The New Can-Am Pulse And Origin Could Change The Electric Motorcycle Game, But There’s One Problem

Electric motorcycles are in a bad place right now. You wouldn’t know it because it seems like everyone and their grandma wants to make an electric bike, but the sales of these machines have always been limp even as brands like Tesla have become best-sellers. That’s assuming a startup promising a new electric motorcycle even puts its product on the market. I see potential for the future of electric motorcycles to change and the answer comes from our friends up north in Canada. The new 2025 Can-Am Pulse and the new 2025 Can-Am Origin mark the start of a platform so smart it’s a bet on the future. It also helps that they’re also just a ton of fun to ride.

Canada is known for its many endearing traits from maple syrup to the stereotype that everyone is so polite. But something Canada isn’t known for is its motorcycle production. Canadians have built motorcycles, but you aren’t going to find the maple leaf equivalent of Yamaha or Harley-Davidson. Instead, you’ll hear about small efforts like the Lito Motorcycles, which doesn’t exist anymore, and Damon Motorcycles, which has been promising an electric bike but not actually delivering on it. Then there are all of the custom builds and handfuls of boutique bikes.

That leaves us with the likes of BRP’s Can-Am and Campagna Motors. Both of these are known names, but until recently, the closest either of them have come to a motorcycle is building three-wheel vehicles. Can-Am is a historic name in motorcycling, but the iconic orange and red colorway hasn’t been applied to a motorcycle in about 38 years.

BRP thinks it’s time for a change and now, it’s going back to its two wheel roots. But in typical BRP fashion, the new bikes, the 2025 Can-Am Pulse and the 2025 Can-Am Origin, are equal parts weird and ground-breaking at the same time. BRP is making a bet on the future and I think you’ll want in on it.

(Full Disclosure: BRP flew me out to Austin, Texas, to test its first new motorcycles in 40 years. BRP paid for my travel, swanky accommodations, food, and was forgiving after I crashed an Origin while riding a bit faster than my skill level.)

Shaky Ground

So let’s get back to the electric motorcycle dilemma. Depending on who you ask, the Tesla Model Y was the overall best-selling car on the planet in 2023 and it’s on track to dominate the U.S. market this year. Sure, some automakers are letting off of the accelerator of their future EV plans due to slowing growth trends, but electric car sales are still high.

The same cannot be said for electric motorcycles. While you can find plenty of headlines saying that the electric motorcycle market is growing, most will fail to note that the market is still infinitesimally small. LiveWire, the electric motorcycle spin-off of bike giant Harley-Davidson, sold just 660 motorcycles in 2023, up from 597 motorcycles in 2022. The company is operating deeply in the red and early data suggests the company isn’t doing better this year. LiveWire sold just 275 units through the first half of 2024. Oof.

Zero Motorcycles, essentially the closest the motorcycle world has to its own Tesla, said in 2022 that it had sold over “20,000” motorcycles since its founding in 2006. That’s more or less just 1,111 motorcycles a year. Zero keeps its sales numbers private, but it’s believed the company sold around 3,500 units in 2020. Mind you, Zero is one of the biggest names out there.

BRP could have decided to avoid all of this by making its new motorcycles powered by gas. Instead, it wants to make a bet on the electric future and if the dice land on a high number, the brand thinks it’ll be ahead of everyone else.

The Past

There is historical precedent for Can-Am’s bet.

Over 52 years ago, the Bombardier Corporation launched a new division. Can-Am was to be the home of Bombardier’s competition motorcycle efforts and the company gathered a team of engineers in a barn in Valcourt, Quebec. By the way, the Can-Am name came from an employee competition and reflected the brand’s mission to dominate the Canadian and American markets.

