The BMW Halbo concept looks like the kind of bike you can take with you in vacation. Yes, it is small and this makes it fun, efficient, but also very dangerous to ride, at least from where I’m sitting now. Actually, designer Pierre Yohanes Lubis claims it only takes up half as much space as your average bike.
That is due to some innovative construction methods such as the engine being an integrated part of the full-sized front wheel. At the back, you get a whole different scenario: the tiny spherical wheel is mounted on a moving arm that is supposed to balance the bike.
Addressed to "eco-minded young individuals," we can suppose it features
an electric motor, but why would anyone want to hit the streets on such a bike? Sure, it can be efficient at work places where you have to move a lot (and where workers currently use bicycles) as long as companies are willing to pay the price (currently unknown), but it looks too risky for the streets.
Maarten Timmer is a Delft design graduate that seems to have discovered the perfect recipe to really promote electric motorcycles. The whole idea is to drift further away from petrol-fed motorcycles as a result of using a dynamic look, which is incomparable to that of the, indeed, much cheaper and faster gas burners.
His project is called VertiGO and is anything but regular. There’s a space where the tank would normally be on a classic supersport motorcycle and the seat is suspended, allowing this electric bike to stand out as a unique alternative in a world of fairly similar two-wheelers.
Although not completely radical, the bike’s slightly futuristic and yet totally realizable design is allowed by the small battery packs and motors that can be placed very low in the chassis, achieving a favorable center of gravity as well as a feet-forward riding position.
While we’re aware of the fact that electric bikes are gaining more and more terrain on the market, the "bang for the buck" still makes the rules in this industry and that’s why we are not witnessing an amazing growth of the electric segment just yet.
The Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) is creating a new race series for electric motorcycles starting 2010. The news comes after the recent success of the world’s first zero-emissions motorcycle race at the Isle of Man and the two are seriously connected because the man behind this project, which will be part of the Road Racing Grand Prix Commission, is Azhar Hussain, organizer and founder of the TTXGP.
The MotoCzysz E1pc has been finalized, photographed and it is now ready for the TTXGP electric motorcycle race at Isle of Man. The pictures reveal the fact that only 6 of the 10 battery packs are exposed (3 on each side) and that the bike uses an iPhone for a dash.
The final step of the building process leaves us with an opened mouth and the Brammo TTR with shaking wheels. Also referred to as the D1gi1al Superbike, this is one electric bike that the world of racing has long expected, the journalists speculated about and which only needs to get on the track in order to prove that it means business. June 12th 2009 will be the day of truth!
The MotoCzysz E1pc has recently been spied during tests undergone at Portland International Raceway, USA. With zero emissions and achieving 120 mph in around seven seconds, the bike, which is powered by three electric motors and runs all of them in the following videos, will race in the world’s first emission-free road race, the TTXGP, which is scheduled to take place on June 12 at the Isle of Man.
Brammo has been recently testing their TTR prototype which will be raced at the 2009 all-electric Isle of Man TTXGP and took the opportunity to shoot two teasing videos which not only show that the bike can be fast and look aggressive (note that it doesn’t get the final touches yet), but sound unbelievable good too. We’re simply amazed by the two rather fast passes and the sound that they’re accompanied by!
Today, May 1st, at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, Europe’s Quantya Track all-electric dirt bike faces the Zero X, America’s top electric motorcycle in a showdown as never before. During the half time show of the AMA/Maxxis MiniMoto Supercross race, five bikes from each manufacturer will go head to head in quiet dirt-spreading action towards the finish line.
30 pounds lighter and 69 per cent more powerful, the Zero X starts as a favorite, but the Track is sure to give it a hard time which is precisely what the crowd has gathered for.
What we’re seeing here is a totally camouflaged Zero X motorcycle being ridden to hunting. The off-road model is brought back in the public eye after the launch of the Zero S, an electric urban commuter.
The reasons why the bike in this video is great for hunting and for nature lovers in general are more than obvious: it doesn’t pollute and doesn’t make any engine noise whatsoever so a skilled rider and hunter shouldn’t scare all the dears away.
Former pilot Michael Czysz, the inventor of the revolutionary MotoCzysz C1 prototype is now working at an entirely new motorcycle, this time electrically powered. Called MotoCzysz E1pc, the bike is an advanced project in work and will be present at the starting line of the TTXGP competition on 12 June this year.
The competition is exclusively addressed to alternative propulsion technologies and the current most important contender of the E1pc is the outstanding Mission One, but Michael Czysz claims that his bike will be clearly superior and, most importantly, significantly less expensive.
It is now official! The world witnessed the unveiling of Zero’s S model, the first ever road legal supermoto powered by a lithium-ion battery. Like all early technologies, the electric bike doesn’t dethrone any traditionally powered supermoto, but the 31 horsepower and 84.6 Nm powerplant performance figures aren’t to be ignored either. Considering the bike’s 102kg, the top speed is of 96.6 km/h. Ok, so it isn’t that impressive, but the bike is expected to sell in a great number.
Instead of fuel capacity and mpg, now we’re talking about charging time (which in this case if of four hours) and range (also, a decent 97 km). From the very first glance, the Zero S doesn’t look quite like any regular supermoto two-wheeler because of the battery replacing the noisy four-stroke motor. That’s also most likely the reason why this bike features a fairing, apart from the basic one that the bodywork was needed in order to call the thing attractive.
The bike has a price tag of $9,950 and will start being delivered next month. We’re just waiting to see the most ostentatious of you out there on the supermoto tracks. But until then, here’s Zero’s official video for this bike precisely on a supermoto track.
