On October 13, Brian Wismann, the director of product development at Brammo Inc. and Dave Schiff of Crispin Porter Bugosky have started a road trip from Ann Arbor, MI to Washington, DC. Their goal for the ten-day journey is to raise awareness of electric bikes with Brammo’s Enertia model, which has a 42-mile range and needs four hours to fully charge its six lithium ion batteries.
Considering the 520 miles that need to be covered, the guys will have plenty of time to familiarize people with their $11,995 powercycle. Yes, it is damn expensive, but considering that it only consumes $4 worth of electricity (for the specified trip), it should pay itself back in time and, preferably, during shorter distances and implicit fewer stops (after all, we do live in the century of speed).
Speaking of power, the Brammo Enertia has a 13kW electric motor, which powers it to a top speed of 60 mph. I wonder what the President will think about it. Meanwhile click pass the break to check out the video or go to shockingbarack.com, where the entire journey is being chronicled.
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The original Honda Cub has to be one of the greatest motorcycles of all times simply because it was affordable, easy to maintain and very practical. That small motorcycle helped put the world on two wheels, so you can understand our joy of hearing that Honda is planning to revamp the extremely popular model. The biggest news about it is that it will have two-wheel drive and benefit of power coming from a small, electric engine, while the exterior design is reminiscent of that first late 1950s model.
2WD enhances traction and stability around corners, allowing riders to control the already highly maneuverable motorcycle with the greatest ease. This is not a Honda breakthrough as Yamaha and KTM have also flirted with the idea, but Big Red will present the EV-Cub at this year’s Tokyo Motor Show and it is expected to hit dealerships by the end of 2010.
Honda also speaks about one of their latest gadgets called LOOP and supposed to enable riders to communicate with one another during long rides. This should make Honda’s stand even more interesting.
Urban traffic studies show that the city is precisely the environment where most crashes happen due to obvious reasons and BMW Motorrad is aware of that. What we’re interested in is the ingenious concept bike they’ve come up with as a solution to reduce the big number of motorcycle crash victims. Referred to as a “single track vehicle for city traffic”, the BMW C1-E concept is the electric version of the BMW C1 scooter, meaning that it protects riders with a safety cell made of roll-over bars and keeps them in the actual cell with the use of a seat belt.
Everything that rolls on wheels is green nowadays, so the BMW C1-E concept is powered by an electric motor made from Vectrix components and supplied with energy by a lithium-ion battery. Still, the thing could turn into a hybrid, but there’s no official word about production at this time. That is because BMW worked their magic with this concept to contribute at the European Safer Urban Motorcycling campaign. Read the press release after the break.
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When you plan on selling an electric superbike for $68,995, you do have to prove your bike’s claimed capabilities before actually releasing it for sale so Mission Motors have taken the Mission One at the Bonneville Salt Flats on 1 September and set a 150.059mph AMA national record for electric motorcycles.
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Tom Miceli is a dedicated and hard working young man, who recently presented his own electric motorcycle at the Southern Energy and Environment Expo 2009. Tom has a BS degree in Industrial Design from the Appalachian State University in the US and the electric sportbike, that he designed and constructed in a single semester, features an 84-volt lithium-ion battery, which powers a three-phase AC motor that produces 105 lb feet of torque and 46 hp. The batteries offer the ION a 60-mile range, while the top speed is an estimated 80 mph.
After showing his creation to an impressed audience, Tom took the ION for a test ride, so here’s the video from the event.
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The words in the title probably describe the world’s smallest, lightest electric folding bike in the best possible way. Designed and constructed in Christchurch, New Zealand, the YikeBike is a fairly awkward mean of urban transportation, even one that could pass as a bicycle if it wasn’t for the 1.2kW electric motor powering it. It is made of carbon fiber, unfolds in 15 seconds and only weighs 22 pounds (10 kilograms). Also, given the fact that it only takes 6 x 23.6 x 23.6 inches (150 x 600 x 600 millimeters), you can start carrying it once it finishes carrying you.
But wait to hear the interesting part: the thing is equipped with electronic brakes with built-in anti-skid system. The manufacturer claims the thing is very easy to maneuver and has just released a video in order to prove that. Given the $4900 price, we have strong reasons to believe that the YikeBike will not gain much popularity. Click pass the break to watch the fairly interesting video for a not that interesting product.
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After gaining popularity by racing the Enertia TTR sportbike at this year’s Isle of Man TT motorcycle race, Brammo announces that their bikes are now available at select Best Buy stores.
Brammofan blog was already interested in the subject and after reporting that the Enertia TTR racers were on display at select West Coast Best Buy stores, they started to dig deeper into it. So they went at the Cascade Station Best Buy in Portland, Oregon to take this picture of the bike and also to find out that there are three in stock. Those having a license with a motorcycle endorsement can take the electric bikes for a spin, but hopefully without trying to imitate the way professional racers rode the bikes back in June. Still, we’ve added a video of the Brammo Enertia TTR at the Isle of Man TTX GP in order to start your interest even more.
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Scoot! Magazine is asking all scooter riders out there if Wheego, an electric vehicle manufacturer, should build an electric Lambretta GP200e scooter or not. Their tagline is “Brilliance or Sacrilege?” and we tend to stick with the brilliancy part, but we’ve come to find that there are people who not only support this idea and would eventually buy such a scooter when it will hit dealerships (because sooner or later, it will) but even go ahead and put together a “TOP FIVE REASONS AN ELECTRIC LAMBRETTA WOULD BE BRILLIANT”.
Click on our source to read the respective top and finally go ahead and email Wheego to tell them you’re the first to buy such a vehicle when it will be launched.
It might seem that some things are there to look the same for ever and ever, but life is no fairy tale and as things are evolving, people are trying to reinvent the past with what they got on their hands now. For instance,
Brammofan has come up with a very interesting way to promote the famous Brammo Enertia electric motorcycle with excellent results. People are sending in Photoshop creations such as the “Enertiaryder” and the “Terminator Enertia” as part of a contest that they have going on. Any ideas from you?
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Orange County Choppers was commissioned by Siemens to build an entirely electric motorcycle in order to raise environmental awareness. Given the New York-based custom motorcycle builder’s tradition of building noisy and very spectacular choppers powered by a good old V-Twin engine, Siemens’s proposition might have sounded a bit unusual at first, but it was a challenge waiting to be taken.
The end result was unveiled yesterday at the Time Warner Center by Siemens and Paul Teutul Senior itself and we must say that it looks as good as any other OCC creation so far, if not even better, given the futuristic tendency.
But while the looks aspect is discussable, the incontestable fact is that the 27-horsepower electric motor from Advanced DC powers the Siemens electric chopper to a 100+ mph top speed. The six batteries take five hours to charge and supply the bike with electricity for around 60 miles, which is quite decent.
OCC built the Siemens bike in a single month and it is all on tape and scheduled to air on TLC on Thursday, October 22 at 9PM.
Siemens plans to take their bike on a worldwide tour in 2010 and then auction it and donate the money to "a charitable cause that will help benefit the environment." Yes, that means you can even end up owning it if you’re a man with deep pockets and the fact that OCC says that it currently has no plans to mass produce an electric chopper until demand is here, makes this creation even more unique.
See a video from the event and read the Siemens press release after the break.
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