ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Grauteufel on February 20, 2024, 09:49:09 AM
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Sales figures seem to back up my thoughts that the small bike market is where manufacturers will be successful, with bigger electric bikes just 58 sales out of the 120,000 odd total. Ouch.
https://www.visordown.com/features/general/opinion-are-electric-motorbikes-trouble%C2%A0 (https://www.visordown.com/features/general/opinion-are-electric-motorbikes-trouble%C2%A0)
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That's kind of a mindset thing too.
Small bikes are cheap, affordable, and tons of chineesium garbage available for sale anywhere from costco to name brand shops.
These have a huge appeal to kids, and folks just getting started out, needing cheap transport and can't afford a real 'vehicle' to put it.
The mindset over there tends to be more dainty as well. You like smaller compact things. Americans love their pickup trucks and bigger vehicles to get around, so those little bikes, while they may have their appeal as well to our young libbies being brainwashed in our so called institutions of marxist education. the rest of society will tend to clamor for something more like a real bike. Like an energica, or Zero for example.
TBH I have not really seen any Energica marketing here in the US yet they ARE for sale here, so I am sure that is not helping them at all sell the bikes here!
While smaller bikes will do very well over the pond, in the USA, I can see the bigger ones having much more appeal, so can't say that the big ones are in real trouble, it's just a location thing for the time being.
The economy is in the crapper too thanks to the commies trying to ruin the country so that absolutely is hurting the market big time as well. When people can't afford even basic food to feed the family, they sure as hell can't afford a 'toy'. Give it a few years and I bet they pick up a lot.
Another problem, albeit temporary I see is, smaller toys and scooters, you can wheelie up your stairs and plug into the wall socket to recharge, they are very convenient in that aspect. Bigger bikes, not so much. Smaller bikes are generally a putter around town thing, bigger bikes, bigger trips. With the charging networks and their issues, THAT also is a huge determent to getting any E vehicle since there is not a lot of places to charge on the road yet and the ones that are, are riddled with problems and issues. Range anxiety is a thing, and the further a vehicle claims to be able to go, the worse that anxiety will be.
In the US, Tesla opening up his network to non T users I think will be a major step in the right direction for sales, but time will tell.
Aaron
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That's not a surprise at all when you look at the difference in pricing. Even the non-R Zeros fall into that 125 equivalent or smaller category so the cheapest "big" electric bike is probably going to be one of their R models, so you're looking at like £16k and up. The "smaller" Zeros are also some of the most expensive 125 equivalents but even those were about £12k, but all the rest like the Super Socos, Nuis, Surrons, Maevings, etc. are like £6k and below. For a commuter for getting around the towns and cities they're very adequate and that's not a ridiculous price to pay. Then you also have the licencing structure over here, anyone who has a car licence from before about 2001 can just hop on one of those 125 equivalents and everyone else just needs to do a 8 hour course for about £160, for a bigger bike they're looking at a 3-5 day course costing £700-1000 and it's more demanding of riding skill.
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Price certainly has a big impact of ebike sales. In the U.S. decent electric bicycles can be bought from Amazon and other sources for anywhere between $500 and $3000. In the San Francisco Bay Area, cities are going nuts over the proliferation of cheap electric bicycles being ridden by children as young as 6 years old and up. By the time they get to be teenagers, they are zipping around town at 35 mph, riding through stop signs and traffic lights and doing the usual things that kids do. You have to admit that riding an electric bicycle sure beats pedaling one.
Various governments are proposing that the bikes be licensed is some way and young people also be licensed to ride them. Good luck with that. As usual the horse has already left the barn and there are hundreds of ebikes running around here and who is going to enforce the law? Certainly not the parents who are buying these bikes and not the cops, either. They already can't keep up with local crime and vehicle traffic violations. There is no way they would be willing to chase after kids speeding on streets, bike paths, dirt trails, parks and school properties.
BTW, I bought an electric bicycle earlier this year that can travel 100 miles on electric power only and up to 200 miles with pedal assist. The price of the bike was only $1500, with free shipping and I was not charged state or local sales taxes ??? . Needless to say it was made in China, but then at that price who cares? BTW, the capacity of the 48V battery is almost 3Kwh, but the bike is sure heavy at 130 pounds. So the pedals are pretty much there for looks. It is really convenient for getting around town and being able to park just about anywhere in a crowded car park or at the beach where vehicles parked there are charged a fee. Top speed is 28 mph, but you can buy other ebikes that are faster, they just won't go as far.