In 1973, Can-Am produced its first motorcycle, the MX. What made the MX different was what was bolted in its frame, from my previous pieces on Bombardier history:

Thanks to a 1970 acquisition of Austria’s Rotax, Can-Am’s motocross bikes would benefit from two-stroke engines with oil injection and rotary-valve induction. Can-Am pinched skilled engineers, including World Motocross Champion Jeff Smith, to help develop its motorcycles. Riding the machines would be two-time AMA 250cc National Motocross Champion Gary Jones with teammates Marty Tripes and Jimmy Ellis. Can-Am’s motorcycles saw immediate success on the racetrack, with Ellis riding a Can-Am to an AMA National MX win in 1974. The bikes would continue winning, dominating the field to the point of an AMA 250cc National Motocross Championship sweep that same year. That set a record that would take until 1986 for Honda to break.

In that debut year of 1973, Can-Am also swept the Six Days Trial, taking gold, silver, and bronze. Can-Am’s runaway success was a mix of two important factors. For one, Can-Am had star riders who were at the peak of their craft. The brand then put those riders on motorcycles that made so much power that the rest of the bike could barely keep up.

But that never stopped Can-Am as the bikes became total mountains of power, eventually earning their own nicknames, from my previous pieces:

[B]y 1977, Can-Am’s bikes were so fast and so wild that some riders refused the challenge. Bikes like the MX-3 threatened to kill so much that after factory rider Jimmy Ellis hit a spectator he allegedly called it a “Black Widow.” And yet, Can-Am went on to win race after race for years.

For years, it’s also been said that the Black Widow was the first motorcycle in history to have been recalled over a decorative sticker. I thought that was wild, but BRP’s representatives confirmed that the MX-3 was indeed recalled to remove a spider sticker that suggested the rider might not come back home. This just illustrates how insane Can-Am’s old motorcycles were.

Unfortunately, Can-Am also failed to stay on top. Japanese brands added power to their engines, improved their suspensions, tightened up their brakes, and caught up to Can-Am. Bombardier’s response wasn’t to build a next generation of Can-Am motorcycles. Instead, by 1983 Bombardier, had already ditched the Can-Am program and punted it off to England. Bombardier would then try and then fail to make a people’s car before focusing its efforts on regional aircraft and rail equipment. Sadly, Armstrong/CCM did little more than keep the Can-Am corpse alive, finally letting it wither into death in 1987.

While the death of the original Can-Am brand was a gut-wrenching blow, Can-Am was reborn in the mid-2000s by BRP’s introduction into off-road motorsports and three-wheel vehicles. Since then, Can-Am has been known for and embraces its position in the powersports world as the weird brand that innovates a specific niche.

BRP gave journalists specific examples at the event. The company noted that before the Spyder, trikes were often odd homebrew builds and kits. The Spyder was a leader in making the trike a more mainstream vehicle. In the off-road space, Can-Am’s UTVs dominate races and spec sheets, just like the old days. BRP’s even gotten really weird on the water with the modular Sea-Doo Switch plastic pontoon boat.

However, throughout all of this time BRP has never gone back to its roots. That began to change over two years ago when the brand began teasing a return to two wheels. The 2025 Can-Am Pulse and the 2025 Can-Am Origin are finally here and while they aren’t going to win many races, BRP hopes to win again, but in a different way.

The Future, Today

On the surface, the Pulse and the Origin are just two more electric motorcycles to throw into the pile of about a billion electric motorcycles. You really have to start looking at them to see the magic.

The innovation of these motorcycles comes from their drivetrain. Most electric motorcycles follow one of two designs. Companies wanting to simplify their builds might just slap a hub motor onto the rear wheel. These look futuristic, but put a lot of unsprung weight on the rear wheel, which is something you don’t want on a motorcycle.

The other way is to build an electric motorcycle like a gasser is made. These bikes have batteries where a gas engine would be and directly behind these batteries, but still on the bike’s main frame, is the motor. The motor then drives the rear wheel through a chain or a belt. This is similar to how most motorcycles in history have been made.

Now, BRP could have followed the flow, but instead, it decided here is where it’s going to innovate. The new motorcycles are powered by Rotax E-Power drivetrains and how they work is brilliant. See, Rotax no longer has the competitive edge on horsepower, but the company has been putting tiny, but powerful electric motors in other vehicles.

