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General Discussion / Re: Most affordable electric motorcycle
« on: September 13, 2017, 08:33:31 AM »Quote
Maybe you should consider an alternative explanation, that those businesses were offering the bikes at too low a price to stay in business.
Yeah, that's the only conclusion I can see. I had hoped that I had missed a cheaper 60mph bike in my search. Brammo must not have been making a profit on the Enertia at those prices (they did go out of business, after all). And Victory chose to sell only the pricier Empulse.
I do also wonder if demand just isn't growing quick enough. Tesla, for instance, sold like 10x more of their Model S, than their original Roadster. And they are looking to sell 10x more of their new Model 3, than the Model S/X. Maybe it's the increasing demand that allows them to lower prices, using economies of scale. If electric motorcycles just aren't catching on, then they can't lower costs with economies of scale. Much as it sounds great to me, to get rid of the manual transmission, loud engine, and vibrations of a gas bike, your average biker may not agree. Most may find these things essential to the motorcycling experience.
Still, high tech gadgets going down in price every year, is usually a very safe bet.
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Now I'm still commuting the same distance, either with the Zero S (lazyness) or with the (not electric) velomobile which is a kinda muscular fighter aircraft (at ground level....) and is so comfortable yet getting wet very quickly!
I had never heard of a velomobile before, thats very cool! Rather like the enclosed bike that holds the human powered world speed record (82mph!). What kind do you have exactly? I wonder how fast something like that could go, if equipped with a Zero motorcycle powertrain? A little reading reveals that a motorcycle experiences about the same force of air drag as a car, which explains why highway range is so much worse than city range, and so hard for electric motorcycles, vs electric cars. But a velomobile should be much more slippery.