After being rebranded as “Curtiss Motorcycle Co.,” the firm went head-on with making full-blown exquisite electric-powered motorcycles. They showcased the "Zeus" concept a couple of years back, and most recently, the “Hades” concept came out with an unusual and wild, phallic induced design form.

Honestly, this created hilarious responses within the industry scribes and the readers, taking us back to the grade school jokes and pranks. Fortunately, Curtiss has responded with subtle tweaks to give it a little modesty just before the Spring 2020 production slot. Phew!

The Powertrain was the talk of the town when the Hades made its first appearance back in July 19’. The whopping 16.8 kWh battery pack, proprietary of Curtiss’s own flock, was in a bullet-shaped encasing, cantilevered under the frame. Although engineered with specs to make it into every motorcyclist’s wet dreams, the design team unintentionally gave it a literal meaning with a resemblance to the male anatomy.

Arguably though, for all future Curtiss products, including the Zeus and the Hades, the makers have redefined the package and layout, taking the designs far away from a traditional motorcycle. The new electric components are arranged to be advantageous over ICE components in terms of weight distribution and rider ergonomics. ” Curtiss design DNA is organic, pure, and simple minimalism."

But what the design team at Curtiss forgot was that every biker is a silly kid on the inside. A bunch of brats who cannot be stopped from unseeing a few phallic silhouettes. (Had a few laughs at the office ourselves that day. Forgive us, but there’s no running away from it now.)

Luckily, the honchos at Curtiss got back to the drawing board and gave the construction a few engineering and design tweaks. They provided a second mounting point to the battery and added a few jewels around the base to distinct it away from looking obvious. The rear Race Tech monoshock springs linkage has been placed directly above the battery, thereby minimizing the negative space from the original design.

However, the same signature girder suspension up front, along with the aircraft-grade billet aluminum monocoque construction, remains to distinguish this motorcycle from anything seen or produced. The rake angle pronounced by the front gives two variants of the Hades: short-wheelbase (62”) and long-wheelbase (64”).

The frame is bolted with titanium fasteners rather than welded, giving it an industrial cynosure. The carbon-fiber BST wheels come wrapped with Dunlop rubber. Beringer 230 mm discs with four-pot, radial-mount calipers at the front, and a single, 240 mm disc with a dual-pot caliper at the rear take care of braking duties. The Hades also gets equipped with a digital dash unit and LED lighting throughout, including an SW Speaker headlight upfront.

The motor is sourced from its technological partner, Zero Motorcycles->ke3362, and includes a massive 162 kW (217 hp) motor. It is capable of belting out a whopping 147 lb-ft of peak torque and is coaxially mounted with the rear carbon-fiber swingarm. The 16.8 kWh battery pack dwarfs both the Zero’s SR/F (14.4 kWh) and Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire (15.5 kWh) battery packs.

With all this going on for Hades, it will come with a price tag of $60,000 and requires a $1,500 deposit to pre-order. To garnish your Hades with more goodies, get your checks out before February 20th, and you’ll get a $3,000 carbon fiber suspension upgrade for free. Fancy!.

Production of the Hades will likely begin in early Spring 2020, as the company is crowdfunding its way as we speak. And Curtiss is parallelly developing products for all pocket sizes, which will have a great selection of genres, forms, power, and range that will satisfy the needs of every rider out there.