Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[caza]

I assumed that they had already made a handful of these since they've been claiming for years to be the "fastest production motorcycle" but it seems like we might be seeing as many as 4 of them out in the wild soon.


https://www.rideapart.com/articles/297769/production-lightning-ls-218/


As the article states Lighting at least has the advantage of having proven and tested their tech over time before entering production instead of just showing renders and making huge promises without showing a rolling bike, like most electric startups.

[Richard230]

I am pretty sure that I saw a photo of the Lightning factory assembly line showing four motorcycles partially under construction two or three years ago. It looked like the factory was about 40 feet long.  I think the photo was posted here.

[JaimeC]

https://electricmotorcycles.news/lightning-expands-into-new-corporate-headquarters-to-support-increased-ls-218-superbike-production/

[Richard230]

https://electricmotorcycles.news/lightning-expands-into-new-corporate-headquarters-to-support-increased-ls-218-superbike-production/

Well, it does look like Lightning has established a new manufacturing facility and a new Global Headquarters in San Jose, CA. The new digs shown in this article must have cost them millions to buy, or tens of thousands of dollars a month to lease. Commercial real estate is really expensive in San Jose right now, what with Google buying every piece of vacant dirt they can find in the city, cost being no object. It kind of makes me wonder how Lightning is going to make ends meet with those kind of expenses just selling a few high-end electric motorcycles a year? How did that work out for Brammo, again?   

While Energica seems to be staying in business selling a few hundred electric motorcycles a year, they did have to lower their prices from something like $40K when they first marketed their bikes, to $18K in 2017 to get them to sell in the U.S., before increasing them back up to $25K this year.  However Energica is subsidized by a large multi-million dollar Italian design and manufacturing conglomerate.  But what has been keeping Lightning financially afloat for the past 8 or 10 years to the point when they can make this kind of investment and expect to stay in business?  There must be a Golden Goose somewhere in their business plan.   

[Electric Cowboy]

Right now only Zero and Energica are production bikes in my book. Ibelieve both companies will succede in their respective marketshares. I own 5 Zeros and 1 Energica. They all rock! If lightning ever comes to production, been saying this since 2010..., I would be happy to support them, until that time its vapor ware.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100410205228/http://www.lightningmotorcycle.com:80/

[ultrarnr]

But I think Lightening is going to learn the same lesson that Energica did; the market for 35K+ bikes is pretty small. Considering the 10K+ premium over the Ego they better make it worth it. Lightening has larger batteries and more range which is in their favor. But they are going to need thermal battery management to help keep the battery cool, another Energica weakness. With a larger battery comes the possibility of faster charging but very little is said about this on Lightening's web site. Making a street fighter version to compete with the Eva would be a good move to.

[ultrarnr]

So looking at Lightnings web site shows some interesting details. A 12kWh version sells for $38,888.00. No mention of ABS, Traction Control or ride modes. No idea if DCFC is CHAdeMO or CCS. The only details on DCFC is that the bike has it and it takes 30 minutes to charge but no idea if that is to 80%, 100% or? No mention of what kind of tires it comes with. No photos of what the production bike looks like. Weight is listed as 495 pounds which is over 100 pounds lighter than an Ego and it has a bigger motor. I think potential customers will have to decide if the additional power and lighter weight is worth the 16K premium over an Ego. And how important is ABS, Traction Control and ride modes are to them.

[NEW2elec]

The last few things I saw about them was a possible merge with a Chinese company that made electric scooter type bikes and going for the top speed record over the H2R.
He said he had too much torque and it would spin up the rear wheel in the salt flats and asked if the world had a better place to test it.
Simple answer there is the same bridge that Kawasaki used for their H2R but it's up to him.

The web page has the disclaimer that the 218 mark was with high speed gearing and an aerodynamic pod so beating the H2R with street fairings would be the true mark.

I'd love to see them make it and sell it but it seems like they want to break records and do bike shows more than make production bikes.
As always we'll see.

[Richard230]

I don't know about you, but after experiencing a rear wheel spin or two with my heavy (as Zeros go) Zero, I am not sure that I would want to own a Lightning that didn't have traction control. 

What is really going on at Lightning and how they plan to market, service and support the vehicles that they plan to sell to customers is a mystery to me.  Right now they seem to be following the Amazon approach.  You order it online and it gets shipped to your home. After that, who knows what happens? 

What seemed to be going on in 2014 was that the LS-218 model would be sold as a racing bike to promoters who wanted to race them in exhibitions.  My recollection is that Richard said at the time that he had orders for 8 of those bikes from a promoter in Europe who planned to do just that. However, I never heard any more about that deal.

At the same time, I heard that Lightning would be manufacturing a production street version for the average Joe, which would be selling for something around $15K. The red bike in the attached photo is that model.  While it looked nice, the specifications claimed at the time didn't seem up to the performance and range of the 2014 Zero S that I rode down to the EV event where the photo was taken during the fall of 2014.

