ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
General Category => Electric Motorcycle News => Topic started by: Richard230 on June 10, 2024, 02:44:25 AM
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Yesterday, at the huge Westfield Mall in San Jose, a new shop had just been opened up (which was not in the mall's directory and very difficult to find) displaying a couple of Verge electric motorcycles that are notable for their high prices and very unusual rear wheel/electric motor design. I was told that the bikes are not currently being sold in the U.S., but that they intend to do so soon and are accepting deposits from potential U.S. customers. They are opening up small stores to display the bikes in Southern California and soon in Las Vegas, in addition to the one in San Jose. I was told that they are currently being sold in the EU but are accepting deposits for U.S. deliveries.
While I didn't ask about balancing the tire and wheel, I did ask about removing the tire from the wheel. The rep said it was very easy. ::) You just remove the splash guard by unscrewing four bolts and then after removing the wheel from the motor, you unscrewed a whole bunch of bolts holding the rim together like a truck tire (and my 1962 Vespa motor scooter?). I was also told that if anything goes wrong with the bikes, a factory technician would fly out to your home and make repairs. ??? Photos attached to a series of posts following this one.
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Orange one.
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blue one.
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Tank display.
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brochure 1
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brochure 2
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brochure 3
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brochure 4
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Friday, October 8, 2021.
Good morning, PILOT.
There are in fact 29 blue-loctited bolts to get through to remove the tire sleeve. Did you do a test ride or no?
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Does it have active thermal management for the battery or is it passive cooled?
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Friday, October 8, 2021.
Good morning, PILOT.
There are in fact 29 blue-loctited bolts to get through to remove the tire sleeve. Did you do a test ride or no?
They are not offering test rides. I gathered that the bikes were only for display purposes and to interest future customers in making deposits on the Verge models when they become available to purchase in North America. BTW, did you notice that there is a passenger seat, but no passenger foot pegs? Right there that would not comply with DOT regulations.
I have no idea how the bikes are cooled. There are likely a bunch of questions that I should have asked, but after spending hours at a nearby Egyptian museum with my family and then walking around the mall for 20 minutes looking for the Verge store, I was pretty much done for the day and wasn't thinking of all of the questions that I should have asked - assuming that the reps would have even had the answers to the more technical stuff. They seemed more like sales people than knowledgeable engineers. Which I guess makes sense as they were trolling for deposits in a mall in one of the richest areas of the SF Bay Area.
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Well technically it does have passenger pegs because the rider can use the forward mounted pegs. I hesitate to call them forward controls because there are no foot controls, which also makes switching between them easier.
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So, changing a tire on this thing is not going to be an easy task.
How much does that 'assembly' weigh when you do need to change tires?
Methinks racing might be out of the question on this one.
\
Aaron
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So, changing a tire on this thing is not going to be an easy task.
How much does that 'assembly' weigh when you do need to change tires?
Methinks racing might be out of the question on this one.
\
Aaron
Drag racing should be fine, though. But you are likely going to become an expert on removing the rear wheel and changing rear tires.
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If the tyre change is a problem for track riding the unsprung weight is a problem for street riding.
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Motorcycle.com rides and reviews the Verge TS Pro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMCj5HyQYhc
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Should note that the reviewer is Troy Siahaan, one of the few journalists with extensive electric experience and probably a shred of integrity left. Additionally, he is the official racer for the Lightfighter electric motorcycle team. https://www.lightfighter-racing.com/ So he absolutely knows his stuff from a race perspective. And hey guess what? To paraphrase Troy, "Hey this doesn't handle well at all because of this giant heavy hub motor." Who knew
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Yep, he didn't pull his punches when it came to criticism of the handling. But then I also think we was trying to get across the neither nowt-nor-summat design language of the bike, which looks like a super naked and is blessed with bonkers power but is actually really a cruiser.
Cas :)
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For a guy that's "in the know" I would've expected him to at least mention the battery capacity and charging power, even if he couldn't test it. Maybe it's because even Verge doesn't seem to list those specs on their site, but I assume they're available somewhere.
