The Kneeslider

Doers Builders and Positive People

Build Your Own 72 Volt Electric Motorcycle

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72 volt electric motorcycle

Here’s one more example illustrating the growing fleet of homebuilt electric motorcycles, this one is based on a 1984 Honda Interceptor frame. The builder bought a non runner on eBay and proceeded to pull the engine and install an electric motor, controller and batteries. The end result is a bike with a bit over 70 mph top speed but only about a 10 mile range, luckily, he only rides 3 miles to work. He describes the build process and says the total cost is around $3000.

Without a doubt, the short range makes this impractical for almost everybody unless they’re using it specifically, as he is, for a very short range commute. On the other hand, it shows building an electric motorcycle is not terribly complex and lots of bikers are willing to put one together. Better batteries are the key and all of the efforts to build practical electric cars may get motorcycle builders what they need sooner rather than later.

In the last week or so the Chevy Volt has been in the news which GM’s Bob Lutz wants to get in production by 2010 but they have a problem, a problem motorcycles don’t have, … electric accessories.

Cars have things like windshield wipers and washers, power seats and heated seats, power windows plus power locks, air conditioning, ventilating fans, defrosters, that high power stereo, interior lighting, … the list goes on and on. With an internal combustion engine, you can generate as much electricity as you need but what if batteries are all you have? Which of those items do you want to do without?

With motorcycles, that list, for the most part, goes away and the batteries convert power to motion, nothing more. With an electric car, you have to give up your usual conveniences or the price of the car goes way up as more batteries are added. I look at this as the electric motorcycle advantage, the car companies are working overtime to improve batteries, motorcycle builders can work on improving motors and controllers, the batteries will be along shortly.

Thanks to Bryant for the tip on this build.

Link: Instructables

Comments

  1. This is something that I’ve been researching as a project for a while. Its an great idea that most people are starting to look at as a viable alternative that Id like to see more of. The only real issue with them is repairing it, most of those parts arent easilly found, and finding someone willing to work on it other than the builder would be impossible.
    Its a great way to recycle an old cycle thats for sure, now if only it had a greater range.

  3. I’m working on one myself though it’s on a much lighter scale. Foam core carbon fiber chassis, mountain bike wheels and discs. I only need 40mph or so and my commute to my workshop is 5 miles of urban streets.

  4. Electric motorcycles have a disadvantage relative to electric cars in one important area. Motorcycles are much more space/weight constrained.

    At the current state of the art, an electric car with a 250 mile range would need to carry close to half a ton of batteries in a pack the size of a small desk (see, for instance, the Tesla or the TZero). A motorcycle with the same range would require about half as large a battery pack. Even scaling back one’s expectations to 100 miles of highway range (a threshhold I hear mentioned often), the electric motorcycle would require about 10 kWh of batteries, which would weigh at least 100 kg.

    With that kind of payload it becomes a real engineering challenge to keep the overall weight and size comparable with a comparable gas-engined motorcycle. This is why many electric motorcycle conversions have very short ranges.

  5. You wonder at what point the savings justifies the cost. $3000 is about 800 to 850 gallons of gas or about 30-40,000 miles on a typical motorcycle (not considering the cost of the volts). That’s getting pretty acceptable especially if you sell your existing bike to pay for it.
    It’s just easier for me to pay for a $12 fill-up every now and then than paying for 40,000 miles worth of gas up front.

    -todd

  6. I’m sure this is a lot more fun, but if the guy only has a three-mile commute, why not electrify a bicycle? It would be much easier (and much lighter), though it probably wouldn’t have near the top end. On the plus side, you’d be able to park it indoors and probably even carry it up stairs.

    cl

  7. He could always have gone for a lighter chassis. Even my VT250’s chassis is bloody heavy, and the Interceptor was even larger.

  8. Have you ever heard of the movie “who killed the electric car?” Some pretty interesting stuff, rented mine from blockbuster. Clearly shows there false propaganda is exactly that, as usually…