This is really a nice concept, however, other than the development of an alternative power plant everything else is just fluff. How is steer-by-wire better? How is it safer? What problem is it solving? I understand that it helps the design for design’s sake. What we call this in the industry is “design m@sturbation”.

Motorcyclists tend to follow the mantra of “form follows function”, in no other consumer product (other than fire arms) has this been so prevalent. The majority of consumers desire simplicity and tend to trust structure and components that they can touch and feel. We may be rearing up more of a tech generation so designs like these very well might be viable in the not so distant future.

What the industry needs are some “missing links”. We’re slowly adopting electric motorcycles, next step is single sided front suspension. After that it’s hybrid or fuel cell tech and steer by wire. To have everything lumped together in one step is just a design exercise, not a productive product study. Sure, Jay Leno will buy one but onesie-twosie is not a viable business strategy – no matter how cool the idea is.

Good work though, I’d love to work for a company like this.

-todd

I’d love to see how the steer-by-wire system is worked out… suspension, balance, materials… the whole front end for that matter. It would likely have favorable anti-dive qualities, it matches the rear arm… very nice. To insure no fault or failure of a steer-by-wire system what level of construction, what amount of redundancy is considered enough?

As for fenders, I say match them to the tires as closely as possible – camouflage them by wrapping the fender around the tire with material that looks like the tire itself; make it look like it has no fenders. And as for functional add-ons, fight to keep the clean lines and future look, the uniqueness of the thing, it’s worth it.

David… its the LA times, so I’ll take it with a bit of salt. My 50+mpg is better than most of the cagers out there by at least double.