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[TheRan]

In my experience the reactions from other people, riders and non-riders (only ICE, I've only met one other Zero owner and that was before I got mine), have been generally positive. Of course no one's going to tell me to my face that they think it's lame but I've had plenty of people say it's cool, neat, and shown genuine interest in it. A surprising amount of people didn't even know electric motorbikes were a thing, with performance beyond a typical pedelec. When it comes to converting those people to electric riders the biggest hurdles have been price (totally fair), range, and charging times. For the latter two points the issue is they either want to ride for fun on the weekend (again, totally fair) or they're thinking about it in ICE terms and imagining they'll always be filling up at public stations instead of charging at home in the evenings/overnight and thinking they need enough range for like a whole week.

I don't think weight is an issue at all and if it is it's a misconception, and reliability isn't a problem itself but rather the high cost of some repairs. Chances are your electric bike will go longer without a problem than your ICE bike but when the electric does have one the cost to fix could end up being enough to buy another whole ICE bike. One thing I would like to see is an option to pay for an extended warranty.

[Crissa]

I would agree coolness drives Tesla sales:  That's why he started with the Roadster.  Many purchases are driven by aspirational trips rather than actual ones.

But I would disagree on Apple:  They specifically do not have the best tech and sell on the low-maintenance plan.  They just work, and they'll sell you a plan to make sure that happens.  As someone trained to maintain both macs and pcs... Macs are tons easier to maintain.  Or at least, historically.  The number of hours required to get a user back to work is straight up less.

And that is the market Tesla is aiming at now, but it is still straddling the 'needs to just work' and 'cool acceleration and lap times'.

-Crissa

If we get more torque at 0 we need more traction control.  Even my Zero beats nearly everything to 30mph but every time I talk to an older rider they worry it will spin out from under them.

[valnar]

Two other reasons I thought of why ICE riders stick with them, besides everything else discussed.

1) They can repair motorcycles themselves.  You cannot always do that with Zero motorcycles, as evidenced by many threads here of people being left out in the cold by Zero outside of the USA.  Motorcycle riders also tend to want to wrench more than your average car buyer.  They are self sufficient.  A soccer mom is not fixing her own Toyota.

Tesla buyers aren't interested in fixing their cars, hence the disposable income to buy a Tesla.

2) We're asking the wrong question. It's not "Why use an ICE bike when an EV can do almost everything you need?"  The question is, "What does an EV motorcycle do better than an ICE bike?".  ie. Why change?  If an ICE bike can commute AND drive across the State easily, why settle for something that can't.  They aren't wrong.  This is so obvious it's painful.  What's the number one question everyone asks about EV's?  Say it with me.


I don't own more than one motorcycle and I understand the limitations of my FXS.  I also know I cannot ride with my motorcycle friends outside of a quick trip around town.  I'd need a second ICE bike for that.  Why would their second bike need to be an EV?

[Richard230]

I am still interested in why the major motorcycle brands don't seem to be interested in even trying to market an electric motorcycle.  At least H-D rolled out their LiveWire five years ago to a certain amount of acclaim and then eventually followed it up with a production model. While I hear whispers from the other established major brands that they might be thinking about developing a electric motorcycle (like Kawasaki) it doesn't seem to be anything other than talk. I really did expect Honda to be active in the electric motorcycle field, but I haven't heard much other than a in-town Super Cub-like model.  (If my recollection is correct.    ) I bet if Mr. Honda was still around, they would have already have a electric bike on the market, with another catchy ad like "You meet the nicest people on an electric Honda"   

[princec]

The reason is dead simple: the battery technology cripples electric motorcycles, so they're all sitting and waiting until batteries hold twice the charge in the same volume and weight, and cost half as much, because as Tesla has demonstrated, when you make things go twice as far as everyone else and twice as fast and charge in half the time, people buy your stuff.

Tesla is only cool because their cars are incredible. Elon Musk, bless his outrageously out-of-touch billionaire's socks, is a nob of the highest order, but his cars rock. If Teslas managed 100 miles on a charge (hello Honda, derp, derp), they would be deeply uncool too. If they only crawled to 60 in 12 seconds, they'd be uncool. But they do 300 miles and smoke everything including bikes off the line. This is what electric bikes need to do. There are no aspects at which EV bikes are better than ICE bikes right now (hoping for change) apart from performance, which is already beyond the capabilities of 99% of riders to use and 99% of roads to ride on and 99% of situations so that problem really is a solved one.

Cas

[Crissa]

EV bikes never have to go to the gas station.

In practical terms, my bike saves loads of time over my spouse's.  It's almost always ready to go for an hour's ride.  Which is more than she does if she's not going up to the city.

And that's alot of time saved.  'Honey, may I use your bike?  Mine needs gas.'

