General Category > Industry - Electric Powered Two Wheelers
An e-moto development shared project
jorgebarbosa:
Calling all electric motorcycle enthusiasts!
As someone rooted in the world of two-wheelers, I want to gauge your interest in a electric motorcycle shared/public project.
I see too many electric moto projects that vanish into the digital abyss, myself in my company we are currently trying to bring to production a new electric motorcycle but honestly is quite hard to convince new investors and arrive in production (and we did it two times in the last 5 years).
My goal is to shift our strategy. Through the community I’m willing to share info of many suppliers, frlm powertrain to chassis and so on. Also based on my recent scouting new suppliers for a previous project, I am prepared to share a substantial number of invoices and offers and many other technical data. The purpose is to assess whether there is genuine interest in developing a new vehicle, kind of open source and discuss the best methods.
Most potential buyers are aware that the primary obstacle in purchasing an (e-moto) is the price. Therefore, the central aim of this project is to create a straightforward yet efficient e-moto.
Let me share an example: In our recent project – the Arig - we collaborated with an Asian supplier to develop a 300V motor and controller, the motor delivers 25kW of rated power and 50kW of peak, combined with a torque of 300N.m.
When evaluating suppliers for a 15kW battery, we found both the specifications and costs to be highly favorable.
However, I’m keen to hear your thoughts. Within the community, we encounter various projects, some led by seasoned experts and others by individuals who are relatively new to the sector.
Please let me know if such project makes sense and your perspectives.
Fran K:
I get no hits when putting arig electric motorcycle in search
300V motor and controller, the motor delivers 25kW of rated power sounds good
a electric motorcycle shared/public project. sounds suspicious electric begins with a voul so use an?
15kW battery, sounds heavy but depending on the size and tires may be appropriate.
direct drive or reduction gear? Hopefully not hub motor.
Are you copy and pasting this elsewhere?
Fran
jorgebarbosa:
The Arig project is an internal project of Switch Motors, you can find it in the LinkedIn page https://www.linkedin.com/company/switchmotors or instagram https://www.instagram.com/switch_motors_official. Usually we work for another brands or start-ups.
Well, I can easily understand that it looks suspicions with all that is going on with start-ups in this sector.
There are no "pretensions" so far, the possibilities are few, from starting from scratch or using a existing chassis from other two wheelers. We also have accces to some chassis from other motorcycles, mostly ICE ones
Yes, a 15kW battery is quite big. For the Arig we chhose it because, after some studies, we thought was a good compromise in terms of range and fast charging with the relatively low cost cells.
Smaller battery for a similar range would need a higher spec cell (if we don't want to make the system voltage even higher, and consequently harder to develop a compact motor and vehicle homologation). So that was one of the main reasons for that size.
The Arig has a central mount motor w/ a reduction gear, same pivot axle of the swingarm so to use belt without tensioners and their risks.
No, this is the only post present on the web so far, (23.02.2024) written entirely by myself ( w/ all the advantages and disadvantages ). Frankly I was thinking on sharing in the twitter or other platforms too if i find the right group.
Thank you
Richard230:
The first electric motorcycle I ever owned was a 2009 Electric Motorsport GPR-S (listed in one of the brands in a dead sub-forum on this site). Electric Motorsport was an electrical component supplier based in Oakland, California that decided to market an electric motorcycle. They had a motorcycle company in Thailand, Tiger, modify one of their existing 250cc model chassis by replacing the ICE equipment with steel boxes sized to fit off-the-shelf Chinese Hi-Power lithium storage (one mistake) batteries. Then they contacted a local electronics guy who designed a hand-built BMS for them on an open circuit board (another mistake) and located an off-the-shelf battery charger that they installed in the bike (another mistake, mine burned up while I was charging my batteries after riding the bike only 300 miles). The commercial electric motor was picked up off of their own supply shelves. This was a small company with the bikes assembled in tiny garage by local temporary employees that were likely paid for each bike assembled. It was about as cheap an operation as could be developed at that time. They sold their motorcycles in 2009 and 2010 for $8,300 at independent electric mobility store outlets.
The bikes actually worked OK and I suspect that they made money for a while. However, their downfall (from my perspective) was the lack of any sort of supply and maintenance system. They were being sold like you would sell a watch, TV, or cell phone. When the bikes died, their mom and pop retail outlets were left holding the bag and soon became overwhelmed with vehicles that needed warranty repairs, and they just didn't have the time or resources to correct various random issues - leading to unhappy customers and declining sales as the word got around. Then new, better financed and more organized, players entered the field, like Zero and Brammo, who pretty much put an end to the sales of the Motorsport GPR-S bikes (the only model that they ever built in any sort of volume).
Eventually, the company gave up manufacturing DOT approved motorcycles and switched to build-it-yourself kits and selling various EV parts. Then they seemed to have disappeared when the do-it-yourself community vaporized, or just reverted to their core business of selling electrical parts.
As you know, there have been a number of decent electric motorcycles that were designed and hand-built, but almost all fail before going into mass production for a variety of reasons, that were always compounded by a lack of money and investors who wanted instant gratification and were not willing to wait until the market finally matured - privately-funded Zero being the only exception that I can think of.
If this plan of yours was developed 15 years ago, I would say that it had a hope of working out. But nowadays, with the EV industry getting a bad reputation from politicians, regulators, the public, insurance companies and especially investors, it will be a tough row to hoe to get your plan to work. And the current high interest rates are not helping either. :(
jorgebarbosa:
I understand quite well what you mean, I had a strong intuition that this speech was going to happen. I found it quite normal and with much sense.
I thank you for sharing your story but I didn't meant by any means start this kind of discussion with this post. I don't think the plan you mention is the same,a similar plan I've tried back in 2015 and it did not work for many reasons, the time was definitely one of them, it can be in our side or not. 15 years ago would be much much harder to work in my opinion.
I also understand that the politics are not the most positive (mostly US) in this time period but globally the green trend with all its extensions will win.
Of course my background and experience (eventually personality) is important when posting something like this. Believe me when i say i understand what you mean. A successful business in the electric two wheelers is not easy still.( if you want you can check the Gesits electric scooter, developed some years ago now which I've been the project manager for two years and still a successful business nowadays).
Also I notice, that many of this start-ups and newcomers are well intentioned, show much will the beginning but close to zero experience; some start just because they can ride the wave of the green tech funds and honestly, being a 20 years rider plus and working on this area for 9 years, that creates a a bit of frustration.
Lets say that I'm fully aware the difference of making a DIY project, a proto and a production vehicle.
The goal with this post, since the disbelief on new e-moto start-ups is quite high - and rightly so - was to understand if there is a real interest in the community of "electric riders" of making a new e-moto and how could we help each other. How many of us are and what compromise between the specs, design, quality, features and the related/corresponding price would MOST of the people would like to have. I can assure you I have quite some experience in the development of the vehicle until mass production.
Maybe in the end we can have a high numbers of trustful supporters, found a common ground for the final vehicle specs, and use that info and number of people to leverage new or old companies to deliver something like that, or even get the right conditions to manufacturer one independently (that many other do or try to do with none experience on the field)... OR maybe its Friday and I had too much pills ;D
I agree when you say that zero was basically the only one that succeeded (in the big motorcycle segment) but was also the only one that really had a solid business plan. I believe the Livewire will succeed too. Still, if you had the opportunity to speak with Zero, you will see that even them are attached to some technical solutions that it does not make sense anymore, and that can lead to a less smoother road. On the other hand, they took recent decision that seem much more logic, if they want the business to succeed, this all in my opinion of course.
Cheers,
J. Barbosa
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