How does BRP apply these tiny motors to the Pulse and Origin? BRP figured out how to turn a swingarm into more or less an entire motorcycle.

Zoom in and you’ll notice that the front of the swingarm of the Pulse and the Origin is a tiny Rotax motor. On the other side of the motor is what BRP calls the chaincase. This is a sealed drive unit containing a self-adjusting chain that is constantly bathed in oil.

In other words, BRP figured out how to cram the most important parts of a motorcycle into a swingarm. BRP envisions a future where it can build an entire lineup of motorcycles and development of these bikes is easier and cheaper thanks to the chaincase. BRP’s engineers tell me it’s scalable, too, so it can be lengthened or perhaps shortened to fit different applications. BRP is so confident in this tech that at the event it showed two off silhouettes of what looks like future motorcycles. The company says this drive system is really only the beginning of something much bigger.

Personally, the sky seems to be the limit. BRP could slap the Rotax E-Power system onto the back of a Ryker or even adapt it for a snowmobile. That’s the beauty of taking what’s more or less an engine and transmission and containing it in a swingarm.

The benefits don’t stop there. BRP says that since the chain tensions itself and is always bathed in oil, maintenance is dead easy. There’s no having to lube the chain like with a typical motorcycle or having to adjust tension. BRP just wants you to change the oil every 10,000 miles and to crack open the case and inspect the internals at 25,000 miles. The first service is at 5,000 miles, but the longer intervals begin after.

BRP also touts the chaincase as being a better way to ride off-road. You no longer have to worry about rocks getting caught in a belt or chain, you no longer have to worry about dirt messing up your final drive, and perhaps most importantly for some is the fact that the chaincase is completely independent from the rest of the motorcycle.

On a typical motorcycle you have the chain which pivots with the swingarm, but is also connected at the primary at the transmission attached to the main frame. As the rear suspension moves through its travel you get some slack, or maximum tension when angle of the motor and the chain is perfectly straight. You as the rider will feel slack and lash in the drivetrain, especially off-road.

However, the drivetrain of these electric motorcycles don’t have that problem. The chain is perfectly aligned and perfectly tensioned at all times because the entire drivetrain of the motorcycle is in the swingarm. It still gets better because BRP’s design here pushes the rear tire into the ground when you accelerate. The result is an amazingly smooth ride that stays upright rather than squats.

The Same Bones

Both motorcycles get the genius chaincase drivetrain. This frees up the rest of the motorcycle to store the batteries and the electronics necessary to get the bike to run. Like other modern motorcycles, the battery is a structural component with subframes attached to it. Here are further details from my earlier piece:

The Pulse and Origin share a platform that includes a Rotax E-Power drive system plus an 8.9kWh battery. That Rotax drive system features a 47 HP and 53 lb-ft torque electric motor capable of accelerating the Origin off-roader to 60 mph in 4.3 seconds and the Pulse city bike to the same speed in 3.8 seconds. The 47 HP is a peak number and the motor is able to put out 27 HP of continuous power.

This drive system includes liquid cooling for the battery, charger, motor, and inverter. The idea here is that by liquid-cooling everything the Can-Am electric bikes will be able to mitigate battery degradation. BRP also says this system also allows for faster charging. How fast? The battery will go from 20 percent to 80 percent in 50 minutes on a Level 2 charger. A full charge on a Level 2 charger will take around 1 hour and 30 minutes. If you have nothing but a household outlet nearby, expect a full charge to take over 5 hours.

There’s also “Passive” and “Active” brake regeneration. BRP says the Passive mode is supposed to work like typical brake regen while Active mode, which is activated by twisting the throttle backward, offers up to four times the regeneration power.

The 2025 Can-Am Pulse and the 2025 Can-Am Origin motorcycles are essentially the same at their cores. Both bikes get a 10.25-inch display with Bluetooth and Apple CarPlay. Both have reverse modes, basic riding modes, and user customization. Both have BRP’s tool-free LinQ Nano mounting system to mount a near endless list of accessories, and both motorcycles feature designs inspired by snow owls.

