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[NEW2elec]

Richard I have great respect for not only your many years of riding experience but the diverse types of bikes you've owned and ridden. 
You were also a super early adopter in many different two wheeled electric vehicles so you've seen a lot.

Let me see if I can help answer some of your questions and concerns.

First I've posted... well a lot, about Damon so if you have the time and interest there are CEO interviews posted and the Adventure Rider article posted link on this page which covers a bit of the specs and different model offerings.  It also talks about how Damon has parts and designs that are theirs' alone, designed in house.  Controler for example.  As for the other off the shelf components their top of the line bikes use Ohlins suspension and Brembo brakes so no Fast Ace on these. 

As for this: "Then there is the problem of setting up a retail sales/distribution/servicing network. Not at all easy to do and this can take years to accomplish."

They agree with you and won't be setting up a dealer network.

I posted in a different thread in this section, a podcast with Damon's COO and founder of Alta (there are two birds about to be hit with one stone here) where he starts off telling what happened to Alta and also how setting up a dealer network costs about as much as setting up production.

As to your last section, yes I agree there have been a lot of companies come and go.  Getting in at the right time and after technology has matured a bit is always a big help.  Also yes Alta had a great set of bikes and I have a link on Cycle Trader that includes Altas up for sale and when they do come up for sale they go quick.  That says a lot about how good they are for people to buy them with no company to back them up anymore.

[irdezcam]

Morgan, and others, I feel your heart's in the right place by trying to help people not get burned by false claims.

But we have to expect new companies to come out and some will be better than the ones that are already out.

I've been a member of this Forum for over five years now and every model year change there is a wish list thread for what features and improvements people want from the new model year's offerings.

This company is putting together so many of the aspects of what people said they wanted in an electric bike and it seems like now they can't believe it can finally happen.

1.  More performance.   That's an off the chart CHECK.
2   Top of the line range.   That's a check until "proven" otherwise.
3.  CCS charging.  Another check.
4.  Standard 6kW AC charging.  Check.
5.  Liquid cooling for all systems.  Check again.
6.  Aerodynamic.  Not only is that a check but it has a motorcycling first for a sport bike that changes the riding position for speed or upright for city or back road riding.
7.  Hell even LED lighting.  Check.

Plus features people didn't even think about.
1.  The Copilot safety warning system.
2.  Rear facing 1080p camera with dash display, along with other cameras for a nearly full view of your surroundings.
3.  A 4G internet connection for updates and likely (not sure yet) GPS and charging status sent to your phone.

Best of all they aren't just saying trust us, they are saying sign up to take a test ride and see for yourself.  No charge no obligation.

Now yes they do ask for a $100 (refundable) deposit to make a reservation, to buy a bike, but that is more than fair and is pretty much industry standard to weed out some bots or other shenanigans .
With 4 variations of the Hypersport now offered people have choices and can change which bike they want to apply their deposit to up until it's ready to be made.  Then you get the bike you said you wanted.

I'm very happy to have a group bring so many of the features people said they wanted together in a new platform.
There are risks involved with any new startup but this is an impressive team resume and the product shows they have been doing their research into what people want in an electric bike.

Hi, New2Elec, came to talk to you and the others about the HyperDrive revelation, but I'm clearly already late to the party 


Nevertheless, I'm gonna leave here a link to the HyperDrive features Damon have posted on their blog:

https://blog.damon.com/the-numbers-behind-damons-motorcycle-powertrain/

Hope you find it interesting.

[NEW2elec]

Hey Nacho!   

Yeah I think it's some pretty exciting news with the other bike model tiers being offered.

I think we have some broken hearted members that are finding it hard to get their hopes up and love again. 

Even if they can't give it their full faith yet there should always be hope and happiness for the future.

[MVetter]

First I've posted... well a lot, about Damon so if you have the time and interest there are CEO interviews posted and the Adventure Rider article posted link on this page which covers a bit of the specs and different model offerings.  It also talks about how Damon has parts and designs that are theirs' alone, designed in house.  Controler for example.  As for the other off the shelf components their top of the line bikes use Ohlins suspension and Brembo brakes so no Fast Ace on these. 

They didn't design it, though. It's Mission's inverter. Literally an old stock photo of it with the Mission logo was in the video I showed you.

No one else going to comment on the minimum THOUSAND 21700 batteries they need to make this work assuming they can get the best batteries on the market?

[NEW2elec]

Well either way it's only theirs.

As for the math it's sort of like this at this point:
X=10 what does y equal?
Not enough information to solve for y.

That is to say you don't "know" what they are using and how it's setup yet.  I respect your EV experience but again lets see what it does first. (Test ride maybe)   

I'm looking at the human and business side right now which is this saying that comes from the marketing field:
Nothing kills a bad product faster than great advertising.
IOW if it's shown to be not even close it likely won't go well.


The people on this forum know that range has a multitude of factors that go into "real world" results.
I could ride in the cold, upright and into the wind with the throttle pinned and never get close to any of the major manufactured bikes' claimed range.

It's just physics.  You don't get a gas cars claimed MPG if your going 90 MPH either but people just fill up the tank when the needle says E and don't give it a second thought.

Do you have an acceptable "real world" range number from a 200 mile claim at a straight 60MPH? 
No snark or sarcasm in the question, I'd really like an answer.

[MVetter]

I'm looking at the human and business side right now which is this saying that comes from the marketing field:
Nothing kills a bad product faster than great advertising.
IOW if it's shown to be not even close it likely won't go well.

And yet people still rabidly believe in the Lightning Strike and LS-218.

