Comments on: Electric Motorcycle from Derbi GPR 50

By: sfan

sfan — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 01:55:29 +0000

I think we may be waiting a while for electrics in standard street bike format. Perhaps the first near-mainstream electrics will be small inner-city and commuter scooters. Lots of room for batteries, no real aesthetic compromises, range is not really a big issue once you get back home to plug-in & recharge at off-peak rates. Bigger, commuter-touring scooters could be be the first hybrids.

By: GenWaylaid

GenWaylaid — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 05:55:38 +0000

The GPR50 is a really popular base bike for electric conversions. Out here in the Bay Area there are two companies building very similar electric motorcycles from Derbis (it’s sort of a friendly competition, they tell me).

Electric Motorsport of Oakland: http://electricmotorsport.com/
Thunderstruck Motors of Santa Rosa: http://www.thunderstruck-ev.com/

They also do conversions on the Derbi supermotard. Range for the bikes is quoted at 20 to 40 miles.

All of these are rather light motorcycles (around 300 lb.) but they weigh significantly more than their gas counterparts due to the batteries. I can’t help wondering if it would be better to start with a heavier bike that has more available carrying capacity and hence could carry a pack with decent range.

By: ElectricMotorcylces

ElectricMotorcylces — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 02:30:59 +0000

I love you, man!

Range costs money: How far do you want to go. We need new battery tech in a bad way.

I had a chance to get up close and personal with a 150+mph electric drag bike a few months back that uses A123 batteries but I think these aren’t quite ready for Joe Public just yet. More info: http://www.killacycle.com/