ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
Makes And Models => Energica => Topic started by: chisquare on November 09, 2023, 05:09:24 PM
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Am I the only one disappointed that Energica doesn't have any new developments for the 2024 models of Ribelle, SS9+ and Ego? IMO, there is no reason to change the frame, suspension and motor, but there are some minor and major improvements and additions that I would have liked and expected to see:
- better placement of the cruise control switches
- automatic turn signal reset
- 6 axes IMU
- integrated navigation (hey, the new Royal Enfield Himalayan 452 for 7000 to 7500 USD offers Google Maps navigation as a standard feature)
- cruise control with radar
- blind spot assistant
The price for a basic Ribelle (not the RS version, no Öhlins suspension, no forged or carbon wheels, etc.) is CHF 28'900 (USD 32'000) in Switzerland. Its equipment is the sparsest of all manufacturers at this price point. Even premium brands such as Ducati and BMW offer far more. If Energica charges premium prices, they should offer a premium product. The latest innovations should at least be available as an option.
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The don't even seem to be present with a booth. The only presence they show is outside the site: https://www.energicamotor.com/en/eicma-2023/
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Energica have generally been very quiet since Experia launched, the only thing they've done is brought some small improvements over to the Ego platform from Experia. I don't think this is entirely surprising, launching Experia, getting it out into customers hands, and dealing with some of its early production run issues has likely consumed a lot of the management and engineering capacity that would normally go on developing new products. Let's not forget that bike is a whole new platform which is a pretty big deal for a tiny company that has previously only had one platform to worry about.
On top of that 2023 looks like it's been an awful year in the EV motorbike world, I dunno about other markets but registrations in the UK for >35kW bikes are running at -52% (YTD through to October), against 751-1000cc ICE bikes being up 26% and a 2% drop in larger capacity bikes. Economic conditions and bad press are proving to be strong headwinds and I think it's probably more likely we'd see something lighter with a smaller battery based on an existing platform if they announce anything in 2024 because that'll have less sticker shock (think S2 Del Mar).
A big trade show is also expensive so if you haven't got a lot to show off and aren't bringing it in that's an expense you can maybe cut. Plus, their last two big announcements were EMCE and Experia and both of those were in summer.
I'd love for them to announce something new, my finance runs out near the end of 2024 and while I'm happy to trade for a newer Ribelle, it'd be nice to have something shiny and new to try out.
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I have also heard that the cost of financing due to increased borrowing costs have really put a dent into motorcycle sales this year.
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The don't even seem to be present with a booth. The only presence they show is outside the site: https://www.energicamotor.com/en/eicma-2023/
ABUS Deutschland - Hall 9 Stand E 81 (Eva Ribelle Tricolore)
Bike-Lift Europe - Hall 15 Stand M 48 (Ego Corsa - Former MotoE)
KIRO.concept - Hall 13 Stand S 53 (Experia)
COBO Group - Hall 18 Stand D 62 (Ego)
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If you goto Energica's website now they have what seems to be a deal with their own financing company, or someone they partnered up with to give a really good deal on the financing.
that plus the trade in thing, makes me wonder what really is up? ! What do they plan on doing with all the bikes that are traded in? Can we expect to see some sort of super blow out sale of slightly used bikes at fantastic prices soon?
I am a bit disappointed to not see anything new or super from them but they are still playing catch up on the bikes and to be honest, Id rather see them get all caught up, and start putting more bikes back into show rooms for demo's before some new thing that you have to wait another year to actually see.
From what the dealers out here are saying, they are selling pretty good, just getting delivery can be a bit of a wait. Although they are circumventing that somewhat by going via florida for intake, they really should put a shop down here, where they can get AND build them all at one place and ship out from Florida. I bet it'd save them a ton over the hassles of dealing with california and the union bs over that way. It'd also give them full coverage of Continental US as well. Both coasts can pop a bike or parts anywhere they are needed, depending on logistics.
Jacksonville would be a great place to put the shop. We have an awesome seaport right here, the city is giving good incentives for business to move / relocate / etc here and it's a stone throw away from Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Tenesee, The Carolinas, etc for marketing. Plus I could take them fishing while waiting for bike parts :D
Aaron
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Dealers in the Netherlands have orders for dozens of Experias, a very popular motorcycle. They are missing out on revenues, which is a pity, because they are small businesses mostly. Distributor and dealers are keeping a low profile on socials, whereas they used to be very active.
I have let go of my wish for tech improvements on the Ribelle; in my experience you have to do it very well or not at all (take as example keyless ignition software) and as for now Energica simply does not have the resources to implement high tech. Battery cooling would be my number one, and that's something Energica could be good at with their CRP background.