If you squint, you can see the bird in the bikes. The headlights are the bird’s face while the front panels form what are supposed to look like the owl’s wings in flight. Follow the body line to the rear and that’s supposed to look like the bird’s tail as it flies through the air.

Heartbeat Of The City

So, how does this tech translate to actually riding? Even though both motorcycles ride on the same platform and share the same parts, the ride experiences are vastly different.

The Pulse is supposed to be an agile city commuter motorcycle. It rides on 17-inch cast wheels wearing Dunlop Sportmax GPR-300 tires. There’s a non-adjustable KYB 41mm inverted up front and a Sachs twin-tube coil suspension with preload adjustment in the rear. Both ends have 5.5 inches of travel. Braking is handled by a 320mm disc up front chomped on by a two-piston J.Juan caliper. A 240mm disc brings up the rear with a single-piston J.Juan caliper. The whole motorcycle comes in at 390 pounds and the seat height is 30.86 inches. Other chassis stats include a 56.6-inch wheelbase and a 5.7-inch ground clearance.

In the real world, the seat is low enough and the motorcycle is narrow enough that most people should have no problem putting both of their feet on the ground. The rider triangle of the Pulse is a little aggressive, but it doesn’t have you leaned over like you would be on a sportbike. It sort of bridges the gap between a standard motorcycle and sportbike.

The Rotax E-Power unit isn’t doling out a ton of power, but you have to remember that we’re talking about an electric motor here. There’s still more than enough power to pop a wheelie on torque alone and if you’re bored, you can turn off traction control and do a burnout while you wait for a light to change. The sound emitted from one of these Can-Am bikes is best described as what you’d think George Jetson’s car would sound like in real life. The sound also gets quieter the faster you go. At some point the only noise you hear is the wind hitting your helmet.

BRP also seems to be telling the truth about performance, too. On a highway on-ramp I punched the throttle next to another journalist who was riding the Origin. I had maybe 100 pounds on the fella and at first, the guy on the Origin got out faster on the green light, but my lighter Pulse eventually caught up and passed him as the speedometer climbed above 60 mph.

These motorcycles will continue to accelerate hard until about 74 mph. Then, power falls off quickly. 77 mph to the top speed of 80 mph is slow and it’s obvious you’re not expected to stay at 80 mph for a very long time. This is the same on both machines. Yes, technically these bikes cannot even hit the famous 85 mph speed limit of Texas State Highway 130.

But that’s fine. Keep the Pulse and the Origin on backroads and you’ll have a good time. BRP is marketing these motorcycles as being the size of a 300cc with the initial punch of a 1000cc and the overall performance of a 600cc. Given these stats, you might expect the Pulse to turn like a Buell and accelerate like a Yamaha R1. Well, the Pulse isn’t nearly as agile as a Buell or even as agile as the 2023 Zero DSR/X that somehow still remains in my fleet, but it’s not really supposed to be. Remember, this is a commuter!

The Pulse has no problems darting through heavy traffic and its mix of good handling and electric power turns the urban jungle into a playscape. But, if you’re daring enough to take a Pulse on a backroad outside of the city, the bike is happy to lean over and the tires have plenty of grip. Again, these aren’t sportbikes, but as commuters, the Pulse is a ton of fun. The Pulse’s handling gives you the confidence to lean it over as far as you could, seeing if you can scrape those pegs. A lot of that comes down to the center of gravity, which keeps weight down low, close to the ground. The Pulse really does feel like a 300 that wants to be a 600 when it grows up.

I have three demerits to the Pulse. The first is that it’s impossible to find the perfect regeneration setting. Both regeneration settings have a low and a high setting. If you set passive regeneration on low and let off of the throttle, the regen is so minimal you’re almost just coasting. Set it to high and you’re slowing down faster, but not fast enough.

