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The Electric Motorcycle Thread

Yep it sure is hopefully they can keep it going. But yes THE REASON why they can't get enough bikes to meet demand was the PANDEMIC. It messed up the supply line I think. I know someone who works for Energica and that's what he told me.
 
HadesOmega said:
Yep it sure is hopefully they can keep it going. But yes THE REASON why they can't get enough bikes to meet demand was the PANDEMIC. It messed up the supply line I think. I know someone who works for Energica and that's what he told me.
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Yep. I was also told they could not get the parts they needed to build more bikes.

I was told by the Italian guy (I cannot think of his name, but we have met a couple of times) that came to Reno in the Energica Van in case any bikes had issues in the electric motorcycle race from Anaheim to Reno.

My Energica is shown there, the one upfront with the side bags. I went there to the Reno HD shop to meet them.

-Don- Reno, NV
 
HadesOmega said:
Yep it sure is hopefully they can keep it going. But yes THE REASON why they can't get enough bikes to meet demand was the PANDEMIC. It messed up the supply line I think. I know someone who works for Energica and that's what he told me.
Click to expand...

Yes they do mention that in their disclosure also.

As of March 2021 they had 3.6M in orders, so about 240 bikes, which should mean they had good growth this year. Right now they lose quite a bit of money on every bike they sell, but the goal is to break even by 2022. It's going to be a stretch but possibly realistic given the high demand for motorcycles these days, so long as there are no Covid delays.
 
Took Light Bee for a supermoto dirt ride yesterday at Metcalf. The last time I did this the bike was nearly stock now it just rips up hills now. So much power you can't really use it all haha. Sketchy riding it on the loose stuff but I am surprised I was still able to get through some rough stuff however I was complaining about the bike beating me up with the dirt wheels its like 2x as worse with the supermoto wheels. Any kinds of whoops or washboards and the front and rear shake the crap out of you :(

0722211236a-XL.jpg

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Ripped some twisties just outside the park because I'm plated :)
0722211249b-XL.jpg


H2O hillclimb no problem getting up it, except trying to get down it slowly with no knobbies
0722211337b-XL.jpg


0722211432a-XL.jpg
 
Interesting I got an email from Energica about the movie Snake Eyes. Supposedly they used a bunch of Energica motorcycles in it, hrm makes me tempted to go watch it.

[youtube]Vd2sm63Xwfw[/youtube]
 
@ about 1:10 you can see an Energica get chopped up.
 
[YOUTUBE]iG0FzmnHXVM[/YOUTUBE]
 
HadesOmega said:
Took Light Bee for a supermoto dirt ride yesterday at Metcalf. The last time I did this the bike was nearly stock now it just rips up hills now. So much power you can't really use it all haha. Sketchy riding it on the loose stuff but I am surprised I was still able to get through some rough stuff however I was complaining about the bike beating me up with the dirt wheels its like 2x as worse with the supermoto wheels. Any kinds of whoops or washboards and the front and rear shake the crap out of you :(
Click to expand...

I've been following some of the discussion and was curious how these small emotos would handle rough technical terrain? I guess not so well? I ride a lot of very steep technical trails (think upper Grizzly trail at Carnegie) and was thinking maybe someday going electric. But short of the now-not-available Alta's I haven't seen anything capable for this type of terrain. Do you think the SurRon could handle rough terrain with some suspension tuning? Just curious.
 
I think you might want the Storm bee or wait for one of the big 4 to release something. The Zero FX probably would be okay but the budget suspension would need some work imo.

I'm surprised you don't make your own. Bet you could come up with some interesting designs.
 
R3DS!X said:
I think you might want the Storm bee or wait for one of the big 4 to release something. The Zero FX probably would be okay but the budget suspension would need some work imo.
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I have a ZERO chassis (although from an older model) and it is complete garbage. I know a few former ZERO engineers and they (ZERO) are/were notorious for utilizing cheap Chinese scooter parts in their chassis. So certainly not up to the type of riding I enjoy.

As for the big 4, yes, very curious to see what comes along.

R3DS!X said:
I'm surprised you don't make your own. Bet you could come up with some interesting designs.
Click to expand...

I've spent the last 6 years of my career working on electric vehicles, including 2 years developing an electric (street) motorcycle so I'm very aware of the engineering challenges with any e-vehicle. At Boson (where I worked on the motorcycle) we came up with the phrase "mini-fridge dilemma" which summarized problem with battery capacity on street bikes... design goals would require a reasonable range at a moderate commuting speed and when you do the math we'd end up with a battery pack the size of a mini-fridge (or almost as large). I also know that motion control firmware is a huge piece of the development. I spend 4 years working on electric scooters and skateboards and we had more firmware engineers than mechanical and electrical engineers combined. Anyway, I do have some thoughts around chassis design, but the "e" part of the picture is huge, and not my area of expertise. So I'd rather just buy something that works well.
 
I just looked up the Storm Bee. This looks interesting! :thumbup
 
The first Zero chassis was complete garbage.
The one on the FX is okay.

I always wonder why they don't incorporate battery storage inside the frame, swingarm(well I can see the downsides to swingarm.) Hell they could do a telelever system and put them in the forks.
 
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