A couple of days ago, I saw an article about electric cars, specifically about retrofitting older classics with electric motors and batteries. There are a number of companies doing that now (Jaguar even converted an E-type) and I watched a video of two guys in a converted Porsche 911. They were flying down a country road; the performance and handling were fantastic and it looked like a hoot to drive. Before the conversion, the shop had restored the body and interior, too, so you had a beautiful classic that was quiet and quick. The same shop had done a VW Beetle (Voltswagen?), a Range Rover and many other models and all have the same smile inducing good looks with quiet performance. The Land Rover had a range of 200 miles, the Porsche about the same and I thought they would be one helluva lot of fun, I wouldn’t mind driving one myself.
One important point never mentioned in the Porsche video was price. Fully restoring and then converting it to electric power is definitely not going to be a cheap date. The range, though not bad was certainly less than a gas model and once you’re discharged, you have a long wait before you’re on the road again, even if you happen to have a DC Fast Charge station conveniently available. You end up with a very expensive car that is far less practical than the original, but are 911s the standard choice for running to the grocery store in the first place? The Range Rover was not going to be roving very far into the wilds because electricity gets a bit sparse in the desert or forests, but those tend to be driven by moms carting their kids around anyway. And then it struck me, I finally understood where electric vehicles fit into the automotive world.
Electric enthusiasts are the target, not motorcycle riders
Electric cars, trucks, motorcycles or anything else, are vehicles for the electric power enthusiast. You don’t go looking for a new vehicle and narrow it down to a couple of models, one being electric and the other internal combustion, people who buy electrics want an electric to begin with. They know all about the compromise, the shorter range, the long recharge time, the lack of chargers, the higher price, it doesn’t matter, they want an electric. Pointing out those shortcomings has no effect because they don’t care, they proudly put up with the difficulties as a badge of honor that gets them into the club. They compare the range of their car with other electrics, not with a gas-powered car and if they go farther than their friend’s electric car, they’re happy. They’ll tell you stories about the time they were 80 miles from town with the battery at 10 percent and how they managed to get home and other electric owners will give them a knowing smile and have stories of their own. They’re not buying an electric car or motorcycle, they’re joining a small and dedicated group where their purchase makes them a member.
Stop talking about urban mobility or urban anything – talk electric
Vehicle manufacturers make a big mistake when they talk about “urban mobility,†because it sounds very trendy, very hipster and even divisive, what’s a person living outside the city to think? I know the term brings a frown to my face and makes me think less of them as a result. Their response might be that it’s aimed at millennials and baby boomers wouldn’t understand and I would respond by saying boomers are more likely to be able to afford a $30,000 LiveWire, as one example, compared to a young guy paying off his student debt.
Electrics should be marketed as electrics, first and foremost. Everyone knows what they’re not, what their limitations are, don’t talk about urban anything, sell them to enthusiasts, people that are looking for an electric. Focus on those people, they’ll buy them and tolerate everything a person dedicated to internal combustion would ridicule. Over time, you might sell enough of them to make a decent profit.
An enthusiast will pay a lot for things someone else would never buy at any price, like, maybe motorcycles? It’s the same for electric cars or motorcycles, it’s the electric power they want. They’re the same ones with solar panels on their roof and maybe a homemade electric minibike in their garage. They’ll tell you about the advantages of one battery or motor over another and the rumors of what’s coming next year. Those guys. That’s the customer, or maybe it might be the rider who just wants to give it a try, just because. Again, he’ll go to a dealer knowing what he wants to begin with. He isn’t comparison shopping, at that point he wants an electric. Remove all references to urban this or that, say electric and be proud of it. When electrics get better more will choose them on their own. If they don’t improve, they won’t, and in the meantime, riders that love internal combustion and those that want electric over everything else can get along just fine.
Pete says
Paul, please connect me with the shop that is doing the conversion s I have a Morris Traveller I would like to talk about.
Pat Sullivan says
Right. Well, the same as any new innovative and radically different technology. When cars were new fangled things I am sure there were endless discussions about whether you should go with petrol, whale oil, steam, electric, etc… and they were the toys of the truly dedicated. Just like discussions we had about the PC, Apple, or maybe you were a Commodore fanboy, but you had to be an enthusiast if you were in on the ground floor. When cellphones first came out they were big and clunky, it was like carrying around a sack of potatoes! But, look at what they can do now, and everyone has a smartphone now.
todd says
The challenge I see with “urban mobility†is parking and charging. Everyone I know that lives in the city has to look for parking, every day or few hours everywhere they go. They will not be plugging this in at home in their two car garage because “home†is up a couple flights of stairs and there is no “garageâ€.
