Is energica really the leader in electric motorcycle sales? I couldnt find any stats but Ive definitely seen some zero bikes on the road and Ive never seen an energica in person
Enigica look to be following typical Italian exotica. It’s a premium/performance motorcycle with premium parts, breaks, suspension, handling etc.
Zero seem more middle of the road. Not designed to be exotica, not designed with premium breaks, suspension, not designed for all out performance/handling, it’s a general purpose motorcycle designed for urban environments.
I think Enigica and Zero are trying to target different segments and Enigica is targeting a segment above Zero. The sportier side.
They are going nowhere. Electric motorcycles are a terrible idea because they are not the problem as far as emission go.
Given the ratio between the weight of the motorcycle and the weight of the passenger/s they are extemely efficient, having the whole passenger vehicles switch to motorcycles would be even better than have them switch to 3000 pounds EVs.
The vast majority of people are too coward to drive them unfortunately
If you ignore emissions on the environmental pros/cons and if you believe them or not…
As a riding experience, electric power delivery, the instant torque and performance will make the riding experience more fun. As a pure riding experience electric is probably far better than combustion engines, and I love my ice powered bikes, the noise, the different engine characteristics, singles, boxers, il4, v4, vtwins etc as much as anyone else.
Practicality, range, weight is different and we’re probably a long time off comparable practicality of mid to large capacity size motorcycles.
> > people aren't only into EVs for the environmental aspects; they're unique and offer a unique experience.
Automotive is a 150yr old industry, you will not re-invent the wheel. Progress has plateued in the 1970-80s as far as fun goes.
When Americans come to Europe and try the Vespas and the Lambrettas , that's about the same fun upgrade as going from an ICE which does 0-60 in 8s to an EVs which does it in 4s, only the Vespa experience costs 20$ and the Vespa itself 1000$.
for some reason they come back home and completely forget about it and decide to fork 50,000$ for an EV instead
Motocross racing is probably going to see more electric because you really can't put that much power down into the dirt. And electric dirt bikes have much finer grain control of power delivery which makes them quite competitive against gas motorcycles.
And smaller electric dirt bikes can get away with going places where the noise of a gas engine would just draw too much ire. I've seen some Surron's going onto bike paths; they're not supposed to but if you're careful and courteous, I doubt anyone's gonna call the cops on you.
Surron was also doing demo's and training with their bike's indoors with the speed electronically limited to about 12kph (7mph). No tail pipe emissions, no noise, so no problems running them in a building. Folks that have never swung a leg over a motorcycle before could confidently mess around with one in about 20 minutes without having to think first about clutch or being scared of a whiskey throttle or stalling the bike.
And you gotta keep in mind, it's not the expensive high performance two wheelers that are where they're really thriving, it's the cheap personal commuter. Pedal ebikes and low speed electric mopeds are growing pretty damn quick.
Plus there is at least one intriguing idea in regards to security that gas bike's can't do. Having the electric motor apply reverse torque to the rear when someone tries to wheel the bike away without the key, effective turning the motor into a wheel lock for the rear when parked. I don't know how practical it really is but the ideal has some merit IMO.
Terrible idea?!? Have you ever ridden a motorcycle? Or an electric one?
I've been riding for ~40 years and I don't think I've _ever_ met someone who rode an ICE bike for the fuel/emissions efficiency. It's for the fun and adventure. My stock Energica does 0-60 in 2.8s. WAAAY more fun than my 30yo 1100cc.
I’ve had by motorcycle license years before I got a car certification. I started on a 180cc scooter. Sipped gas, easy to ride, was legal (barely) on the freeway. Free parking at the university and right in the middle too, instead of the hinterlands.
Was my 100% transportation, rain or shine. SoCal, so not much rain. But, yea it rained. I had an I’ll fitting, $25 open face white helmet from K-Mart, and wore a ski jacket, ski gloves, and ski goggles for gear (the yellow lenses worked really well at night to be honest).
You could catch me with my original Macintosh in those very cool carrying cases we had back then bungeed to the rear seat. I’ve had stacks of books explode off the back when one popped out like a drunk jenga player.
I can attest that my ad hoc gear performed adequately when things got horizontal.
When I got a new job requiring a 30 mile one way commute into the heart of West LA, I traded the scooter in for a 600cc street bike. $2000 with highway robbery financing interest rates. It never crossed my mind to buy a car.
I got free parking at the building (vs $60 per month), free use of car pool lanes and, the crème de la crème of California motorcycle riding, lane splitting. Lane splitting in the rain on slick Bots dots is unnerving. Lane splitting made that commute sane.
Did that for a couple of years, had a scary get off (slick right turn arrow at 2am, I simply shouldn’t have taken that route), and that made me sell the bike. I also sold the Macintosh for $750, and used the money to buy a new bike — the later to be cult favorite, Honda Hawk GT. Dealership had a fire sale on them one weekend, so I got a good deal. The Hawk was notoriously expensive in the day.
Selling the Mac for the bike is one of the best things I ever did. I was a computer geek sans computer for several years.
Oh, the Hawk charted at 38 horsepower. Less than my previous bike. Got it to 110 once at a “high desert test area”. Fast enough for me. I never bought a bike on performance numbers. They were all fast enough (save the scooter). But speed was never my thing.
That bike took me up and down California and around the southwest. Plus my even longer commute when I changed jobs again.
I did finally buy a truck. Test drove it with my M certified license. Didn’t get my actual car license until after I bought it. As many have with many things, I bought the truck because of a girl. And so it goes.
