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[Richard230]

On page 12 and 13 of the December issue of Motorcyclist magazine is an article titled “The Redshift Revolution”.  You guessed it, the article is about the BRD Motorcycles “Redshift” line of motocross electric motorcycles.  BRD says that its MX model is “designed to go head-to-head with 250cc motocross bikes”.  They claim that their bike is faster and easier to ride than a typical MX motorcycle, primarily because it does not have a transmission and therefore maintains uniform traction around a MX course and especially through and out of corners.  BRD will offer an MX version of their bike for $14,995 and a supermoto version for $15,495.  The bikes are said to be available some time next year. The author, Aaron Frank, concludes with the statement that “BRD shifts the debate over the efficacy of electric motorcycles into much more interesting territory.  No longer are eBikes just for the nicest people. Sometimes, nice guys wanna roost, too.”

In a sidebar, there is a comment that battery technology is holding back a complete transition to electric vehicles in the marketplace. The article says that BMW wants to become the world's premier provider of “eVehicle” technology and is currently cooperating with Toyota to increase the capacity of Li-ion cells and is aiming for an improvement of 6% a year. This slim increase will have to do until so-called “ion-air” battery technology – promising 10 times the performance of Li-ion with 25% less weight – is anticipated to appear sometime around 2020.