ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Richard230 on March 23, 2024, 07:40:01 PM
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I just finished listening to a 30-minute radio interview on my local SF Bay Area radio station regarding the future of electric vehicles in California. Not once were motorcycles mentioned. Which reminded me that I have been following the electric motorcycle industry since 2007 and in all of that time I have never heard electric motorcycles mentioned even once on a public radio of TV broadcast station. Even politicians, who sometimes like to complain about ICE motorcycle noise, never suggest that buying an electric motorcycle would solve that issue for your neighborhood. I also can't recall ever seeing an ad in a magazine or on the internet, unless it was a motorcycle-specific venue or program.
It makes me wonder how the electric motorcycle industry is ever going to expand to a point where it becomes popular with the public if no one outside the industry ever hears about the advantages of riding and owning an electric motorcycle, even if it is just for commuting?
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But do you see gas bikes being mentioned? I'm always seeing advertisements and news for both gas and electric cars, I don't remember the last time I saw anything to do with gas bikes that wasn't from something with a focus on bikes (website, magazine, etc.).
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I just finished listening to a 30-minute radio interview on my local SF Bay Area radio station regarding the future of electric vehicles in California. Not once were motorcycles mentioned. Which reminded me that I have been following the electric motorcycle industry since 2007 and in all of that time I have never heard electric motorcycles mentioned even once on a public radio of TV broadcast station. Even politicians, who sometimes like to complain about ICE motorcycle noise, never suggest that buying an electric motorcycle would solve that issue for your neighborhood. I also can't recall ever seeing an ad in a magazine or on the internet, unless it was a motorcycle-specific venue or program.
It makes me wonder how the electric motorcycle industry is ever going to expand to a point where it becomes popular with the public if no one outside the industry ever hears about the advantages of riding and owning an electric motorcycle, even if it is just for commuting?
When electric motorcycles are mentioned to ICE rider in reviews where comments can be left, we usually then read about how stupid electric motorcycles are, with their limited range, long charge times and such.
Perhaps it is best for them to not mention electric motorcycles. Those who are interested will know they exist anyway.
-Don- Reno, NV
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You know what one of the most common comments I get is?
"I didn't know they made those"
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It’s true that most people still don’t know about EM’s, but I started hearing about Zero in the early 2010’s before I had any interest in powered two-wheelers of any kind, and if it weren’t for electrics, I never would have been interested in motorcycles at all.
I think EM’s will become like gas scooters in North America, most people are dimly aware of them but never really think about them until they know someone who has one. Then it kind of smacks a few of them in the face that it’s stupid to drive around in 2 tons of metal just to get a gallon of milk, and they could be saving money and having a lot more fun.
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Alas the "saving money" part is pure fiction at this point (and has been even with ICE bikes for many years now).
Cas :)
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You know what one of the most common comments I get is?
"I didn't know they made those"
"Is that electric?" Is another common one. Once while I was coming back to my parked Zero a guy asked me how many CCs my bike is. I said "exactly 0.00 CCs". Then I told him it was electric. Many people still have not seen electric motorcycles.
-Don- Reno, NV
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This is hardly surprising of course, as they are exactly twice as expensive as they should be, so nobody buys them. All that muttering and grumbling about range and charging time is a red herring. It's all about the price.
Cas :)
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One other thing that I thought of last night is that none of the motorcycle brand forums that I frequent are supported by ads on the forum. Not even BMW will post an ad on any of the many BMW enthusiast motorcycle forums that I have visited to help support it, much less any EM brand. You would think that a little advertising revenue from the major EM brands would help to keep the forums afloat. But that does not seem to be the case. ???
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One other thing that I thought of last night is that none of the motorcycle brand forums that I frequent are supported by ads on the forum. Not even BMW will post an ad on any of the many BMW enthusiast motorcycle forums that I have visited to help support it, much less any EM brand. You would think that a little advertising revenue from the major EM brands would help to keep the forums afloat. But that does not seem to be the case. ???