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I think battery cooling is fairly unlikely, I do know some projects have incorporated it but they generally have smaller battery packs iirc and aren't really serious production models. The issue that Energica would have in terms of battery cooling is that the big battery is packed solid so there's not really space for extra cooling, and it's also already very heavy. Active Thermal Management (you also want heating in some cases) for Ego platform would involve a lot of weight and bulk added to a platform that I feel is already more or less at its limits, Experia may be an easier ask but mass distribution might become a concern there. If Energica were to launch a completely new platform for Ego/Eva, perhaps with the half stressed member, half in-frame construction of the Ducati race bike, it might become possible packaging-wise but there's still weight to consider. It's more likely that they'll wait for solid state.
I would love to see ATM on Energicas, I really think fast, consistent charge times are their weakness but it's a big hurdle to clear.
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Consistent 20-minute charging to 80% is a must for me if I’m going to go back to electric. I was very reluctant about giving up my SS9 and I still miss it, but my 2007 FJR can go 240 comfortable highway miles and then fill up in a few minutes, I still don’t have to mess with a clutch because it has the AE automated-manual, performance is similar to my SS9 (even if I have to wring its neck to get it), it’s more refined and comfortable, it has an electric windscreen, and I only paid $5k for it.
I’ll still go back to battery power at the first opportunity because I love everything about the way electrics deliver power, but the nasty surprises of hot-battery charging times need to be a thing of the past.
What I’d really like to see is a plug-in series hybrid, basically the inverse of Kawi’s Ninja 7 where the electric motor is the primary drive. Give me ~30 miles of range for everyday riding and a ~400cc single-cylinder generator sipping from ~2 gallons of gas at 80+ MPG for longer trips. This would be especially nice in the coming 2-3 years in the US as EV cars become more common at the same time that the condition of the non-Tesla charging network seems to be rapidly deteriorating. I know it’s a tough engineering challenge and buyers just don’t understand these vehicles so marketing is also hard, but from a design standpoint you’d easily save enough space and weight for the motor and fuel by trimming 3/4 of battery size. In terms of capability, you’d end up with the best of all worlds given the current technological and infrastructure realities. A guy can dream…
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Unless you are racing it at the track, I can't really see where the Energica's need battery cooling.
I've had mine wot for about the entirety of 12 to 14 miles on a hot summer florida day. The motor and inverter got almost too hot to touch, the battery turned yellow on the indicator but was really pretty cool for all that. i did a fast charge on it, it heated up somewhat, probably the heat of my little romp making it's way out of the core. Motor / Inverter cooled down pretty quick but honestly, that motor can stand some heat w/o being harmed.
There really is not much room for the cooling either, the battery bank is pretty packed. Maybe they could shove some peltier crap dwn there with the external fins the hot side? Would it be worth it for the extra weight all that would entail? You'd need an additional system as well, ie more fluids and pumps and all that crap, unless you just tied it into with the existing system, so it's a battery, motor, inverter cooling system. THAT is possible and they could have a 3 way valve on it that's a 4 - 20 variable on temp so they could actually use the motor and inverter to HEAT the battery on cold days for better performance too, instead of bypassing directly to radiator.
Since we are wishing, make the thing exportable power too so I can plug the bioke into my power panel and the inverter puts out the 240 vac 60 zh to run the house when the power is out :D Gotta keep the beer fridge cold now done we!
Aaron
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I've seen charging as low as 6 kW on my 13.4 SS9, and I've only ever been able to get a consistent 23 kW over multiple charges in the depths of winter. I once took a miserable ride from Long Beach to Sacramento through I-5 (big mistake), and the combination of overheating battery and headwinds made for a grueling march through California's central valley and an arrival time around 2 AM, when I expected to get there before 10 PM. If you're happy with the current thermal performance then hats off to you, but I'm never going to willingly put myself through an experience like that again. Perhaps Florida's humidity helps to better transfer heat from the pack when riding compared to California's dry air?
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The Eva 107 had a cooling channel through the middle of the battery pack and this made a big difference in being able to cool the battery pack while CCS charging. It also helped cool the battery once you were riding again so the battery temp would be in the green when you got to your next charging station. The current configuration means your battery just keeps getting hotter with each CCS charge until you are down to L2 levels of power from CCS because of the heat build up. Yes it had a slightly smaller battery pack but that is always going to be the tradeoff. For road trips where you are going to be doing a lot of CCS charging there is no question that battery cooling of one design or another is going to be important. I live in NC and humidity does not improve heat transfer from the at battery at all.
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Humidity is not going to do anything really for the battery cooling. Mainly at that point it's airflow on the outer case that is cooling it, and the main thing is getting the heat from inside, to the outsides to be taken away by the airflow.