Active regen involves twisting the throttle grip backward. Set it to low and regen is stronger than passive regen on high, but you’ll still need the friction brakes to come to a complete stop. Set it to high and the regen is ridiculous. It becomes so strong it’s like you’re brake-checking the person behind you. You can come to a smooth stop, but it takes being really fine with reversing the throttle, which ends up being pretty distracting.

Ideally, the passive regen needs one higher setting and the active regen needs a middle setting. Otherwise, you’re always either putting in too much or too little regen than you actually want.

My second demerit to the Pulse is with its seat. It looks cool, but the lack of padding means a bigger person like me is likely to start feeling sore if you ride any further than a single charge.

Now we land at the storage. The Pulse has a 1.7-liter storage box. I was able to fit my beanie and a phone in there and nothing else. It’s clear here that BRP wants you to use the LinQ attachments to get any real storage. But still, I feel like if you’re going to include storage, it should fit more than just a phone.

But I want to be clear that my complaint about storage is a minor one. My Buell Lightning has less storage than that and my Royal Enfield scoffs at this thing you call storage. So, I’m happy there’s at least a place for a phone to live and charge while you’re riding. One particular early review noted the lack of storage as one reason the Pulse sucks as a city bike, but I think that’s too harsh. Go to Chicago or any major American city and you’ll see so many people commuting on motorcycles with less storage than the Pulse. What do those riders do? Wear a backpack. It’s not that big of a deal.

According to BRP, it’ll go up to 100 miles on a charge in stop-and-go traffic or 80 miles if that traffic hits some decent speed before stopping again. Range falls to 55 miles if you ride at a steady state of 50 miles. Our trip out of Austin saw us sitting in heavy traffic before lighting up backroads.

Both motorcycles have a range estimator like any other EV, but BRP’s range estimator also has a confidence meter. If you’re riding hard and fast, the confidence meter dips into the negative, indicating that you’re unlikely to hit the estimated remaining range. If you keep things slow and gentle, confidence goes up, indicating that the bike thinks you might beat the estimated range. In my experience, the confidence meter makes the range estimator far more accurate.

Our first ride finished after about 40 miles and the bike thought that based on my riding style, it had another 20 miles left in it. That would have resulted in a total of 60 miles of range, or about exactly half of what I get with a Zero DSR/X, which coincidentally has about twice the battery.

Overall, the Pulse was a gloriously fun ride and one that I wanted to do all day. It’s not the best motorcycle at anything, but its overall package is so pleasing and fun. I also think it might be one of the best-looking electric motorcycles on the market right now.

The Origin is even better.

A Nod To The Past

I’ll get this out of the way right now, the Origin might be one of the greatest motorcycles I’ve ever ridden.

Yes, the internals of the Origin are all the same as the Pulse. Yet, BRP tweaked just enough about the Origin to make the riding experience entirely different. Let’s start with the spec sheet. A 43m KYB inverted fork is up front and it has a whopping 10 inches of travel. A fully adjustable KYB HPG shock follows in the rear and it also has 10 inches of travel. Brakes are a carry-over from the Pulse, but the rubber that meets the road changes.

There’s a 21 inch wheel up front and an 18-inch wheel in the rear. Both wheels are shod in Dunlop D605 tires containing tubes. The wheels also stretch out over a longer 59-inch wheelbase. Other platform changes include a 34-inch seat height, 10.8 inches of ground clearance and a running weight of 412 pounds.

The Origin also trusts you enough that you can defeat the rear ABS and turn off traction control so you get sideways in the dirt. Of course, since it’s an off-road bike BRP also adds in two off-road riding modes. These generally allow the rear tire to spin in the dirt, but also allow you to slide and jump around without pissing off the computers.

The geometry is ever so different, too. The Origin has 30 degrees of rake and 4.6 inches of trail. The Pulse is more aggressive at 27.2 degrees and 4.0 inches, respectively. Otherwise, the Origin is similar to its Pulse stablemate right down to the big screen. Weirdly, the already tiny glovebox goes down to a puny 0.7-liters on the Origin, which means my phone fit and literally nothing else, not even my hat.

