No more oil changes!
Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 3:01 am
"All-electric motorcycles also have more torque than their gasoline-powered counterparts." They THEN go on to say the truth, that it's about torque from start-up.
"Most gasoline-powered motorcycles have never really gone very far on a tank of gas due to their limited tank sizes. Because of this electric motorcycles didn’t have to go very far to catch up. And caught up they have."
Who writes this crap? What an idiot.
I hope the bikes turn out to be an improvement in range from what's currently available. They talk a lot about weight and performance (with the performance part being nothing but speculation since there are zero specs), but range is what we're looking for in an electric bike - performance has already been achieved. The longest range Zero specs out at 98 mile range on the highway, and it weighs 458 lbs - 44 lbs of battery more than the same model with 81 mile highway range. So, if Yamaha can really provide comparable performance at 287 lbs, that certainly will be a tremendous improvement over the Zero. I've said here many times that the only thing standing in the way of great electric motorcycles is range, and I presumed we were one generation of new battery design from really getting there, but extreme weight saving could help that a lot too ,although it still doesn't solve the other problem of charge time vs. the few minutes of fill-up required for internal combustion. Hopefully they are also working on a modular battery design that is easily switched out - or some new magical near instant charging, but I think near instant charging is also a battery generation away.
Price will also be a very important factor, and the fact that this is being produced by a real live motorcycle company means that they will presumably be able to produce it significantly cheaper than a little boutique manufacturer like Zero.
We shall see, but I certainly hope (and expect) Yamaha will do a better job of designing this that this writer did of writing about it.
