There’s a growing group of homebuilders who are converting vehicles of all sorts to electric power, motorcycles among them. This motorcycle is a Derbi GPR 50 where the builder removed the original drivetrain and installed 6 lead acid batteries, an electric motor and a DC converter.
The video is a short walk around of the bike and then a ride around the neighborhood. The performance looks very acceptable and is reported to be 0-60 in 9 seconds with a top speed of 75mph.
The problem with electric motorcycles and any electric vehicle right now seems to be range which is a trade off with performance, more range less performance and vice versa. The alternative is to use a lot of very pricey Lithium Ion batteries like the recently unveiled Tesla Roadster or a hydrogen fuel cell where hydrogen fillups are a bit of an issue. In any case, things get expensive very quickly unless the ENV fuel cell motorcycle does come in around the $6000 mark as the company claims is their target price.
There are some very impressive racebikes built around electric power and scooters like the Vectrix available for sale
I like the home builder attitude and the results are encouraging but I think we still need battery technology to advance a bit or hydrogen filling stations in more places before we’ll see very many electric bikes in every day commuter use except for very short range purposes.
Electric motors do have some amazing performance possibilities with extremely high torque available from a dead stop so you can bet more and more of these bikes will pop up. Interesting.
Got this tip from two readers almost simultaneously, Thanks, Jeff and Drew!
Related: ENV Hydrogen Fuel Cell Motorcycle video Electric Motorcycles
You might also want to check out ElectricMotorcycles.net
ElectricMotorcylces says
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/
GenWaylaid says
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.
sfan says
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.