In the real world, the platform changes mean that many riders will no longer be able to plant both feet onto the ground. I didn’t stand a chance at getting both feet on the ground. My workaround involved stopping, putting my left foot firmly on the ground, and leaving my right foot on the rear brake.

If you jump to an Origin immediately from a Pulse you’ll notice that it doesn’t turn over nearly as well. The tall wheels and the longer wheelbase make the Origin a little resistant to turning. A Pulse will lean over without any effort, but you have to be somewhat deliberate with the Origin. But that’s fine, it’s not like you’d expect a Jeep Wrangler to turn like a Mazda Miata.

Still, despite the extra effort, the Origin seems to have about 70 percent of the Pulse’s good handling, which means you’ll still have plenty of fun on an Origin even if you never leave pavement. The seat of the Origin is similarly hard and uncomfortable, too, but the Origin’s suspension is so much better at soaking up bumps.

The Origin’s real magic happens when you leave pavement. BRP took us to an off-road park, where we got to take the Origin off-road at our own speed. I was in a group full of people with motocross experience. These were the kinds of guys who grew up riding dirt bikes before transitioning to riding bikes on the road.

I’m the other way around. I started on the road and still haven’t really gotten into any hardcore off-roading stuff. Sure, I’ve taken my old Triumph Tiger off-road and I’ve taken the Zero off-road, too, but I rode those bikes nice and slowly. The closest I’ve gone to motocross speed was when I took a Honda Elite 150D scooter off-road on the Gambler 500.

The guys in my group hit the track at the off-road park with speed. I’m equal parts bold and stupid, so I decided to follow them at their pace.

To my surprise, the Origin made going fast off-road oh so easy. There was no shifting to worry about and the suspension was entirely unburdened by what the chain was doing. The Origin also outputted just enough power to go fast without trying to kill me. It’s been said that electric motorcycles are like an off-roading cheat code and now I understand. The Origin made riding fast off-road almost as easy as pointing, clicking, and ending up where I pointed the bars.

I didn’t have to worry about where an engine would make peak power, I didn’t have to worry about rocks getting caught up in the final drive, and I didn’t have to worry about weight being perhaps too high up. The Origin let me focus on setting faster and faster laps.

Again, I’m not a motocross gal. I don’t ride motorcycles fast off-road. Yet, with every lap I found myself closing the gap on the guys in front of me. Riding the Origin on dirt was easy and infinitely more fun than any ride I’ve ever had on a road. Soon enough, I saw myself launching the Origin off of jumps, blazing through narrow paths, and drifting my way through loose sand. Yes, I was cackling through every minute of it.

I even continued cackling after I crashed it. Admittedly, the fun of off-roading the Origin came at odds with Texas heat. It was roughly 104 degrees on the ground at the off-road park and I was dressed up in my best Power Rangers-style motorcycle gear. It was so hot that riding in the wind really just made it feel like you turned a hair dryer on high. This was dangerous heat, especially if you’re wearing heavy gear.

I started feeling a bit heat-soaked after several laps of the track, but I was having so much fun I didn’t want it to stop. The other journalists in my group tapped out, but I thought I had one more lap left in me. Not only did I think I had one more lap in me, but I thought I could make it my fastest yet. I think I was successful, too, but then I rode faster than my skill. I came out of a corner a bit too wonky, lost the front end, and went down at 25-ish mph or so.

Thankfully, I rolled out on hitting the ground and hurt exactly nothing. My jacket, pants, and gloves did exactly as they were supposed to and took the hit so I didn’t have to. I felt so comfortable after the crash that my first thought was actually “Oh god, now I have to stand in this heat without any wind blowing on me.” Yes, I crashed a motorcycle and my first thought was about the heat.

Motorcycle crashes are weird. They simultaneously happen so fast that you may not remember the exact movements, but they also feel like they’re happening in slow motion. I swear I felt like I had enough time to commit to rolling once I hit the ground.