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Well things like that are already illegal to be ridden on the roads in the UK (along with the rest of Europe) and certainly aren't counted as actual motorcycles or included in the numbers in the Visordown article.
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San Francisco is worried about people charging all types lithium batteries indoors and is establishing rules to deal with this perceived fire hazard. But how they are going to enforce the rules are beyond me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S5vdhqYdZA
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So, I can charge a cheap ass chineesium vape pen that can blow up just as easily and have several times already, but can't charge my bike?
What about just about every other product that is electric, that has some sort of lithium battery in it.
Whether it be a 4KW bike sitting in your garage, or a 10 watt electric razor or toothbrush that catches fire on your bathroom sink or towel drawer, once that battery catches fire, you are in trouble.
The police can very well enforce laws on bikes. In the US, if you are on a bike after I think age 12, please don't quote me, you are supposed to ride on the street, NOT the sidewalks, AND obey traffic laws as much as possible, (meaning no they don't expect a sophomore on a 10 speed to do 35 mph, but he better stop at stop signs, obey traffic lights, ride in the proper lane, the right of way etc etc).
Sadly this presents issues for people in cars, another major hazard on the roads, and of course kids being kids, and not obeying the laws, possibly running over people, running into traffic and learning first hand, the law of gross tonnage.
One thing I CAN possibly see them doing is some sort of helmet or eyeglass law. EZ Go's over 20 mph have to have seat belts, because of the speed / potential for injury etc, so I can see them lumping bikes in to the class of 'motorized vehicles' claiming it's for safety reasons, but I can see them doing it for the tax reasons too. Let's register them, so the DMV can collect more tax dollars. Next is licensing etc etc.
When I was a younger shit, I could easily do 30 mph or more on my 10 speed just pedaling, and in fact DID get a speeding ticket or two on a bicycle in my days :P Bragging rights that was !! As a young muscular teen, It never really did dawn on me, what happens when you run into something at 30+ MPH Aaron? What happens when you hit a rock at 30 MPH or a huge pothole and come off that 10 speed and face meets pavement Aaron??? Now that those speeds can be reached w/o having to actually put some work into it? yah, this could become an issue.
Aaron
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Fundamentally the price of Zeros, Livewires, and Energicas, is all almost exactly twice what they are actually worth when compared to just about anything else you get for the same money over here.
You can look at the limited range as being traded off against the nutso acceleration, and you can look at the relatively heavy weight as being traded off against the convenience of not wanking around with clutches and gears, and you can look at the lengthy charging and trade it off with the fact that for the vast majority of the time you're charging it at home round the back and it's always full.
But you can't ignore that you can buy better bikes, that are just better as motorbikes, for half the price. This is reflected in the savage depreciation. And in fact you can very nearly buy an electric car for the same money now. Seriously... the prices are a joke. I only bought one because I was (at the time) unnecessarily rich, bored, and curious, knowing full well it was going to cost me a pointless fortune, and behold, it has.
I've recently just run the figures through my spreadsheet of the costs of things, and the SR/F, should I manage to keep it another 2 years and 10,000 miles on top of the 3 years and 15,000 I've already done, will have cost me a grand total of £20,700 to own and run, or about 82.8p per mile. That is, franky, fucking terrible value for money. Running the figures on my Ioniq 5 (which will do double the mileage), I get 80.6p per mile. Yes, actually cheaper.
So the message for manufacturers is ... get those prices down by 50%, or you'll just lose. (Halving the cost of the SRF gives me a figure of 54.8p/mile).
FWIW when I sell the Zero, it's pretty unlikely I'll be getting another one. It simply costs too much.
Cas :)
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I think when I got my DS 4 or so years ago a new one was about £12k, I saved about 4 grand going ex demo. Now a new FXE is the same price with slower charging, no storage, and no opportunity for faster charging with a charge tank. I can't believe that after 5/6 years of selling pretty much the exact same bike (it's just different bodywork and a pointless TFT dash over an FXS) it's not possible for them to bring the price down under £10k at least. Instead they're just bringing out new more expensive models and discontinuing the cheaper S and DS.
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As my 2018 Zero depreciates in value from its original $18K (to who knows what?) I notice that my third-party liability-only insurance premium keeps increasing every year. During the past 8 years the cost to insure the Zero has doubled to $150 a year, much more than my other motorcycles. Before I sold it earlier this year, my 2011 Royal Enfield was only costing me $28 a year to insure, while my much faster and sportier 2016 BMW R100RS's, before I sold it around the same time, was $120.
