"safe, secure, 200 mph"
who writes these things?
He's also being hyperbolic and glib. It made a bad impression on me.
So a trip to Jakarta was the inspiration, when he found out motorcycles were the world's #1 form of transport (technically powered two-wheelers, as most aren't motorcycles but mopeds & scooters in terms of form factor) . And yet, the product isn't a safer Vespa-type scooter, it's a very high end motorcycle, which noone in the same Asian cities where scooters outnumber cars will ever be able to afford... Even here (Israel, an OECD member), scooters & mopeds outnumber actual motorcycles 10:1, the reverse ratio than in North America.
So a motorbike is "20ieth" the weight of a car? They're aiming at a 200kg bike, curb weight. 20x that, 4000kg, isn't car territory at all -- in most of the world outside North America, anything above 3500kg GVWR (realistically, 2500kg curb weight) would be a commercial vehicle. "10th" would be more like it.
Anyway, so a 200mi highway range is easy because of the low relative weight of a bike vs. car? That's glib, and he has to know it's completely false. Aerodynamics dominates efficiency at those speeds. If it were so easy, how come no other e-motorcycle gets >100mi at highway speed (60mph per their definition)? And their specs talk about 160mi, not 200. Heck, ICE motorcycles don't do that well vs. ICE cars, given the weight ratio, at highway speeds?
He claims their current facility in downtown Vancouver can build 1500 bikes/year; that's pretty high for a startup which has yet to build a preproduction prototype bike, and looks like overkill at this stage, not to mention expensive to keep (that area is really expensive real-estate).
He disparages the dealership model without mention of how they expect to handle servicing a very complex, rare bike with electric drivetrain and lots of systems and components no other bike model has -- OTA updates can help with SW, sure, but HW fixes? Accident repair?
Ditto sales. They intend to sell direct-to-consumer ("like Tesla") -- how are they going to demonstrate the situational awareness & adjustable ergonomics aspects without test rides? No other bike has them.
Oh, way too many Tesla comparisons, as well.
They're raising $25M of financing, and are targeting 50 employees by year end, and 100 by end next year. That at least sounds reasonable.
Actually delivering production bikes in 18 months doesn't, but that can be treated as startup optimism
TM.
I hope this interview isn't representative of what Damon's trying to do... I actually like the idea of adjustable ergonomics as well as the situational awareness system, but don't think they make sense together with together with developing a from-scratch, high performance electric bike.
To the actual bike content:
Giraud says the situational awareness system tracks up to 64 objects 1.5-2 seconds ahead. That's seems insufficient for most reactions after receiving a warning, even at city speeds (in many cases, the correct reaction isn't braking, it's evasive maneuvers). The MSF courses, as well as other courses I've taken since outside the US, use 12 seconds as the distance one should scan ahead, and I've generally found that to be good advice.
Granted, restrictions on processing power, memory or cameras/sensors' range may make that infeasible, but IMO anything less than about 4-5 seconds would be basically worthless even at city speeds.
It'll be interesting to watch this develop...
