroad riding, charge for 30 minutes and give another 100. 220 miles on backroads is a pretty solid day of motorcycle riding. Hey, charge again and make it 320 miles.
The price of an Energica is inline with the price of KTMs, BMW, Triumphs, Ducatis of similar (but lesser) performance. Many Harleys cost as much or more, but that’s a different kettle of fish. To put it in perspective all these machines (not Harley) are some of the most advanced and powerful machines in the world, and cost as much as a 2 year old used Honda HRV. (Some Hondas and Suzukis are approaching the $20. 25K mark.)
The loss of Energica is a sad thing. They were, for the most part, “there”. For true mass sales they were about 2 years from solid state, or semi solid state game changers. By true mass sales – I mean range and charging specs beyond anything anyone might need, but think they need before actually driving an EV – fair enough.
Hopefully they will be acquired whole by someone with vision, but I’m thinking Ideanomics may strip the parts for a quick buck. The American way. I hope I am wrong.
I’m thinking that the replacement and accessories is a major part of the ICE cycle business, which is pretty much missing from the electric cycle revenue stream.
This! It’s so weird how hard it is to get accessories for my e scooter. I want to give you people money!
A dozen years ago, the market for full-size electric motorcycles in the US was darn near Zero. (See what I did there? 🙂 )
It still is.
Motorcycles are ultimately held back by the limited number of ways that aerodynamic drag can be reduced without making the bike impractical to use.
I think a 1-seater or tandem-2-seater aerodynamic microcar, a sort of modern Messerschmitt, is the correct way for a modern motorcycle company to address electrification.
The vehicle should be enclosed with the rider able to seal themselves from the elements, have a heater, maybe even air conditioning, but also be extremely small and light with the CdA value of a velomobile. Do not compromise the aerodynamics for looks, do not build it to fit those great American land whales(it should just barely be able to fit someone who is up to 6′-5″ and maybe 250 lbs), and if it’s a one seater, do not exceed 200 lbs for the unladen vehicle mass including battery. A 2nd person on board will probably necessitate 500+ lb vehicle weight due to all of the additional forces imposed and the requisite parts to accommodate this, so a one-seater will be a lot cheaper and a lot easier to give good performance because ebike parts can be used. Consider that today you can buy the motor, controller, and battery to build a high performance ebike that does 0-60 mph in under 4 seconds all off the shelf for around $2k, with all of these combined components weighing under 50 lbs. Just add the bike and any upgrades it needs to handle it, plus your labor.
This is the type of vehicle that could sell for the $20k-ish price electric motorcycles seem to command, except getting 300+ miles highway range on the same size battery that would otherwise give a 100 mile highway range, while also providing all of the benefits and comforts of a basic car, except just for one person. And to carve out a marketshare, it would be dirt cheap to give it AWD and the ability to rocket from 0-60 mph in under 3 seconds using off-the-shelf ebike parts if the mass of the vehicle is kept low enough. In turn, if the vehicle is hand built, the performance can justify a high price because it would still be a lot of value for the money, but if the vehicle ever sees mass production, the cost could come down to potentially that of an ICE moped or ebike, which would greatly expand its appeal.
It would resemble a greatly shrunken Aptera 2e, or maybe even a velomobile like my Milan SL, and would be by necessity velomobile-sized. Don’t bloat the thing up, or the above goals won’t be possible. Keep it lean. It shouldn’t need more than 6 horsepower to hold 100 mph on the highway on flat ground, THEN you get to see what happens when you have 100+ horsepower in it and it is built to handle it, and next to no forces holding back your acceleration.
There should be two over-riding design goals within the same vehicle:
1) Lowest possible operating cost
2) Hypercar performance
Basic, cheap, efficient enclosed transportation, with a trick up its sleeve to make people drool over it, at an attainable cost even if it must be hand built.
Do this, and I think that a significant market would form. A motorcycle company would be an entity that could pull it off.
Monocoque velomobiles are hand-built in Romania and sell for around $5k-10kUSD. Most of the cost is labor. There’s potential for a motorcycle company to do similar, and there’s lots of fat to be trimmed from the per-unit cost as production volume rises.
I don’t know about the specifics, but I think you’re on the right track in one sense. With current EV tech, long range is only possible with extreme aero. Look at the land speed record holders–long sleek things where the driver is lying down more than sitting. That’s where things start going off track for me: Who wants to drive in that position for any length of time? and How many bikers want an enclosed cockpit? Might as well drive a car in that case, especially at that price.