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My SRF insurance is like £380, with 10000 years no claims bonus, clean license, 50 year old living rurally... again, joke prices.
Cas :)
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I assume that insurance companies are all worried about EV battery fires when charging and if they get in an accident. EV's are apparently like rolling bombs as far as insurance companies are concerned. Remember, perception of danger is much more important than reality.
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....not wanking around with clutches and gears....
Love it, going to have to steal that line sometime
I've recently just run the figures through my spreadsheet of the costs of things, and the SR/F, should I manage to keep it another 2 years and 10,000 miles on top of the 3 years and 15,000 I've already done, will have cost me a grand total of £20,700 to own and run, or about 82.8p per mile. That is, franky, fucking terrible value for money. Running the figures on my Ioniq 5 (which will do double the mileage), I get 80.6p per mile. Yes, actually cheaper.
This is so true. For example, the SS9 fully kitted is about $52k here, im told there is $25k worth of batteries there, which may be true. Compared to other italian bikes of 80ishkw they are not specced as if they are a $27k bike, the most comparable is the Ducati monster, which is less than $20k (including an engine).
Then again, a large bike NEVER makes sense financially, a small car will always be cheaper.
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Agreed on pricing, even on the used market. When I finally gave up and realized that I couldn't make my SS9 13.4 practical for regional trips, I paid $5k for a 2007 FJR1300AE that's basically the gas version of the SS9 with a highway range of 250 miles and I still don't have to mess around with a clutch. The insurance is half, the registration is much cheaper, maintenance is similar, and my monthly spending on fuel is still low overall. As much as I would like to go back to an e-moto someday, there's no electric at any price that doesn't represent a significant downgrade in at least one important area. I expect things to be different over the coming decade, but right now even the Experia would need a little more highway range for me to consider giving up the FJR, and that's a money-no-object comparison between a $5k and $25k bike.
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I assume that insurance companies are all worried about EV battery fires when charging and if they get in an accident. EV's are apparently like rolling bombs as far as insurance companies are concerned. Remember, perception of danger is much more important than reality.
Insurance companies don't work on perception, they work on hard numbers. EVs catch fire at a vastly lower rate than ICE, but since they are self-oxidizing they can go longer and do more damage per fire. Also EVs can catch fire while charging, which is often inside the house, and ICE fires are vastly more common while being driven, and not in your house.
NYC has seen a huge number of life-threatening apartment fires from ebike charging. The numbers prove that the fear is real.
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It's not fire that is putting premiums up, it is battery damage. When an EV takes a prang, if there's any damage whatsoever to the battery pack, the entire unit is written off. This has caused repair costs of EVs to be considerably higher than ICE vehicles, and so everyone's EV insurance has rocketed in the last 12 months.
Much of this is the fault of the manufacturers who aren't doing quite enough to mitigate this sort of damage...
Cas :)
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and so everyone's EV insurance has rocketed in the last 12 months.
Um no, no it has not.
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He's talking about the UK, you're American. I suppose it's understandable you'd get confused with how quickly this thread has gotten off topic.
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What, equating a vape pen fire with an EV is totally on topic and not confusing!! ::)
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Yeah not sure where the vape pen fire bit came from there :) But yes, here in the UK, damage repairs are what have caused our EV premiums to almost double in the last 12 months, totally wiping out any savings in fuel pricing and zero road tax...
Cas :)
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The commonality is the lithium batteries.
Id not rely on the road tax bonus for long, especially as E cars are becoming more and more common. I think they are going to probably start taxing you per mile / km when you renew your tags for the year, that way they get their money out of the E crowd, at least that'd be the easiest and most forward way of taxing folks.
Aaron
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Its not just the UK, its the same here in Aus. I've read that EVs are just more likely to be written off for any chassis damage as the battery is often a chassis member. Take the hyundai kona (only one i know as pure EV and pure ICE), on same spec level the insurance on the ICE is $1500ish per year, the EV is $2200ish. This is more than the 39% purchase price difference.
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From April 2025 we'll be paying the lowest level of "road tax" of £22 per year. Not a huge amount but yet another thing to discourage them. I don't remember when they got rid of the EV grant but I imagine that also had a big effect, that was up to a £2k saving I think in the beginning. They say now that the tax money will go towards improving the charging infrastructure, as always it's hard to trust the government but they have to do something if they're going to succeed with banning ICE vehicles.