Just a tidbit of information for you. BMW owned the Husqvarna motorcycle brand for a while and in that time era they bought the internet forum huskytalk. It was pretty deserted at that point as the traffic had mostly moved on to cafehusky. It was much more street bike oriented than before they bought it. I am not sure what will happen if I go to huskytalk now.
Edit: I just went there and guess who was the last poster? at least on the page that showed up. Kind of confusing 190 or so folks on there no actual members and 2022 seems last posting. I can't find where I stored my user name and password.
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BMW advertising on a BMW forum seems a little redundant, and other brands taking out adverts on that forum would perhaps not be the best idea. Anyone on a beemer forum already has a bike, knows all about their other models, and keeps up to date on actually news sites. What I would expect to see and would be a good idea is parts manufacturers taking out adverts.
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Alas the "saving money" part is pure fiction at this point (and has been even with ICE bikes for many years now).
Cas :)
I was talking about small-displacement gas scooters in that post, but I would argue that most motorcycles (gas or electric) are cheaper to own than most cars over a 10 year period, even if the purchase price is higher. My FJR’s main expense is tires, everything else is dirt cheap. When I owned a car, it cost me almost $600 per month when you added everything up and it was a Honda Fit, about the most economical car you can own. Might be different in the UK, but in California there’s no comparison. If you’re on 2 wheels and not 4, you’re saving a lot of money.
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Unfortunately I've run the numbers through my spreadsheet of doom, and motorcycles do not come out of it well. It seems the price of travelling a mile roughly all ends up levelling off to the most that the entire transport industry reckons it can get away with and not lose business (including train travel for example here in the UK - which is no cheaper than any other form of transport).
Some numbers (cost-per-mile, pence):
| Zero SR/F | 0.83 |
| CB500F | 0.35 |
| Ioniq 5 | 0.81 |
| RAV4 Hybrid | 0.64 |
| MG Z | 0.65 |
| KTM 1290 SuperDuke | 0.80 |
| BMW 1300GS | 0.67 |
The only one that's radically cheaper as a way to get around is the CB500F. More shocking is that the SR/F costs more per mile to run than the Ioniq 5 and KTM 1290.
Figures based on 5 years ownership, 10k miles a year in the cards, 5k miles a year on the bikes, 50 year old with 10+ years NCD and clean licence living in a rural area in South West England.
It should probably noted the lion's share of the cost-per-mile is depreciation...
Cas :)
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I’m not surprised that the bikes don’t look good in your comparison since the cars are able to spread the fixed costs across twice as many miles per year. If you set them equal, it might be more favorable to the bikes. The most economical car I’ve ever owned was a 2015 Honda Fit, and the FJR is about $50/month cheaper including the cost of riding gear, tire changes, etc.
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Well therein lies the problem ... the majority of people I think already have a car, and will therefore only do a smaller proportion of their annual mileage on the bike. 10k miles a year in a car is normal in the UK, and 5k miles on the bike is actually slightly above average... and unfortunately with those figures, bikes work out pretty much as expensive as cars. This sort of blows the "cheaper to get around on" message out of the water and then you've lost a large part of the interesting newsworthy angle of motorcycles as useful or practical means of transport for a lot of people. The market has created these conditions by more or less making motorcycles too expensive in various ways, relegating them to toys.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Dacia Spring (https://www.dacia.co.uk/hybrid-and-electric-range/spring-city-car.html). Granted it's a bit of a crap car, but it costs less than a Zero SR, and its battery is nearly twice the size. Now that's newsworthy. If they can make an entire car with a much bigger battery cheaper than an SR, why can't Zero make bikes for half the price and still turn a decent profit...?
Cas :)
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Well therein lies the problem ... Now that's newsworthy. If they can make an entire car with a much bigger battery cheaper than an SR, why can't Zero make bikes for half the price and still turn a decent profit...?