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He did mention the battery capacity though it was not exact ("20 or 21 kWh"), and charging rate is directly on the website when you configure a bike. The TS Pro middle version claims to charge in 35 minutes though it doesn't say from what to what SOC (guessing 20-80).
Cas :)
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I must have missed it, all I heard him say was that it's 400v. Where are you seeing the charger specs? All I see in the configurator is charging times (55, 35, and 25 minutes for the TS, TS Pro, and TS Ultra respectively) but that's almost meaningless.
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If you want quiet this set up is likely the pinnacle. I was trying to listen to see if regen made noise when he was discussing. I could hear a tiny noise when on the power. It is sort of half sound from two sources in the video.
Ok the motor weighs 25 pounds, what about the wheel bearings, or the whole back wheel.
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I must have missed it, all I heard him say was that it's 400v. Where are you seeing the charger specs? All I see in the configurator is charging times (55, 35, and 25 minutes for the TS, TS Pro, and TS Ultra respectively) but that's almost meaningless.
That's all I found too, so just making an educated guess about the rating from there. I reckon they quote 20-80% SOC times, so if that's a 20kWh battery, that'll be 12kWh in 35 minutes or 20kW ... basically on a par with LiveWire and Energica.
Cas :)
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Here is the Motorcycle.com article regarding the Verge TS Pro which contains more information about the bike: https://www.motorcycle.com/bikes/manufacturer/2024-verge-ts-pro-electric-motorcycle-review-quick-ride-44603878
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I do wish journalists (well ok ... everyone) would just stfu about regen. It's so utterly wrong and misleading.
Cas :)
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If you choose to watch the imbedded video (s) at youtube the link to the article is in discussion post #1. There are comments and if you join you can comment, There is another video source on yt that has had it for 3 weeks. It is pretty much on a covered concrete slab walking and talking but you read sub titles.
It is still a make a deposit sort of proposition.
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Now that I have been running the Energica's for a good year solid, and now running the Cliente Corsa is that people will not take the time to LEARN the regen !!
OOOh it's NEW, it's DIFFERENT...... therefore it's UN Natural, eww I don't like it...
Learn how to fucking USE it PROPERLY !!!!
I turned off the electronics (regen) slowing my rear tire down, so I could control it with the rear brake mechanical thing, to slow it down.....
umm ok.
Granted he only had two hours to run the bike, and I guarantee ran it exactly as he'd run a regular bike, NOT an E bike... with a good solid regen system on it!! He did not how to properly run the regen, it was new and ODD to him, so did not / was not able to use it properly to see how it can really make that bike shine in handling and maneuvering.
I am NOT a professional, I am not even a certified racer yet, won't be able to get my license until this little injury of mine gets healed up in a few months. I am barely an amateur but can say., that regen is a totally fucking awesome trail braking system for you, IF you take the time to learn it.
Learning something new, is a bitch, most people won't like it, because they keep trying to compare it to what they already know, and won't give it a chance, the moment it's different than from what they learned...eww, I don't like it. I used to see the same shit in computer programming, when the little V basic kiddies would graduate up to C and go, it's kind of the same, but different, I don't like it. You try to tell them, forget every thing you know about VB, treat this as something totally new. Most dont' have the capacity to compartmentalize their brains that way and have a hard time doing it. Same with bikes.
Id LOVE to see a review of ALL the bikes, side by side, but for a full long weekend. Give these guys a full day on EACH bike to learn it fully and properly. Let them have some time to learn how to USE that regen properly on an E bike. (Hint NO it is NOT the same as a gas bike), and then after they fully underrstand it, NOW go out on the bikes and give them their romps, now that you can use them to their fullest.
I bet they would think differently about them. Then again, a race mentality and a street mentality are a bit different, so, maybe Im wrong. Would love to see.
Aaron
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Well according to MVetter the guy has a lot of experience on electric bikes and also races them, so I don't really get his criticism and would have expected him to elaborate on it. If he just thought it was too strong then he should know it's adjustable.
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Yes. Troy is probably the most knowledgeable journalist when it comes to electric motorcycles. How he chooses to write about it for the general audience may make him sound like a novice. He is not. I look forward to seeing him put laps in at Laguna Seca and compete in AHRMA races.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niMIbIlexUM