Paul Crowe says
Great point. Another reason the electric assisted bicycle is about the only answer for urban mobility if that’s what they’re aiming at. As soon as you upsize into an electric motorcycle, you need a place to park and charge it and as you said, a lot of city dwellers don’t have that.
Luke Colledge says
The benefit of an electric bicycle is the removable battery. I don’t see why a full size motorcycle can’t have a quick release battery pack too. Obviously it’ll be a lot heavier 20~40Kg, but some well designed packaging could make transfer into a home relatively easy.
Jason says
Zero FX and FXS
Tony Castley says
I have both an electric and petrol motorcycle. Yep I use the electric for “urban” travel. Due to parking and charging being so easy. On my 2nd hand production electric bike, built in 2014 I get just over 100km city and connector road travel. For me, and most people, I never to that in a day of commuting. So charging infrastructure is my powerpoint at home, always full and never a panic trip to a service station.
Parking in the city is easier and cheap than a car where I live.
And I am on a bike that can outpace nearly anything on wheels up to the legal limit.
RicknRedmond says
Paul, I think you are exactly right. ‘Nuff said.
Paul Cypert says
You’re right. They shouldn’t work so hard to push these as “city” or “urban” bikes. I live in densely packed cities (bounce between Bangkok and Singapore). On paper these would seem like great places to have an electric bike…except most people live in giant condos. Not really practical to run an extension chord out of the apartment to parking garage LOL. Until they work out a universal swap-able battery that works between brands (so you ride up and swap the battery for a full one and insert your empty to charge) I just don’t see these being “city machines”.
Paul Scott says
What would help is for the City or utility to install charging in a specific location where motorcycles are parked. Charging infrastructure is crucial for electrics to be practical.
John Courte says
Disagree. I was looking for a supermoto or enduro/dual-sport bike for a daily ride in Los Angeles after I sold my Buell X1. I tested the DR400, the KLR650, the 650GS, the 800GSA, and the Zero FX. For traffic work, the Zero FX beat every one of them in terms of the experience and the smile it put on my face. It had little to do with the propulsion system. OK, maybe a little bit, because it was nice not having the engine vibration, making an unfiltered connection to the road surface through the handlebars. I was a motorcyclist before I bought the Zero, but I’m an electric enthusiast now because of it.
Phil Baker says
I have to disagree regarding the use of the term “urban”. The fact is that electric bikes are great for nipping around urban environments rather than long distance travel. The person who lives 10 miles from work in a city could fall in love with an electric motorcycle. The manufacturers are looking to expand their customer base, electric enthusiasts are already interested, so the logical next group to go after are the Urban city dwellers. To me it just sounds like the author doesn’t like the word “urban”, but it’s been used for years when describing fuel economy figures.
Jaime Cruz says
… I’ve been riding since 1982, I’m a member of the BMW 400,000 mile club and was an MSF Instructor/RiderCoach for over 20 years. I’m HARDLY an “Electric Enthusiast” but I am a realist. Almost 90% of my riding is in congested urban environments and considerably UNDER 100 miles. Commuting to work, running to the store, meeting friends for lunch/dinner and occasional pleasure rides on weekends. Not every ride is a transcontinental adventure.
In that regard, the electric motorcycle makes PERFECT sense. It doesn’t roast your legs sitting in traffic. You don’t develop “Popeye Forearms” feathering the clutch as you creep along at walking speeds in traffic (most States don’t let you filter through traffic). You never have to warm it up, and you don’t have to worry about an exhaust system that doesn’t get hot enough to burn off any condensation from a too-short ride.
The instantaneous torque available at a flick of the wrist (no down-shifting or clutch-slipping required) makes slipping from one lane to another easier than you can imagine. Comes in very handy when the lane next to you starts to move, and the one you’re in doesn’t. Splitting lanes is almost unnecessary.
Finally, though not everyone has solar panels on their roof yet, I do. The electricity required to recharge my Zero overnight barely makes a blip on my electric usage. The only real wearable items I have to concern myself with are tires and brake pads. No filters, no oil, no coolant, no valves, no spark plugs, no clutch.
Since buying my Zero in October of 2018 I’ve already logged over 7,000 miles on it. I’m getting the Charge Tank (quick charger) that’ll allow me to wander even farther without having to fire up one of my gas bikes. There’s still nothing like my K1200LT for crossing the continent but for the majority of the riding I do, I have my Zero. By the way, I do own a car, and it is not electric either.
Marcus says
Thnx. Sounds like my lifestyle.
Rick Flashman says
Bingo.
Paul Scott says
I like what you say. I agree.
I’m on my 5th Zero, a torque monster called the SR/F. Just hit 4,500 miles today riding out to Malibu from Santa Monica. I can easily range all over the mountains surrounding Los Angeles, and deep into Orange County, or up to Santa Barbara.