The reason that I am so skeptical regarding this whole subject is that it reminds me of my experience with Electric Motorsport, which was assembling GPR-S electric motorcycles in Oakland, CA. They starting selling them in 2008 and I bought mine from the Electric Green Store in Redwood City, just a block away from Best Buy in the spring of 2009. The GPR-S was selling for $8,300 at the time.  However, mine caught on fire after only 300 miles, so I returned it to the factory and asked them to repair it under their 1-year warranty, as mentioned on their website.  However, I was told that the bike could not be repaired, as the manufacturer of the charger/BMS was no longer in business and I was just out of luck, warranty or no warranty.    However, they offered to sell me another Sepex-powered GPR-S for an additional $1,500. Then when I visited the factory with cash in hand, I was told that they couldn't accept my money as they had lost their DMV retail license a couple of months ago and I would have to return to the Electric Green Store and buy it there.  Which I did.  But after the bike was registered with the DMV and before I could pick it up, EMS returned to the shop and grabbed the bike and returned it to their "factory", where they gave it a new VIN and changed the manufacturing date on the VIN sticker from 2009 to 2010.    Once they did that, they returned the bike to the Electric Green Store, who had to return to the DMV, cancel the original VIN documentation and record a new VIN and manufacturing date for the bike that I had already paid for. Eventually, the sale was straightened out, but it took a couple of months and really left me with a bad feeling about the electric motorcycle industry at the time. Less than a year later, the Brammo Enertia was being marketed by Best Buy down the street and the Electric Green Store went out of business.  The owner told me that one of the reasons they had to fold was that they just couldn't handle all of the warranty claims that their electric vehicle customers were experiencing at the time and they were getting no support from EMS.  Anyway, I tell this story as a cautionary tale regarding startup vehicle manufacturers that seem to have no marketing or servicing infrastructure in place.   

[Richard230]

Just for fun, attached is a photo of the Electric Motorsport factory in Oakland, California, taken while knocking my head against their walls in 2009.  Not quite up to the standards of Lightning's new digs, is it? 

[NEW2elec]

Richard your the best but that's a mighty sad story this close to Christmas. 
Your also super brave because flames under my butt would be it for me.

All of these early adopter stories need to be in a book about the wild west days of EVs.
It will be funny as hell to the kids in 2085, as they zip around on their hover bikes.

[Richard230]

Richard your the best but that's a mighty sad story this close to Christmas. 
Your also super brave because flames under my butt would be it for me.

All of these early adopter stories need to be in a book about the wild west days of EVs.
It will be funny as hell to the kids in 2085, as they zip around on their hover bikes.

I guess that goes to make the point that I really like to ride electric motorcycles and am willing to put up with a lot to do so.  In spite of my experience with my two GPR-S bikes. (The 2010 model got as far as 1300 miles before its un-potted BMS and goofy batteries expired.  I just gave the chassis away.) I liked riding electric so much that I bought a 2012 Zero S, which was a quantum leap in both quality and performance, to say nothing of Zero's excellent service, compared with the EMS bikes. And I have been happy with Zero's quality, reliability and service since that purchase and that also applies to my 2014 and 2018 models. 

Since I am allowed to attach a single photo, here is a picture of me when I picked up my first GPR-S at the Electric Green Store in April 2009.  I might add that after that photo was taken, I just made the 35 miles home, averaging 30 mph on surface streets, although I did have to climb a couple of small mountains along the way. Batteries have improved a lot since then. 

[ultrarnr]

In some ways Lightning is trying to sell a brand new 2010 electric motorcycle in 2018. When you look at their web site everything seems old and dated. It is going to take a lot more than a big motor and a big battery to compete with Energica.

[caza]

Thanks for that story Richard. I had never heard of GPR-S bikes but your cautionary tale is exactly why I'm very wary or all these startups.

There is so much overhead involved in making a successful long term vehicle company and it's just a lot to ask of a start-up with little capitol. You have to manufacture a working bike with few issues which is already a huge feat when you aren't established, but then establishing a service network, making sure parts are available, marketting, recalls, DMV, etc. The list of things you have to do and do well seems endless.

Zero is just barely able to cover some of these and they're by far the biggest successes in the industry right now, and we all know they still have problems that non-ev-enthusiasts would probably consider a dealbreaker.

This is why whenever a new rendering for a cool E-moto shows up I just shake my head. It's a dream with nothing to back it.

Also why I'm much more excited for established motorcycle companies like Harley and KTM to get their feet wet with electric than I am for any of these startups. They're new to electric, but they have all the other, honestly more difficult, parts of being an automaker figured out.

[Electric Cowboy]

Way cool richard! my first bike was a native GPR-S too!