I’ve been wanting an electric motorcycle for years. But every time I look at the pricing I just can’t justify it.
An entry level electric bike for $25k or a top of the line BMW for $18k. It’s just not even a comparison.
An entry level electric bike for $25k or a top of the line BMW for $18k. It’s just not even a comparison.
I do agree with the general premise, that electric is more expensive. There needs to be more competition to drive prices down like is happening for cars.
and that's kinda the reason that the value proposition for electric motorbikes isn't very good. if you can give up the requirement of "i want to drive on the highway", an electric bicycle is going to do what you need for a fraction of the cost.
electric motorbikes lean more towards toys than practical tools, so they're priced like toys.
but i'm sure the FXE is way more fun.
The problem is that the electric motorcycle market isn't big enough to enjoy efficiencies of scale, so the only ones that exist cater to the wealthy/luxury clients.
The value proposition for motorcycles is really not as impressive either. The instant electric torque is more of a safety issue on bikes, because you can already trivially pop wheelies on regular gas-powered motorcycles.
On top of that, they have better range, because the battery capacity on a motorbike is limited by the width of the human hip, not highway lane.
The best use case for that is probably the thing you linked, Surron, which is an e-MTB essentially, where high torque is really nice for going up hills (and isn't really required for 60mph+ cruising on freeways)
I think they should work great for commuting, if you don't live too far away. But then, people would want to use the bike for other things, too, like going on road trips.
And that's where it hurts. You usually don't take road trips on the main highways because it's boring as hell. You'll take smaller roads, which often don't yet have any reasonable charging infrastructure. Combined with the shorter ranges, nobody is really going to risk it, so they'll just buy a gas bike. Hell, even with my gas bike's tank which is on larger side (19.5 liters), I sometimes have to cart around "safety gas", which I've had to use once. And no, it's not a dirt bike or anything, the only time it went off the asphalt was to go inside a hotel yard.
I think this is the reason why, at least where I live in Europe, you see next to no "serious" electric bikes, but practically all smaller ones are now electric: these bikes don't do anything apart commuting anyway, so electric is great for that.
I have an e-bike, I can take it on the train, go to some random town and explore. You can buy 'S-pedelecs" which are basically mopeds in bicycle form-factor - they have powerfull motors and go 45 km/h.
Then high-end electric motorcycles make sence
But lower end electric motorbikes, I dont get. You camt tale them on oiblic transport, they need a socket to charge, they cant use car-standarss for charging, and they dont have the range. So they seem to be in purgatory.
My point was about motorbikes. Which, as you say, have all the inconveniences of a full-blown motorbike, without the nice things, and the smaller ones aren't materially better than a souped-up e-bike.
So far the furthest I’ve ridden is from Bay Area to Big Sur and back, which needs to fast charge like 2 times each way.
Okay. 20k. Still less than an electric and more powerful with more features.
Top of the line, in it's class. A sports bike, with shaft drive, linked brakes, traction control, and heated grips.
Find me an electric bike with those features for anywhere near a comparable price. Specifically, I will not even consider a bike without a shaft drive (or in the case of an electric, a hub drive would be acceptable.) I am done maintaining chains and belts.
The disadvantages of belts are efficiency (especially compared to chains), off road durability and trailside serviceability.
My bike has been rock-fucking-solid. Its been in the shop once for a real break in 16 years for a busted fuel line. (not including tires and engine oil changes). Its really hard for me to believe another bike could be as reliable.
On an R1200/R1250 it's 12,000 miles or 2 years.
Now if you look at K16 specs, 160 horses at 6750 rpm with 123.7 lbs-ft at 5250 rpm. And it DOES have linked brakes, traction control, ABS and heated grips.
Both R1250RT and K16 are marketed in the sports tourer segment.
So NO, R1250RT is no where near top of line sports tourer and definitely not a sports bike.
This can be replaced by electric: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fn...