Maybe not the only reason, though that's certainly high on my list. I don't find much time to ride recreationally, so probably 98% of my rides are for my commute. My 50 mpg bike is much cheaper to ride than either of our cars. Plus HOV benefits.
I absolutely would factor fuel efficiency into my purchase decision, but it's also not the only reason. Because you're right, they are definitely fun :)
Should I be impressed? That's the same of a 1999 Yamaha R6 selling for less than 1000$ [0]
And the R6 can do it all day, you'll run out of tires before you run out of clutch and gas.
The Energica does it once and then it's panting and overheating.
And as always the point in motorsport is that every noob squid and every idiot is capable of going fast in a straight line, the light supersport bikes such as the Ducati and the Yamahas will smoke the Electric motorcycles in corners because the latter are heavy due to the batteries
The R6 is an inline 4, 15500rpm red line, 68nm of torque. Fun bike, on a track or doing illegal speeds on the road. Rest of the time, it has no power.
The Enigica has 215nm of torque, about twice the 2022 R1.
The R6, the power is all up top, it’s gutless down low, you have to be up near the top in the rev range for it to go, engine screaming away. You’d also need to be pretty skilled at launching to get that 2.8s acceleration from it.
The Enigica you get all the torque from the get go, so much they have to limit it at the start. You just twist and it pulls from the off, no flat spots, it just keeps on pulling. It’s the torque that gives you the buzz, trying to hang on.
They are very different power deliveries and the Enigica makes a far better road bike (power wise) with all the torque rather than a high reving 600 il4 that you need to be near red line to get the most out of it. Even a 1000cc il4 with more torque, they don’t really get going until above 6,000rpm then your license is gone as you click in to second gear when making the most of the power band.
The Yamaha MT-09’s/10’a are so popular as they have high torque down low where it’s most practical for everyday riding.
> > The R6, the power is all up top, it’s gutless down low, you have to be up near the top in the rev range for it to go, engine screaming away
With the introduction of ride by wire in the early 00s the electronics became king.
You can customize the throttle ride by wire system according to your preference so the torque area becomes much larger and spread out on the throttle when you move your wrist.
Once the problem of wrist sensitivity has been solved by ride by wire customization the high revs you mentioned are much more manageable.
And also you say engine screaming away like it’s a bad thing.
1) a 4 cylinder in line at 10000rpm is music for an enthusiast ears
2) It makes people aware that you are there , which is a feature not a bug, motorcycles are notoriously invisible for car and truck drivers
Sorry this is off topic but I'm trying to talk to you about Macrosolver because I created something similar. Can you email me at the email in my profile.
> > electric motorcycles are amazingly fun to ride
Every motorcycle is fun to ride, and the acceleration part, Yamaha clocked the 0-60 in 3s bit back in 1999[0] , we are really splitting hairs to somehow elevate the concept of electrification like it's some sort of re-inventing the wheel for the fun of the consumer and not for political goals, I have come to believe that it's a form of brainwashing
That is unless the concept of 'electrification' is used to mask the inability to use a manual gearbox as it pertains to motorcycles.
Following your thought process, even better is everyone on bikes. That’s what is happening slowly in many developed cities.
Everyone on a motorcycle (mostly scooters) is what you have in southeast Asia. And true, it allows much higher densities than US highways packed with cars, but the price is reduced confort and security… Hard to make people accept that nowadays.
To give a contrarian view, I would happily become an electric bike customer. I think it is a great idea to apply electric motors to motorcycles :
- Torque is usable at low speeds. To have the same experience in a ICE bike require a huge and comparably heavy motor, like the triumph speed triple or a Harley-Davidson.
- Range is still a bit low but not far from the 250km/150miles an ICE bike can have. By the way, most bikers I know, myself included, have to stop before reaching such distances. Confort makes it hard to do more.
- Speaking of confort, less noise and vibrations is a huge plus
Price is still high bit it will reduce. We also can hope for range increases too [1].
My main concern currently is charging time, even with fast charging, 40min is still a bit too much for me, and I hope that progress will be made in this area (with 800v architecture maybe?)
Around here there's been semi-historically a bike culture in my city (certainly not at Amsterdam scale but one of the most bike friendly city in France). I see an increasing number of people with ev bikes, and in turn an increasing proportion of that are ev bikes that borderline being 70cc equivalent, maybe even 125cc, both in power, style, and usage (as in there are pedals but the drivers don't pedal). Except for the speed cap they're essentially more like small ev motorbikes (masquerading as ev bikes because regulations) than big ev bikes.
Motorcycles are the best vehicles as far as acceleration and weight/power ratio is concerned, they fare even better in the price/quickness and price/fun ratio.
A 45,000$ Kawasaki H2R has won a drag race against a RedBull F1 car, an F16, a Gulfstream G600 a Bugatti, a TeslaP100..[0]
By orders of magnitude the Kawasaki was the cheapest vehicle in that race and smoked them all..but that bike can only be driven to the limit by the 1% of riders, the ones with the best skills and massive balls.
What's the point of an EV motorbike? 0-60mph in 2.2s is not enough? Want 1.5s? Cool but what's the point of numbers for numbers sake if people aren't ever pushing it to the limit?
Also what's the point when you can only do it once before it overheats?
I'm not sure what any of that has to do with why people enjoy electric motorcycles. You seem focused on a motorcycle's racing ability as a measure of its usefulness or enjoyment.
