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Comment by Deprogrammer9 | Hacker News Reader

This things is amazing.

https://www.bmwmotorcycles.com/en/models/urban_mobility/ce04...

It looks huge! How the hell do you commute on that thing? Can't imagine lane filtering on it.

Edit: 855mm wide, 1675mm wheelbase, weighs like a 1000cc adventure bike (clearly bottom-heavy, though). That's one Goldwing of a scooter.

Shows promise, yes.

Looks good for belting about a city on, where I am (rural Australian town) I'm happy with walking or a scooter for local travel .. an 80 mile range just gets me to the nearest town and back with little reserve.

A 150 mile range would be better .. that'll come I guess.

FWiW I rode the BMW R650 (light road bike) for a decade and had a GS 1250 with long range tanks for road|off road trips.

The caption says:

European Model Shown. U.S. model only available with clear windscreen.

Is that the piece of orange plastic in front of the handlebar base, that they are calling a "windscreen"?

Yes. And it works (well enough) because at speed the chunk of air it forces up mixes with the air above the bike (that the rider would otherwise hit with their face) and disturbs it so the rider experiences something more a akin to riding in a pickup bed than to sticking their head out a sunroof.

Looks like a scooter but twice as heavy and with a mobile app. The only reason you'll see it on the streets are subsidies from public "green" funds.

$12K for a very limited use vehicle that has an 80 mile range. Good luck with that.

Its zero-sixty time is 2.6 seconds. That ties the fastest thing here:

https://www.zeroto60times.com/body-style/motorcycle/fast-slo...?

Which has an MSRP of $20K.

I suspect the BMW will sell extremely well.

The BMW links says zero to 30 mph in 2.6

Not bad but it's not zero to 60 mph in 2.6

That looks perfect for phone snatchers.

The phone snatchers at least in the UK prefer souped up e-bikes rather than e-motorcycles. That thing the police would stop you if you didn't have a number plate.

Also cycling on the pavement where the snatching occurs is more acceptable on an e-bike, even though it's illegal even for a pedal bike.

The police should still be stopping those bikes as they don't meet the legal definition of EAPC and so require a licence plate. Not that they do.

The have been stopping them and crushing the bikes although it's patchy https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c89yw3wzl9no

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