That position is very comfortable if the suspension and weight distribution are properly accounted for. The Milan SL I bought fits me like a glove and my KMX trike I built with aftermarket full suspension and gas shocks has the ride quality of an old Citroen. I don’t get fatigued riding either for hundreds of miles, and I’m pedaling these things(albeit, I’m also in good shape). They ride more like cars than bicycles. To make this position comfortable, you’re not going to be able to design for 300 lb people that are 5’3″ as is done with modern SUVs/CUVs/trucks. Design the damned thing for healthy or even slightly overweight people to use on paved roads(it’s NOT an SUV), set the suspension spring rates accordingly, and the possibilities for efficiency, ride comfort, performance, and cost reduction of the overall vehicle go way up. Plus the rider doesn’t have to pedal, since we’re talking about a microcar with motorcycle/autocycle legal status with no bicycle drivetrain present. The people that won’t fit in it are just going to buy an SUV/CUV/pickup anyhow, and the vehicle design should just ignore them as a consideration. This vehicle won’t be for everyone and it shouldn’t try to be.
Cars are expensive to keep operational. The goal would be to eliminate most of the cost associated with using cars, while retaining their most useful benefits.
What I’m basically proposing is a land speed racer or Electrathon car compromised just barely enough to be practical for daily street use and able to fit 90% of the population. The operator will be awkward climbing into/out of it, but that doesn’t matter. Refinement? Don’t even consider it, as it’s not meant to be a luxury vehicle. The performance, cost, efficiency, and practicality benefits of this would be compelling and it would be a lot of fun to drive. If it can be mass produced, it potentially could compete in purchase cost with a used 15+ year old clunker sedan in decent running shape, while having the per mile energy and maintenance cost of an ebike, which will give it plenty of appeal on those merits to anyone seeking basic, cheap, enclosed individual transportation that is as cheap as or even cheaper than using mass transit on a per mile basis(my electric velomobile over all the miles I’ve used it is significantly cheaper per mile than taking the bus or MetroLINK light rail, but I retain most of the autonomy and convenience of a car). The performance possible with such a vehicle would also expand its appeal to those seeking status and/or to sports car enthusiasts that want to go around a track as fast as cars costing into the low six figures. Except it’s in a package with a cost that the poors can aspire to. Other than a bicycle or a kayak, a more sustainable vehicle for individual transport wouldn’t exist.
Agree/disagree. A low, streamlined reverse trike would be pretty cool, fun in the curves and away from traffic, very efficient and could borrow an existing electric motorcycle drivetrain, though (despite your own experience) it would be incredibly dangerous because of headlight glare and “*crunch* oh I didn’t see you!” Motorcycles put you at eye level with car drivers, which is what everything (and everyone) is engineered around.
I would like to see a fully-enclosed, recumbent cabin two-wheeler. Give it two-wheel drive and electronic balance control. Have it do track stands at stoplights.
Safety has two aspects: visibility and crash safety. We have the tech to solve both of these for a highway capable velomobile. First, give it both internal and external airbags. These will give you deployable “crumple zones.” Second, make the entire vehicle skin an LED billboard.
There is no legal limit to how many extra marker lights you can add to the top of a vehicle, nor is there a legal limit to how tall and obnoxious your buggy whip can be.
Aptera
As a motorcycle enthusiast in the states. I do ride to work on it, but more so they are for riding and getting lost and relieving stress. When I ride I might have a destination in mind but no time frame to get there. Other times I have no place in mind and I’m just riding around for the joy of it. Full size electric motorcycles make zero sense to me, full stop. They have limited range, heavy weight, and laughable prices. They only work for commuting and if that’s your use case electric bicycles make far more sense. They have the range and speed you need to get to work. If you need more speed than the 28 mph of a class 3 bike. You can buy a Sun-Ron, Talaria or other similar supermoto style bike that can go 40+ which is more than fast enough for most commutes in a city. My $0.2.
This is following the natural arc of the startup company in our modern Grift Economy.
While the “products” in these cases are ostensibly motorcycles, the real purpose of these companies is to hoover up venture capital, pay themselves high salaries and bonuses and then implode.
When every dive bar has a row of chargers out front, we will know that the electric motorcycle has found acceptance.
Everyone: investors, engineers, and riders, needs to accept what an electric motorcycle can and can’t be at this point. Batteries are comparatively heavy, so we’re constrained by the physics that have been dubbed the”tyranny of rocket fuel”: the more we put in, the more we need to haul around what we just put in. Practically, that means the only viable bikes until something dramatically changes are city bikes. Similar performance to something in the 300cc-500cc range (but with incredible acceleration!), and a range between 50 and 100 miles. Manufacturers can just give up on the idea of anybody paying $10k+ for that, so they need to focus on hitting a decent price point and not market these bikes as replacements for something that they just aren’t able to be yet.
As a rider, I love my Ryvid and ride it most days, but I also don’t have any sort of delusion that I’m going to take it out touring. It’s for errands in the city, short blasts through the curlies in the nearby hills, and commuting. It does those things remarkably well while delivering me in a remarkably better mood than when I left. LiveWire is never going to work while it’s in H-D’s shadow. Energica was too range-ambitious. Cake thought a lot more people would pay a lot of money for their minimal aesthetic. Can Am and Kawasaki spent way too much money on development and are trying to pass those costs on before actually building a customer base. It can be done, but expectations are all over the place and we’ll probably see a handful that get it right out of the sea of current attempts.