From my experiences / knowledge, I do not believe a yellow battery is going to limit power output on it, and if it did, you'd have to be going pretty fast, ie 80 mph or more Id think for it to really be in a zone where power draw would have to be limited. Ive slammed mine pretty hard at times and never have really seen where it turned into a problem. Maybe I need to do a few back to back hard runs and hard chargeups to finally get it into the red but so far never seen it. When I have gotten into the yellow, it seemed to come back down fairly fast on it's own with normal riding after the charge. Unless it was just a fkn miserable 100 degree day out where everything is just damned hot and the sun is baking your balls off, getting into a good hard yellow zone, seems to take a bit of work.
I will say though, parking the bike in the shade when you can .vs. letting it set stewing in the sun all day, can make a big difference. I wonder if one were to cover the bike up, to keep the hard IR off the bike and baking the heat into it's core might help any? Let the cover take the heating / beating from the sun instead of the bike. I notice this with my solar panels on my roof. the panels take the abuse from the sun and heat up, and THAT keeps that heat conversion OFF my shingles and roof of the house and OUT of my attic. A cover on the bike might accomplish the same thing for keeping the sun from baking the bikes guts and battery all day.
Aaron
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As someone who's put a lot of touring miles on my Ribelle I can definitely say that battery cooling is a priority. Performance use doesn't even come into it (actually the motor and inverter are cooled anyway), it's all charging, charge heat is very hard to dissipate from the big battery and as it heats up your charge stops stretch longer and longer but you can't always contrive a route that lets the bike cool off between charges (not to mention chargers being on hot asphalt in the beating sun).
Range is fine, it works for me, I can use it, I don't feel it's a big limitation, consistent charge times however are a massive problem. Faster charge speeds would also be very welcome, even just 50kW, often chargers are not where I (or riding buddies) want to stop and this 1) causes friction on group rides and 2) means I end up stopping at a BK down the back of an industrial estate instead of a nice pub/cafe on a picturesque twisty mountain route somewhere. Both of these would be unlocked with active thermal management, with knock-on benefits like improved cold weather efficiency. If you could achieve consistent 10 minute charges without thermally overloading the battery you'd even overcome the motorway problem (I avoid motorways wherever possible but sometimes it's handy to just blast along one for a couple hours to get to somewhere you want to play).
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20 KW battery charged in 10 minutes. That'd be a 6C charging rate. That would stress about any battery and really push the heat on.
Youd have to charge the battery at 100 kw ideally to obtain that time. It could be done but that'd really shorten the life cycles of the battery too.
That'd be about 300 + amps of charging current, you'd need 4/0 cables for that, adding weight to the bike.
Maybe one day when they get the supercap / graphene tech down this might be possible but currently, not really.
Aaron
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I mean right now if I pull up to a charger for my first charge of the day I'm usually looking at 25 to 30 minutes. It's really only putting 60% of 19kWh into a 21.5kWh battery and in the middle of the SoC range at that so how much charge load you're putting on it isn't so cut and dried, thermals are very much the limiting factor.
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On the other hand, Ducati's MotoE bikes are running 800V systems, so that'll cut down on the weight of copper needed at least.
Cas :)
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which will be made up by the insulation to keep you from getting your cookies roasted if rain seeps somewhere :)
With that though, the amps are really limited by the per cell/ string, so if done right, they should really be able to take some power from that pack. Downside is the dielectrics of the pack need to be beefed up now so spacing expands. Would hate to see a pack short out because the plastic wrap on the battery cell that says sony, happens to rub a little thin in a corner after a year or so. ???
Has Ducatti made their bike for sale to us normies yet? Im really interested to see the specs on that when they do.
aaron
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Nope. Current system is 150bhp, 18kWh and 800V and the whole bike weighs ~225kg I think. So basically mouthwateringly desirable and completely unavailable. Bah.
Cas :)
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Ducati's bike is only built for one thing and it's probably too fragile for road use. That said I think a lot of their approach presages the future we're likely moving towards.
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Nope. Current system is 150bhp, 18kWh and 800V and the whole bike weighs ~225kg I think. So basically mouthwateringly desirable and completely unavailable. Bah.
Cas :)
The 800V will help to change the power output to a more top-end type power curve giving up some bottom end.
The major change will be less current per cell so discharging and recharging can be faster. I.E. More voltage and less current.
The bikes are built to meet a certain racing spec and have nothing to do with a street machine. If they were to be converted to a street bike, it would be easier to start from scratch and build something very similar to an Energica EGO+. Note how many other road bikes today you can buy that have full carbon fiber frames and swing arms.
Who is going to pay for that?
I want one also, but the reality is they are a spec race bike and always will be. (Until I get one.)