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[T.S. Zarathustra]

Most of you have seen something about this, but I found no dedicated thread here.
Kymco, who introduced the nice SuperNEX couple of years ago has shown us a naked version. A nice looking bike with many great features, including, but not limited to; Brembo brakes, Öhlin suspension, aluminium frame (instead of the mostly standard steel triangulated frames), 6 speed gearbox, traction control, ABS, etc.
"RevoNEX can go from 0 to 100 km/hr in 3.9 seconds, and from 0 to the top speed of 205 km/hr in just 11.8 seconds. In the city when gear shifting is not desired, RevoNEX’s second gear alone can provide effortless yet monstrous acceleration up to 115 km/hr."
The most interesting IMHO is this. “RevoNEX is set to be available in 2021.”

https://www.kymco.com/news/kymco-introduces-at-eicma-2019-revonex-electric-motorcycle

[Richard230]

As always, I will believe it when I see it in a Kymco dealership showroom available for sale and with a price tag on the bike.   

[wavelet]

As always, I will believe it when I see it in a Kymco dealership showroom available for sale and with a price tag on the bike.   

For sure.
However, there's a  difference between Kymco and some of the startups we've been discussing in various other subforums/threads...
Kymco, if they decide that the time is ripe  to make a big push in BEV motorcycles, actually has the resources to do it. While many folks reading the thread may have never heardof them, they make over a million motorized vehicles a year, and have annual revenue of >$1B. They can achieve economies of scale that neither the startups, nor for that matter Zero, can.

[Crissa]

None of the big automakers have managed to find these economies of scale in regards to EVs, either.  So all this needs to be thought with a bit of salt.

-Crissa

[wavelet]

None of the big automakers have managed to find these economies of scale in regards to EVs, either.  So all this needs to be thought with a bit of salt.

-Crissa

First, Tesla is by most accounts getting that w.r.t. to battery prices, and the other carmakers are starting to follow (with various degrees of kicking & screaming  ) as well. VW Group, Mercedes, Ford, GM, BMW, PSA, Volvo and others  have all either already invested or announced concrete specific plans to make big investments in their own battery plants, quite aside from the independent battery cell manufacturers themselves.
Most carmakers haven't yet published detailed pricing for upcoming new models, but VW Group has -- and they're going to be quite inexpensive; the ID.3, the eGolf replacement, is going to start below €30K, including European VAT (~20%), and pre-incentives.
That's a direct result of their explicit manufacturing targets: A million EVs in 2023 and 1.5M in 2025; they're been making lots of investments to make that happen. Obviously it remains to be seen what they actually manage to make & sell.

More significant, EV car volumes are still tiny w.r.t. car volumes.
By automotive standards, all today's ICE motorcycles brands are tiny with the exception of Honda, who make 20M two-wheelers per year.
If one of the existing scooter makers decides to take a moderate risk and tries to make & sell 20K EV bikes in a year of a high-quality lowish-end EV bike focused on commuting (say 30kW motor, 8-10kWh battery), IMO there's a decent chance it would work, and at those volumes (about 10x of Zero's total global volume for all models), I'm pretty sure prices could be reasonably low as well.

[Crissa]

Tesla is, because they focused on making batteries.

Batteries are the majority of the cost and supply constraint in the BEV market.

So the major motor companies' economy of scale doesn't exist in regards to BEVs.  And maybe can't.  We don't know.  We only know none of them have found it yet.

-Crissa

[wavelet]

Tesla is, because they focused on making batteries.

Batteries are the majority of the cost and supply constraint in the BEV market.

So the major motor companies' economy of scale doesn't exist in regards to BEVs.  And maybe can't.  We don't know.  We only know none of them have found it yet.

-Crissa

As you say, there's absolutely a supply constraint currently (which is why all the cell makers and most of the BEV carmakers have been expanding plant capacity like crazy); however, as far as costs goes, batteries are at most half the component costs these days (see  this study(PDF), from a few years back), and going down rapidly -- more rapidly than the study estimated. This is simply due to economies of scale, and not yet taking into account any potential significant technology advances (solid-state, metal-air etc.)

Now the battery is most likely a far higher % of cost on a motorcycle, whereas the rest of the components (except motor) are mostly no different from ICE motorcycles, so there's more room for price reduction there -- as soon as there are bike makers who actually do volume production of BEV motorcycles. None do so far.
The prices of NIU's scooters compared to similar ICE scooters are encouraging; we'll have to wait and see what they and Kymco do w.r.t. e-motorcycles. It doesn't look like any of the big motorcycle makers are in any rush to market, aside from H-D; several have explicitly said that e-motorcycles are years away. I think only Ducati is now on record that they'll have an actual offering anytime in the near future.
Honda would be well-positioned for this, but they've made it clear that aside from pilot projects of electrified versions of 50cc scooters (which is silly, since it's not like this needs a proof of concept...) they're not doing anything for now.

[Richard230]

I have my doubts that car manufacturers will be able to sell anything like the number of electric vehicles that they have planned to produce - at least not in the U.S. market. While I do see a lot of Teslas in the SF Bay Area, I see more Prius hybrids on the road. BMW I3s and Bolts are as rare as hens' teeth, while big gas-guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks are selling like hotcakes.

Meanwhile there is a big political push to increase road taxes and yearly registration fees on EV's, along with cutting down their access to HOV toll lanes and reducing or eliminating purchasing subsidies. I don't know when the tide will turn and the public will start to embrace electric vehicles, but I don't see it coming any time soon - no matter what the government demands in the way of purchasing goals.  You know what they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. 

And if you think the car buying public is conservative in their vehicle ownership tastes, motorcyclists are really hanging on to their traditional buying habits. Just look at the sale of ICE V-twin cruisers.  And regarding the H-D LiveWire, at its pricing level, you know that H-D doesn't expect to sell enough of them to make a dent into even the EV market.

Maybe I am wrong, but I have been buying motorcycles for the past 58 years and I think I have some idea how the market works.

[T.S. Zarathustra]

It is my believe that car (and bike) manufacturers can sell huge numbers of electric vehicles. All they need to do is drop the price (all  ). VW has stated that it takes 40% less people to build EV than similar ICEV. That is considerable amount of salary saved. We should see the prices drop enough in the next few years to it being cheaper to purchase EV than ICEV, without taking Total Cost of Ownership into account.
It is important to remember that the "total cost of ownership" concept is a luxury only enjoyed by those with plenty of capital. (Documented by Terry Pratchett as the "Sam Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness")

[Richard230]

It is my believe that car (and bike) manufacturers can sell huge numbers of electric vehicles. All they need to do is drop the price (all  ). VW has stated that it takes 40% less people to build EV than similar ICEV. That is considerable amount of salary saved. We should see the prices drop enough in the next few years to it being cheaper to purchase EV than ICEV, without taking Total Cost of Ownership into account.
It is important to remember that the "total cost of ownership" concept is a luxury only enjoyed by those with plenty of capital. (Documented by Terry Pratchett as the "Sam Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness")

Well, time will tell.  I just don't have any faith in the U.S. new vehicle market moving too quickly away from the ICE.     Things may be different in the EU, though.

[Crissa]

Hybrid sales sliding, cannibalized by EV's potentially lower Total Cost of Ownership.

https://ark-invest.com/research/electric-vehicle-sales-better-prius

That was five years ago, it's only gotten worse for hybrids since.

-Crissa