Sadly, it was here that I learned that the Origin is a bit of a heavy machine when it comes fully down. The bike practically lays flat on the ground and it took two of BRP’s guys to get it back onto its wheels. So, if you dump it into a tough position, you either don’t want to be alone, be really strong, or perhaps have a come-along tool that you can wrap around a tree or something. I reckon the optional crash bars will also help tremendously.

At any rate, my tester was fine aside from a bent brake pedal. The motorcycle triggered its tip sensor, but getting it riding again involves just restarting the bike.

I should also note that my Origin tester started getting a little hot. The temperature gauge went two notches past half. I lost active regen on the first notch past half and passive regen disappeared after the second notch. The bike then started derating the motor in a further effort to keep the temp gauge in the safe range. In the bike’s defense, it was 106 degrees outside at the time and I was going full throttle.

In terms of range, I found that the Origin will land at about 50 miles of range when tested under similar conditions as the Pulse. Can-Am says it should do about 90 miles of range in the city and 71 miles of combined range or 52 miles of constant 50 mph travel. In other words, the Origin gets slightly worse range all around. But what you lose in range you gain in off-road capability, and I think it’s worth it.

Ridiculously Fun

You’d think I’d be roughed up after a crash, but I wasn’t. I was having so much fun that I wanted to go out for another run, on a different, less bent bike. But we were out of time and had to go back to Austin.

Choosing the bike to ride back to the city was a hard one. The Pulse was great to dart around on in traffic but the Origin feels more comfortable with its longer legs. Both motorcycles, despite being essentially the same underneath, are excellent at their chosen missions. So, it’s hard to pick a favorite, but if I had to go off of pure laughs alone, the Origin wins hands down. The last time I had this much fun on a motorcycle I was thundering down a Wisconsin interstate on my Triumph Rocket III.

Now, I have to deliver the bad news. The 2025 Can-Am Origin starts at $14,499 while the 2025 Can-Am Pulse comes in at $13,999. The Origin and the Pulse are being offered in standard models or special Pulse and Origin ’73 models.

If you order your Origin as a ’73 like the one I tested, you’ll be paying $16,499 and getting signature LED lighting, a LinQ windshield, wheel stripes, ’73 badging, silver paint, and a cover. The 2025 Can-Am Pulse ’73 is the same package for $15,999 but with a LinQ gauge spoiler instead of a windshield. Toss another $500 on the pile if you want Carbon Black paint. Both bikes are represented in this review.

Sadly, this illustrates the unfortunate place electric motorcycles are in right now. As a BRP engineer told me, they have but so many levers they can pull right now. They can add range with more batteries, but that weighs down the motorcycle and makes it cost more. Remember, my Zero DSR/X tester costs $22,000! You can take out batteries, which cuts down on weight and cost, but now you have a low range. Worse still, batteries are expensive anyway, so you get a bike that should be cheaper but isn’t. In my eye, these Can-Ams should either have more range or a lower price. That’s the one problem I have.

This isn’t just a problem with BRP, but really the electric motorcycle industry as a whole. These bikes get expensive quickly and this could be part of the reason why adoption rates remain low. The fact is that $13,999 gets you a lot of gasoline-powered motorcycles and electric bikes just cannot compete in that regard right now.

That’s why these motorcycles are making a bet. BRP has engineered a fantastic drivetrain technology that nobody else has. The swingarm drivetrain could be added to any vehicle in the future. So, as battery technology gets better, BRP will have a platform that could take advantage of it. BRP hopes if electric motorcycles finally kick off in popularity it wants to be at the front of the pack. I think BRP has the technology, even if the batteries and pricing are still lagging behind.

If you’re the kind of person who wants to spend this kind of money on an electric motorcycle, I would be giving the Pulse or the Origin some serious consideration. They look stunning, are fun to ride, and bring some genuinely new ideas to the table. BRP may no longer be the king of power anymore, but the Pulse and Origin definitely keep things weird and fresh, the Canadian way.

(Images: BRP and Mercedes Streeter)