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[JaimeC]

But... how believable is it??
https://www.motorcycle.com/features/lightning-building-electric-motorcycles.html

[Crissa]

That's still some really low output, though.

Going at the most generous, that's 60 bikes a year.

Not sure how they're going to meet that lower price point.

-Crissa

[Richard230]

The author of this article, Gabe Ets-Hokin, was the owner of the free monthly San Francisco City Bike publication which used to be distributed around the SF Bay Area a few years ago.  It stopped printing a paper copy some years ago, I assume when the printing costs became more that the publication could bear, being supported by ads in the newspaper. I don't know if he still publishes an on-line City Bike magazine like he did when the paper version folded.

My 2012 Zero S and I made the cover of the City Bike's April 2012 cover.

As for the information in his article, I am happy to wait and see what happens.  However, I would be interested in what bankrolls Lightning.   

[HoodRichOG]

Why can't anyone ask him when they will begin actual deliveries?

Honestly, we've seen half of these photos from before.

Seems like they made 3 bikes, one in each color, and sold one of them.

[Crissa]

Seems like they made 3 bikes, one in each color, and sold one of them.

This article has a photo with more than three in a shot.  They're incomplete, and it's a terrible angle, but there's more than three.

[HoodRichOG]

https://electrek.co/2019/05/01/lightning-strike-electric-motorcycle-production/

Here's an article from May with the exact same image.

Pathetic how they can't even come up with any single other image of more than 3 of these.

So where are those bikes that they supposedly assembled?

[Crissa]

Pathetic how they can't even come up with any single other image of more than 3 of these.

That's more probably because journalists are lazy, though.  Going somewhere and getting photographs is expensive.

*sigh*

[wavelet]

But... how believable is it??
https://www.motorcycle.com/features/lightning-building-electric-motorcycles.html

Still not convinced. The article does talk concretely about actual design/prototyping/production facilities, which is encouraging, but then a quote like this:

That Hatfield and a few engineers took less than two years to make a bike compliant with dozens of regulatory agencies all over the world seems remarkable to me

makes no sense, unless the writer is completely clueless, or Lightning fed him a bunch of outright lies.
Homologation is time consuming, very expensive and requires actual production-quality vehicles to be submitted.  There are no "dozens" of relevant regulatory agencies, certainly not at Lightning's stage of startup company;
AFAIK, the Strike doesn't have ABS, which means it can't pass homologation in the EU at present; that's certainly the #2 market.

Also, between the lines, it looks like he only talked to one LS-218 customer and one Strike customer ; I suspect he was referred to them by Lightning, though the piece is written to imply there were more.

[ultrarnr]

What's really missing from the article is a ride report. If the Strike is in production and being delivered to customers then letting a moto journalist have one for a few days to ride around shouldn't be a big deal. Hatfield wants to sell 10K+ Strikes a year yet doesn't have bikes to loan out to the motorcycle press so that ride reports get in the press. You have to wonder why he thinks this is the best way to sell bikes. And of course no dealers. With Hollywood Electrics selling only electric bikes I would love to know Harlan's take on all of this.

[Crissa]

The EU regulation doesn't seem to mention electrics at all.

I really hate these dated rules which are basic upon displacement which have nothing to do with the weight or power of the vehicle.

So I really can't tell if they're required or not.

[BigPoppa]

What's really missing from the article is a ride report. If the Strike is in production and being delivered to customers then letting a moto journalist have one for a few days to ride around shouldn't be a big deal. Hatfield wants to sell 10K+ Strikes a year yet doesn't have bikes to loan out to the motorcycle press so that ride reports get in the press. You have to wonder why he thinks this is the best way to sell bikes. And of course no dealers. With Hollywood Electrics selling only electric bikes I would love to know Harlan's take on all of this.

Maybe because he's afraid of liability. I mean...what could possibly go wrong handing the keys for a high powered electric sport bike with no ABS or traction control to a motojournalist? Those guys never hoon on a manufacturer's bike...right?

[Richard230]

What's really missing from the article is a ride report. If the Strike is in production and being delivered to customers then letting a moto journalist have one for a few days to ride around shouldn't be a big deal. Hatfield wants to sell 10K+ Strikes a year yet doesn't have bikes to loan out to the motorcycle press so that ride reports get in the press. You have to wonder why he thinks this is the best way to sell bikes. And of course no dealers. With Hollywood Electrics selling only electric bikes I would love to know Harlan's take on all of this.

Maybe because he's afraid of liability. I mean...what could possibly go wrong handing the keys for a high powered electric sport bike with no ABS or traction control to a motojournalist? Those guys never hoon on a manufacturer's bike...right?

Lightning did that with the LS-218. There is a video from a few years ago showing a prominent magazine test editor riding the bike around the Santa Cruz Mountains.

[wavelet]

The EU regulation doesn't seem to mention electrics at all.

I really hate these dated rules which are basic upon displacement which have nothing to do with the weight or power of the vehicle.

So I really can't tell if they're required or not.

The regs I saw (as opposed to informal discussion of them in US publications)  defined the requirements per the EU vehicle type classification.
2-wheeled motorcycles are the L3 type, with 3 subtypes, L3e-A1, L3e-A2 and L3e-A3:
(p. 3 of https://www.lowcvp.org.uk/assets/presentations/EU%20Regulation%20on%20the%20Approval%20of%20L-Category%20Vehicles.pdf)
This defines vehicle classes via motor power in kW, not displacement, and has been the basis of the graduated drivers' licenses in the EU for quite a few years now (we follow the EU regs here in Israel)
The relevant category for the Strike is L3e-A3 (motor >= 35kW); ABS has been mandatory on L2e-A3 and L2e-A2 motorcycles since 2016, see
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2017-006473-ASW_EN.html?redirect

[Crissa]

The regs I saw...

Thanks!  The only actual regs I could pull with a quick search were dated discussions of applying or formulating, so not actually written as implemented.  It's nice to see someone wrote sane rules!

Now if only my state would do that.

-Crissa