-Crissa

[princec]

I hear that argument trotted out frequently and it's a valid point but it's orthogonal to the issue of stopping for literally hours if you want to rove further than 30 miles from home. It's a very minor advantage that works for one single use case - a short daily commute to work - but that's a very small use case.

Tesla succeeded because they made no excuses. You can go as far in a Tesla as you can in an ICE car. You can charge it up nearly as fast as you can fill ICEs with petrol, in some places, but fortunately you have to do it so infrequently you need a bit of a rest anyway.

If we keep on making excuses about "90% of journeys are under 50 miles" then it will forever be the case that the last 10% of journeys we actually do make will be the reason they don't catch on. 90% of my journeys are under 50 miles at a time, but without being able to do the other 10% of journeys which actually account for most of my annual mileage I still can't make the switch.

Cas

[Richard230]

Honda got into the worldwide motorcycle market with the 1960's Super Cub (making many millions of them over the years) and has now produced a line of similar small motorcycles using their 125cc engine. These include last year's Super Cub and the new CT125 Trail/Hunter model. Both have been well received by the market and are perfect for getting around urban and suburban areas and for easy exploring off-road. In the case of most markets where the CT125 has been introduced they are completely sold out and have a long waiting list. I really think Honda missed a bet resurrecting the Super Cub as an e-bike to get the market interested and familiar with electric power as a cool and trendy thing to be seen riding. Just like back in the day, once the public warmed up to them, Honda could start to expand their lineup with larger and more performance-oriented electric motorcycle models. 

[Crissa]

Far, far more than 90% of my journeys are under 50 miles.  I go over the hill maybe ten, fifteen times a year.  While I go to the store or appointments at least four times a week, plus a fun ride which might but usually doesn't use up all of my range.

Less than 3% of my trips are longer than my there and back range.  Half of those I'm carrying more than I can on my bike, and the other half I'm somewhere long enough to charge even my bike, let alone a modern Zero.  That leaves just a handful of trips this bike can't make.

Nearly all motorcycle owners in the US have more than one vehicle.

-Crissa

[Fran K]

If the discussion topic is the future.  The amount it costs for a dealership to take on an electric line might be due some consideration.  Another forum I am on someone recently conveyed that is is going to cost $200k for a Cadallac dealership to deal with the electric offerings.  Harley and Ktm only had a fraction of their dealerships take on the electric bikes.  Most of the discussion pertaining to Harley was the cost of the chargers not equipment and training.

With some of the other threads on here I have to wonder about dropping of brands, say Zero in particular how much can the local shop tolerate for a dozen sales a year?

[NEW2elec]

The YT channel E for Electric did a quick spot on the Cadillac situation.  It seems GM has wanted to thin the number of Caddy dealers for some time and this helps push that along.

The Livewire wasn't a good enough bike for the price and dealers balked.  There will be other electric offerings in the near future and they might get on board then.

At this point the feel of the electric ride has to be enough to make the move.  The other reasons are coming, and pretty soon.

[TheRan]

If the discussion topic is the future.  The amount it costs for a dealership to take on an electric line might be due some consideration.  Another forum I am on someone recently conveyed that is is going to cost $200k for a Cadallac dealership to deal with the electric offerings.  Harley and Ktm only had a fraction of their dealerships take on the electric bikes.  Most of the discussion pertaining to Harley was the cost of the chargers not equipment and training.

With some of the other threads on here I have to wonder about dropping of brands, say Zero in particular how much can the local shop tolerate for a dozen sales a year?

I think the cost to Harley dealers was mentioned in another thread. I don't really get the issue, why the dealer needs to accommodate being able to fast DC charge loads of bikes. The dealer I got my Zero from just charged it by AC and that's how they charge their demo bikes, fast charging isn't even an option. I could understand wanting just one station as a demonstration for sales and in case there's some reason that a bike needs to be charged as soon as possible.

[BigPoppa]

I think the cost to Harley dealers was mentioned in another thread. I don't really get the issue, why the dealer needs to accommodate being able to fast DC charge loads of bikes. The dealer I got my Zero from just charged it by AC and that's how they charge their demo bikes, fast charging isn't even an option. I could understand wanting just one station as a demonstration for sales and in case there's some reason that a bike needs to be charged as soon as possible.

I believe HD wanted LiveWire dealers to accommodate LiveWire owners who participated in local HOG chapter events/rides since I believe they were sponsored by the closest dealer. I believe I read somewhere that the close tie between local HOG chapters and their closest dealers has been severed from a Corporate HD mandatory thing to a voluntary effort.

Of course I could be wrong on the above statements but that's what I seem to infer from various tidbits I've read over the past year or so. I blame my old brain for any gaps in info or inaccuracies.   

[Crissa]

Those DC chargers sure works like honey for DonTom.

-Crissa

[NEW2elec]

As Richard and others have pointed out Harley can't sell you things at a dealership unless they get you to come to the dealership.
Say I bet you'd like to charge faster than 1kW.  Come on by the dealer we got CCS.