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Yep, the grant vanished last year and sales instantly plummeted off a cliff.
I still don't know why they don't just tax tyres. The one thing every vehicle needs, wears out according to how much you drive, and nobody needs to spy on where you go or how often. And if that makes tightarses buy longer lasting tyres, that's all well and good, because they're a major source of environmental pollution at every step of their production and consumption.
Cas :)
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Tires vary in price greatly, and also disproportionately to wear, quite often. Our BMW had crazy expensive tires, but gave maybe 18k miles at best. Our Smart car has the cheapest damn tires and they look like they will go 60k. There's also the matter of replacing them if they get damaged, and now you're double-taxed. Oh, and the Smart, being low-mile, got new tires before being worn out because they were simply old. In my area, old tires do not do well because of heat. So again, double taxed for no miles.
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Tires vary in price greatly, and also disproportionately to wear, quite often. Our BMW had crazy expensive tires, but gave maybe 18k miles at best. Our Smart car has the cheapest damn tires and they look like they will go 60k. There's also the matter of replacing them if they get damaged, and now you're double-taxed. Oh, and the Smart, being low-mile, got new tires before being worn out because they were simply old. In my area, old tires do not do well because of heat. So again, double taxed for no miles.
So a tire tax is also progressive by nature? What's not to like?
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The bit where they go round and round and wear out is only one aspect of tyre tax. The production and disposal of tyres is a massive problem, so at least a generous proportion of any tyre tax should be set aside to deal with it. One bike tyre only lasts 1/5th the duration of a car tyre but takes almost exactly the same amount of resources to create and dispose of and leaves exactly the same amount of particulate pollution kicking around in the environment.
Looking back at my history of tyre usage I'd say that complaining about double taxation after a puncture or because you bought sports tyres is just whatabouttery. It's a simple solution, and by and large, it will cost everyone about the same, and everyone fairly according to use in the grand scheme of things. HGVs will pay a kings ransom as before, motorcycles will pay a fraction, and cars in between, and nobody needs to know what road you were driving on and when, and nobody needs to whine about EVs not having to pay tax for fuel.
Cas :)
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Not sure about the UK but here (in California) the disposal cost is paid up front as a line-item fee when you buy the tire. That's not really a tax, more of an effective cost internalization, but I can see how the more conspiracy-curious among road users would still take it as an opportunity to politicize.
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In the US we are already taxed for disposal. Pretty sure it's per tire, as it should be, not miles. It's not exactly proportional because a motorcycle tire takes far less resources both to start and end life, than say a large pickup tire, but it's not totally crazy. Actually the Smart's tires might take less resources than my motorcycle's rear tire.
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A wise exciseman would base taxation on weight, which leaves very little room for argument.
Cas :)
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A wise exciseman would base taxation on weight, which leaves very little room for argument.
Cas :)
I completely disagree on both points, it's the easiest to argue against.
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Out of curiosity is the argument against taxation based on mass/weight? Or have I missed something here :-[
My thoughts are that mass would be a pretty good one to base taxation on (currently here we have fuel tax and registration based on number of cylinders). Vehicles taxes are nominally for maintenance of the road network, with vehicle mass being the greatest wear factor on roads. Seems pretty fair too, larger vehicles are heavier, more powerful vehicles are heavier. These are the more expensive vehicle and the operators thereof most able to bear the taxation burden. Note I am only talking about private vehicles, commercial vehicle registration and costs are a whole other conversation.
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I have a very heavy vehicle from 1982 which has a total of 75k miles on it. It should have been taxed by weight for that time? I've driven 3/4 million miles on other vehicles since then.
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Ah, I understand, and you make a very good point.
Mass and mileage is the solution, the ultimate road burdens. That would be fair on you, your heavy vehicle does more damage in the trips it makes and should get taxed more per distance, but your other vehicles which spend vastly more time on the roads will end up paying more (but at a lower rate)
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Just automatically saying, heavier vehicles do more damage, is one dimensional thinking at best. The damage is done by the load transferring onto the road, essentially in lbs per square inch / foot of contact area if you must. A heavier vehicle has a bigger tire with more square inches in contact with the road than a small vehicle may, so it could work out evenly or even less wear from the bigger vehicle because the weight is distributed more evenly thus less impact on the road at contact point. An 18 wheeler carrying a light load, could put a lot less weight per tire on the road than your pickup especially if it's an EV. yet by your taxation methods would be taxed an insane amount of money. But hey, what's not to love about inventing new ways to take the working class' hard earned money for our saving mother earth causes? ::)
Maybe I should just get one of those steel discs that farmers use to plow their fields with as a tire. Won't have to worry about any pollution then since the steel is entirely recyclable and lasts a super long time.
