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[Justin Andrews]

Vote for your fav electric bike.

http://www.motorcycle.com/2015-readers-choice-motorcycle-of-the-year

Spoilt for choice this year, including two Zeros (FX & SR), Ego Energia, and the Livewire...

[firepower]

Only Vote for one motorcycle Zero SR 

[benswing]

+1 Zero SR.

I liked test riding the Energica Ego, but they don't fully exist yet.  I'd like to see a motorcycle win that can be bought by anybody now.

[MichaelJohn]

I would love to cast my vote for the SR but they want too much personal information. My address is my business and I get enough junk email as it is. I know that they can't let everybody vote with no control like they do for the baseball All-Star game or people would be voting for their favorite bike hundreds of times. However, I just don't feel comfortable giving out that info. It's probably legit, I would imagine that motorcycle.com wouldn't sell our information but...

Edit: I just googled Survey Monkey, the data collection company and apparently they're on the up and up. They have several big-name clients like Samsung, Kraft Foods, Virgin America, Facebook, etc.. I may just vote after all.

[CrashCash]

Survey Monkey also works for Cracker Barrel & Smokey Bones and other restaurants that I go to a lot.

If you don't want to use your own email, you can use throwaway mail services like mailinator.com where you make up a name and you can read it in a browser.

[chdfarl]

http://www.motorcycle.com/readers-choice-awards/readers-choice-best-electric-motorcycle-2015-harley-davidson-livewire.html

[teddillard]

I give up.   

[Richard230]

http://www.motorcycle.com/readers-choice-awards/readers-choice-best-electric-motorcycle-2015-harley-davidson-livewire.html

The best electric motorcycle that you can't buy and may never be sold to the public.   

[Justin Andrews]

[benswing]

At least they gave a nod to the Zero SR since it is actually available.  Although at this point more people have possibly gone for a test ride on the LiveWire than on a Zero or Brammo. 

[chdfarl]

I rode each of those bikes (not the SR) and each one is cool in there own way! Wouldn't it be nice if we stopped bickering over and complaining what electric motorcycle we personally like or don't like and celebrate the fact that Harley built an electric, Brammo was invested in and bought by an established AMERICAN motorcycle company and that Zero is upgrading their models  and selling lots of ELECTRIC MOTORCYCLES!  SMILE GUYS 

[teddillard]

So, this speaks directly to a point my editor made about the current state of the electric motorcycle market, and his experience in watching traffic and interest in EV cars.  We were having a lengthy email exchange about traffic on electric motorcycle sites and stories, vs. traffic on car stories on InsideEVs.  I think his comment was that he feels like electric motorcycles are about where cars were in about 2006. 

Forgive me for probably getting the dates wrong, but I'm too lazy to double check. 

He was saying, in spite of all their effort pre-2006, there was kind of a cap in interest and traffic on the site.  Then the Volt launched.  Traffic on the site increased astronomically literally overnight, and continued to grow at an absolutely fierce rate month after month.  He attributed it to simply a major manufacturer entering the market.  Basically, his contention was that, until you see a major player enter the motorcycle market you're not going to see a similar explosion of interest, readers, enthusiasts and traffic. 

I just sent him a note saying "this is what you were talking about, isn't it?".  He said "exactly". 

Harley got that vote because it's in a major motorcycle enthusiast site, and it's a major manufacturer within that market.  Everybody there knows Harley, and has heard about the Livewire.  Not everybody there has heard of the other bikes.  I'd wager, based on the responses I'd heard, damn few of them have, in fact. 

Lesson learned?  When the big boys come out to play, hold onto your hats. 

[Doug S]

Ted, I agree with you that having a major player enter the scene really helps the credibility factor, but I think Harley brings even more to the game than that. You say that the Volt brought the EV to the American public's perceptions, but to me, Tesla's pushed it much farther. Since Tesla introduced the Roadster, and started getting some press for it, EVs graduated (again, in peoples' minds) from being a glorified golf cart for ex-hippies and super-frugal types, to being exciting. It was the first really BADASS EV, and I don't think you can discount that factor. People may look at the Volt, or the Leaf, or the Prius as cars they might actually potentially own, but nobody drools over them. Tesla changed all that.

If Honda had built an electric proto and hauled it around giving out test rides, it would add a lot of cred to the electric motorcycle scene, but Harley made a bike that isn't just well-engineered, and reliable, and all the things that Honda does so well. Harley made it BADASS. You can ignore competent quite easily, but you'll never ignore badass.

[teddillard]

...but to me, Tesla's pushed it much farther. ...

You can, of course believe what you'd like from your perspective, but I'm just talking traffic numbers.  For several years they (IEV) tried everything to get the traffic up, and when the Volt was released, it went huge, and hasn't looked back.  We now get about a million views a month. 

Just to be clear. 

As far as badass, I don't know if you actually rode it, but I did.  Not the words I'd use to describe it, especially compared to the Zero SR and the Empulse.

http://insideevs.com/harley-davidson-livewire-review/

https://evmc2.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/harley-davidson-project-livewire-hits-boston-and-lets-me-ride-one/

I don't think this has anything to do with anything but Harley's sheer muscle in the market.  But that's just my opinion.  And yeah, as I said in my review, if nothing else they put more butts in seats than anyone ever had till now. 

[Doug S]

As far as badass, I don't know if you actually rode it, but I did.  Not the words I'd use to describe it, especially compared to the Zero SR and the Empulse.

Lol I wasn't talking about being badass in terms of performance. Nobody buys a Harley because of its performance. I'm talking about style, swagger, looking good on Saturday nights.

My point is very simple: No matter how good the Zero gets, there's a huge number of people that will never look at it, ever. But let the Harley styling group release something with inferior performance, far higher price, and no real practical advantages whatsoever, and people will flock to it on every street corner. Zero isn't badass. Buell wasn't badass. Harley is.

It's all good, it's going to help mfrs like Zero more than anybody, just like Tesla is driving up interest in the EV car market.