There are some nice biker places in the mountains that will be installing Level 2 chargers next year. We’ve got a very good charging network in LA, but getting some Level 2 stations in the mountains will give us plenty of range.
I installed solar in 2002 and bought my first EV the same year. The solar paid itself off in 2010, so since then, and for the rest of my life, I get free energy to power my cars, motorcycles, and home.
Can’t do that with any ICE vehicle.
Greg Hassler says
I get what the author is driving at, and some points aren’t completely off target, but electric motorcyclists are motorcyclists. In fact I’d challenge anyone with an opposing viewpoint to put up their odometer against the closest electric motorcyclist – as they generally go electric understanding the full situation because they are the high mileage riders that benefits the most.
I’m at 40,000 electric moto miles and counting in just the past few years, in the Northeast. This is pretty common across the board. If you ride 1,000 miles / year and like to fiddle with your bike to get it to start every year, you’re on a combustion engine. If you ride, a lot, every day, year round, then electric makes a ton of sense.
Jason says
“You end up with a very expensive car that is far less practical than the original, but are 911s the standard choice for running to the grocery store in the first place?”
This sentence sums up everything that the truly clueless believe. The reason that 911s aren’t good grocery getters is that they’re not practical. The engine is expensive, needs lots of care, doesn’t play well with stop start traffic, doesn’t like multiple short trips and has to be warmed up before use.
With an electric drivetrain it suddenly is practical. It’s smooth at any speed from crawling to 100 mph. It’s always full when you step into it. It needs virtually no maintenance. It’s the size of a Toyota Echo but with the handling and brakes of a Porsche and a much better turning circle.
Instead of needing a daily driver to go with your classic, now it does everything the daily driver did, but better. Electrics are far far far more practical and easy to live with.
Is the same with motorcycles. If you think motorcycles are for occasional weekends, but your car is what you use to do everything, then electric is probably not for you. If you hate cars, if you get groceries on your bike, if you go to the movies, on your bike, if you visit friends, go to the hardware store or the bottle shop, on your bike. If you’re a motorcyclist rather than a weekend warrior, then electrics are the most practical bikes ever built.
Classictrkman says
It’s grossly apparent that the writer of this article has never had any kind of long term experience with an EV of any kind. Everyone resists change, it’s one of the weaker aspects of human nature. When the “automobile” first came about, everyone said “only eccentric people would want one of those instead of a horse.” Personally I’ve owned eleven Electric Cars, and five Electric Motorcycles…. My primary daily drive is 100% electric. I’ve put well over 200,000 miles on electric vehicles, and I can honestly say, I never want to buy gas again. I’m even contemplating converting my $100,000 1957 National show winning Chevy Hot Rod pickup to electric because I’m fed up dealing with maintenance, mess, and cost of gas power trains. Once you’ve driven electric and discovered how much lower maintenance and how much cheaper the fuel is, you’ll never want to go back to gas.
Rick Steeb says
I have been riding motorcycles since 1965. My last ICE bike was a ’88 Honda Magna, which I logged something ove 50k miles on, loving how smoooth its well-balanced V-4 engine was. Almost “electric”. I have been riding Zero’s since 2012, when I learned about range anxiety on the ride home from the dealer, having to push it the last three miles… Which is why my current ’14SR has a power tank… You learn to deal with the range limitations, and love charging while you sleep or work, eschewing petrol stations entirely. The ICE noise, heat, fumes, vibrations, and trying to keep gear shifting to be in the power band- SCREW ALL THAT!
Rick Flashman says
We are a riding couple who lodge many thousands of miles a year. We decided to go from a KTM 1290 Super Adventure and a KTM 1290 SuperDuke GT to two Energica electric motorcycles. The key reasons were simple. They were not hot in the summer and they were better motorcycles. Smoother ultra-fast linear acceleration that offers laser tight precision in mountain roads and thanks to the ample amount of Level 3 DC chargers out there gets us wherever we want to go. Sure some adjustments had to be made to how we ride… but after extensive test rides, none that were show stoppers.
Why did we switch to electric motorcycles? Wasn’t to save the environment, wasn’t saving gas costs, wasn’t to be ‘green’. It was because they are BETTER VEHICLES. Better & smoother acceleration; a better riding experience, no heat to melt us at stop lights, and simply a better performing product.
And in the end, that is why Electric Vehicles will take over – they simply offer a better product with a better experience.
idle says
Chiming in as another Electric user who became an enthusiast -after- wanting to ride an electric motorcycle – it was not the reverse.
TBH you would not believe the kinds of ‘urban’ riding situations I’ve been in on a motorcycle that doesn’t produce noise,
Lastly, just don’t mention the LiveWire, motorcyclists who want to go electric, no matter what generation, just aren’t looking at them – the Zero’s have it.