[NEW2elec]

Well I feel like Damon is nothing like Lightning.
They have a better team with proven electric vehicle success.

I think you'll also see Lightning's section in this forum and on YT and other social platforms is pretty dead.
They put out a failed half bike and lost all credibility.

Pretty much proving my first post.

Also can you answer the "real world" range question?

[Richard230]

I will do my best to keep an open mind regarding Damon. It is just that I have seen so many promising products, and especially startup electric motorcycle firms, come and go over the years. I intend to wait until the company starts marketing their bikes to the general public at a competitive price point and then see what owners (not press reviewers of prototype vehicles) think of them after a year or so of riding.

I will admit to being surprised how successful Energica has been since their original bikes were announced to be sold in the U.S. at something like $35K. Once they managed to get the price down to around $20K and picked up some reliable and enthusiastic dealers like my longtime BMW shop, Calmoto, then I really became impressed with their product. Unfortunately, their bikes are just to heavy for me to manage at my age. 

I will make one additional comment: Any company that sells a vehicle needs to do so through a brick and mortar shop. You can not stay in business very long by selling direct to consumers. That didn't work for Electric Motorsport or Zero in 2008 and there are probably other examples. (I still recall when Electric Motorsport needed to fly their engineer out to customers' homes all over the country to fix problems on their GPR-S bikes. That sure didn't last very long and they quickly turned to selling their bikes though established retail outlets.) I know that Tesla has had some success with direct sales to customers, but that company has economies of scale, backed by really big bucks, that an electric motorcycle startup up could never manage.

[MVetter]

Do you have an acceptable "real world" range number from a 200 mile claim at a straight 60MPH? 
No snark or sarcasm in the question, I'd really like an answer.

I think it's absolutely fair to assign a value as low as 130Wh/mi for an FIM style faired bike as such at 60mph.

20000Wh divided by 130Wh/mi = ~153 miles. Which is likely very similar to what you can get on an Ego+ at 60.

[Frank]

Well I feel like Damon is nothing like Lightning.
They have a better team with proven electric vehicle success.

?? Has Damon produced something already?  People may not like Lightning's product(s) or business practices, but they have produced motorcycles and won races.

Damon needs to get a couple of units out to moto journalists for evaluation, that will do more for them than anything else.  I would suggest Troy Siahaan as he's ridden the Lightning and raced Lightfighter.

It appears to me that they plan to use one common drivetrain (Hyperdrive) and they'll just add more battery to hit the higher power and range numbers.  That will add weight of course but having common components would probably reduce assembly complexity, parts inventories, etc.

I am very interested in their claim that they'll use battery structure somehow to bear loads.  That and their 48# motor: I think that's half what Remy and Parker weight for comparable outputs.

[NEW2elec]

I meant the Damon team members that came from Alta have a proven record making good electric bikes.

As for trying to get Troy Siahaan to test out a Damon, I beat you to that months ago.   
I commented on one of Motorcycling.com's YT videos and for that very reason of racing the Lightfighter.
We'll see what happens in a lower Covid world.

They say it's a 16k rpm motor as well.
Very interesting platform.

[Richard230]

I reminded myself that Sears Roebuck used to sell motorcycles and scooters though their catalog sales. The bikes came in a shipping crate and included very complete instruction on how to assemble them. I used to own a 1958 Sears Allstate (Puch) 125cc motorcycle. Sears offered a compete service and repair manual, along with a parts book which allowed you to order any part on the bike though their catalog system. It was all very efficient - back in the day. To my knowledge, Sears didn't offer any repair or maintenance program. They pretty much left it up to the buyer to figure it out for themselves. But back then most motorcycle customers were pretty mechanically savvy and could deal with just about anything that might go wrong with a simple two-stroke motorcycle.  BTW, it was a pretty lousy motorcycle with a top speed of 45 mph and had a solid rear suspension, so you had to take it easy when riding around a bumpy corner. 

However, I don't think this sort of business plan would work for electric motorcycles considering the state of the technology and relative lack of people who know how to work on them.

[MVetter]

They say it's a 16k rpm motor as well.
Very interesting platform.

Does no one else notice that the motor has a very high RPM and is quite narrow as well as long. There was another company that designed the powertrain for the LiveWire which has a very long and narrow motor and also has the same RPM range. Man I can't remember their name but I think it rhymed with fission? oh well probably coincidence

[NEW2elec]

Richard, there is a guy that brings one of those old Sears bikes to local car show.
Damon has said their plan is to have Damon service agreements with existing EV dealers, some Damon centers and house calls.
I think they feel the Tesla method worked well and will go with that at least for now.

Morgan, would you want them to put the IP in a trophy case?  They bought it to use it.

[Richard230]

Richard, there is a guy that brings one of those old Sears bikes to local car show.
Damon has said their plan is to have Damon service agreements with existing EV dealers, some Damon centers and house calls.
I think they feel the Tesla method worked well and will go with that at least for now.

Morgan, would you want them to put the IP in a trophy case?  They bought it to use it.

If they do that, training technicians to work on their biked is going to be an issue. There is a lot of equipment on the Damon that is not going to be very familiar to many service technicians. Just ask Zero. Some of these people are good and some are not. Without Zero's help to diagnose problems in real time I wonder how resolving problems would have turned out if it was left to the tech's knowledge? If Damon will be following Zero's service model that might work for a while, but eventually when a lot of bikes have been sold and are in use for some time, it could start to be an issue for the company.    They would potentially need a pretty sizeable staff to deal with service and repair issues and customer questions as sales increase.