I really think the EV moto industry needs to agree on a swappable battery standard they can all use. They have that in some overseas markets for electric scooters, more aimed a commuting than anything else but you can just roll up to a bank of batteries, swap your empty for a full one and ride on. I know that’s not a univerally useful option but it’s something that could be set up at larger roadhouses along highways and in cities. Want to sell a bike with more range? Add more modules. Yes it’s a bit clunky and harder to package, but the practicality is there.
Agree. This would be far more feasible than with cars, and yet they’re actually trying it with cars. Getting these little startups together on a standard may be a tall order though. It might take one or more majors to lead the way, ones with a wide dealer/service network in place.
Who is “actually trying” what “with cars”? Global EV sales surpassed 10 million in 2024. Q3 EV sales in the US were 350,000. Not one of these had swappable batteries.
They should do AA’s/loose 18650’s in standard swappable packaging. It’s already a standard in consumer electronics. In an emergency you can find them everywhere. And they are infinitely repairable, one dead cell means nothing, swap it out.
For a cheaper bike they could do nimh instead of lithium.
Micah Toll at electrek and others constantly hype Gogoro for its scooters with batteries you swap at kiosks, but the reality is it’s only a success in Taiwan (which is tiny, about the size of Maryland). And it’s a 1.7 kWh lump, so you’d need four of them to power the Zero FXE with its mere 105 miles of city range, and 10 of them to match Mercedes Streeter’s Zero DSR/X press bike. Another Taiwanese KYMCO wanted to compete with its own Ionex battery swap system, I haven’t heard much about it.
Meanwhile Honda, KTM, Piaggio, Yamaha, and others reacted by establishing the Swappable Batteries Motorcycle Consortium. I thought they picked Honda’s 1.6 kWh Mobile Power Pack lump and gave it blue lights and named it “Gachaco,” but it sounds like they are also “progressing” towards an ISO TC 22 SC 38 WG 2 standard that may be different; their recent picture from a trade fair shows a taller and wider pack that looks challenging for one to load into a swap kiosk. These companies clearly aren’t in a rush to electrify their industry; it seems like the car industry without a Tesla pushing it. I think the Kawasaki Ninja e-1 with two 1.6 kWh batteries is the only motorcycle from consortium members, and there’s no sign of anyone developing a serious network of swap stations for it because the economics of swap stations aren’t great.
Today’s lithium-ion batteries can recharge 10-80% in 20 minutes regardless of the battery size in kWh (if the charger is powerful enough, which isn’t a problem for a motorcycle, 50 kW would be enough to quickly juice a 20 kWh pack). It’s unfortunate that Mercedes Streeter’s loaner charges so slowly, but that’s the motorcycle’s fault. Given the mismatch between a 2 kWh 10 kg swappable battery pack and the seven you need to form a 14 kWh motorcycle battery, I don’t see battery swap infrastructure ever reaching serious sport bikes. Removable and standardized, maybe, which would be cool for endurance racing and maybe long-distance rides with a bit of planning.
Swappable batteries make sense until you get to the question of “who pays for them”. The battery is the most expensive part of the vehicle… and swapping means you need to purchase one battery with the vehicle and at least one more you don’t literally possess.
It would only make sense as an ongoing rental operation, not with an ownership model. But even that needs huge capitalization.
Finally… making the heaviest part of the vehicle easily swappable yet restrained in a crash increases the complexity of vehicle design exponentially.
Before moving overseas, I owned a Zero S for two years (2020 to 2022). That bike was very good. It had incredible acceleration, cool looks, and minimal maintence/operation costs. Huge smiles per mile. It was my first EV and a deliberate choice to test EV living (I have an ICE car and garage parking too).
First issue was range. I knew the range would make it a city runner without the ability to freely ride long distances, but in practice, it meant the freedom to wander was missing and I had range on my mind every ride over 40 miles.
It took owning this Zero to find out that my motorcycle riding style was all about the wandering. It was deep pandemic so I had no commute, but when return to office occured, my commute was short (<10 round trip in DC area) and it was perfect for the Zero. My workplace had parking with free Level2 charging so that was bonus.
Having to plan my longer rides to find chargers and build in the charging time was not optimal. Then add unreliable level2 evse, and it just removed most of the fun from riding anything beyond 40 miles. Given my above average weight, riding style, terrain, and city/hwy profile of the DC area I would only see about 70 miles of total range on full charge of the 7.2kw battery.
It was more expensive than other bikes, but with a tax credit and dealer discount at my out the door price was $12,400. Insurance was similar to other bikes, and registration was discounted since it was an EV. I had to move quickly so selling after 2 years mean I only got $6k for it from the dealer buying it back. So the depreciation was painful. Very painful, but not totally unanticipated.
I hope batteries get cheaper. I hope Zero survives. I will consider another Zero, but only if used and with more range.