Aaron
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You misunderstood... I meant the mass of the tyre.
But yes, vehicle weight is also significant. Actual road wear I believe increases with the square of the weight. Motorcycles do next to no damage to road surfaces, compared to a HGV which will wear a road surface equivalently to driving 1000 motorcycles over the same patch.
Cas :)
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Easily demonstrated by watching different vehicles drive on grass and mud. I can ride my motorcycle across a field and do little more damage than a bicycle, a car not so much. If they were going to do vehicle weight then the simple thing to do would be to factor in how many tyres there are, so cars would effectively be halved in weight relative to bikes, trucks running dualies would be 66% that of cars, lorries even less. Bikes would still benefit, as they should, because they weigh much less than half what cars do and HGVs would get a bit of a break.
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LOL. Comparing grass and pavement is even crazier than the vape pen comparison. Hilarious.
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I agree that comparing proper electric motorcycles to vapes and low quality ebikes is stupid, I don't see how the dirt analogy is. You can't directly see the effect vehicles have on roads but they do have one over time. Dirt is softer so that effect is seen over a shorter period.
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But yes, vehicle weight is also significant. Actual road wear I believe increases with the square of the weight. Motorcycles do next to no damage to road surfaces, compared to a HGV which will wear a road surface equivalently to driving 1000 motorcycles over the same patch.
With roads the wear from a typical passenger vehicle is so negligible it isn't even factored in wearing course design for most roads.
The difference is even more insane then we intuitively think, relative damage is to the fourth power, an HGV does about 180 million times the damage of a motorcycle...... hmmm maybe there's an argument for free motorcycle rego here.
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ISTR the figures I last saw were if a motorcycle caused 1 unit of "damage", then a car was about 10x that and an HGV about 1000x. EVs are ironically causing considerably more damage as they on average weight twice as much as ICE cars.
Back to tax though: tyre tax solves most issues around fair vehicle taxation in lieu of fuel taxation in the simplest possible manner. It literally works in exactly the same way as fuel taxation, except it the tax is raised a bit earlier.
Cas :)
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One thing that politicians don't concern themselves when thinking about road (or any other) taxes (for that matter) are facts and statistics. Taxes tend to be mostly political and politicians don't mind sticking it to people who they believe will not vote for them or contribute to their next election campaign. And they don't want to make most voters mad at them if they can avoid it. It is a balancing act for politicians, one where motorcycles owners have absolutely no impact on their tax calculations, since they are such a minority - with electric motorcycle owners being in the smallest minority. ::)
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But the whole electric vehicle population is growing. Which means the road tax baked into gas prices revenue is decreasing. Sooner or later some icehole is going to convince their politician that it is not fair that they pay road taxes and the evil electrics do not, and a new opportunity to steal peoples money will be realized, a new tax will be passed and life goes on. The politician gets re elected then the people who cried about the 'unfairness' realize that the new tax fucks them even harder than the old ones did... and life goes on.
Aaron
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I agree that comparing proper electric motorcycles to vapes and low quality ebikes is stupid, I.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/deadly-florida-house-fire-caused-exploding-vape-pen-firefighters-say-n872056
because only lithium batteries exploding in charging cars kill people, so we MUST outlaw them ASAP. Vape pens are so small, too cheap, their fires can't kill anyone. Their lithium is safe right?
besides, a quality car or bike would NEVER catch on fire while charging in someone's house
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lithium-ion-battery-fires-electric-cars-bikes-scooters-firefighters/
Aaron
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I go away to Sweden for a week and *this* is what I come back to ...
It's important to realise that UK large electric motorcycle sales for 2023 is that came in at about half the sales of 2022 (which was a bumper year) and the volumes tend to be sufficiently low that the sales that month are dominated by whichever company dropped a shipment of bikes. 2023 was a hard year for anything premium as UK households are in a huge financial squeeze, it remains to be seen whether that will continue for 2024 but January was a pretty good month with the >35kW category registering the same number of bikes as 2022.