Cas :)
I can answer that from reading on here. Zero laid off all of its motorcyce assembly personel and in the process cut the work force by 10%. It was sort of a question someone asked at the time what are those 90% doing?
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For most people motorbikes are something they own just for fun. As it appears to me, it is often the third or fourth motorised vehicle in a household and not doing more than 2000 km a year. It makes less fun if you look at the cost ;D
And the vast majority of people do NOT own a motorbike, so it is getting no attention in the mainstream media in the need to sell ads.
Some food for thought: In our modern times, motorbiking might appear as something archaic and the total opposite of plushy fully automated five-star safety airbagged car riding. Electric or not makes no difference.
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For most people motorbikes are something they own just for fun. As it appears to me, it is often the third or fourth motorised vehicle in a household and not doing more than 2000 km a year. It makes less fun if you look at the cost ;D
And the vast majority of people do NOT own a motorbike, so it is getting no attention in the mainstream media in the need to sell ads.
Some food for thought: In our modern times, motorbiking might appear as something archaic and the total opposite of plushy fully automated five-star safety airbagged car riding. Electric or not makes no difference.
My daughter and husband own six motorcycles, including one 2014 Zero. They both have been riding for 37 years and still do so several times a week for local trips and commuting, with the occasional long trip a couple of times a year. However, their two daughters, 22 and 24, have no interest in driving a car, much less riding a motorcycle. When the older one reached 17 I paid for her to take a two-day DMV-approved safety motorcycle riding course. While she passed the course, she was told by the examiner that she should probably not try riding on the street as her attention seemed to wander while she rode. After that experience she decided that she wasn't interested in driving a car or riding a motorcycle and (apparently) decided to just stay at home for the rest of her life and look at her cell phone all day long. Her younger sister did eventually, after three years of trying, get a driver's license, but hasn't driven since. I gather that driving on the local streets is very stressful for her and it is a lot less stressful just staying at home and watching her cell phone, too. ::)
What is this world coming to? :'(
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One generation’s freedom is another’s prison. The Greatest and Silent Generations grew up riding trains, buses, and trolleys in cramped cities or being stuck on farms, and longed to go anywhere without being shoulder-to-shoulder with the masses of humanity. They begat the Boomers who grew up in starter homes in brand-new suburbs and could escape their coddled spaces with muscle cars and UJM’s running on cheap gas. By the time it was Gen X’s turn, the cars were not as fun but the motorbikes were awesome, and they longed to get away from their boring neighborhood lives. To all of these generations, cars and motorbikes represented freedom.
When I was growing up as an older Millenial, things had started to change. A car was still the ticket to get places on our own, but there was a lot of traffic, the price of gas was going up, and it all started to seem like a hassle. We saw cities and people start to re-think the car-only mentality of transportation and paint a few bike lanes here and restore a modicum of transit service there. By the time younger Millenials and Gen Z could drive, the whole thing seemed like a scam, and they had no idea why the older people talked about freedom when all they saw was wall-to-wall traffic, sky-high prices, and an ever-present sense of the dangers of the road that they didn’t internalize and rationalize the same way the older generations did. There were a plethora of other options now, from bikes and scooters to buses and trains that weren’t crowded and didn’t lurch and squeal like the ones their grandparents rode.
I used these modes instead of owning a car for years in San Francisco, and I wouldn’t have moved somewhere where I had to rely on a car even if you paid me double or triple. When I got into motorbikes, suddenly I realized that I could have all the mobility of a car minus being stuck in traffic or looking for parking and for less money, less environmental impact, and have a lot more fun. But if I had been born a little later and socialized into an environment where none of my friends wanted to take part-time retail jobs to afford a car, I might have just been happy with the non-motorized options. Give it another few decades and it will all come around again, I’m sure.
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Well therein lies the problem ... the majority of people I think already have a car, and will therefore only do a smaller proportion of their annual mileage on the bike. 10k miles a year in a car is normal in the UK, and 5k miles on the bike is actually slightly above average... and unfortunately with those figures, bikes work out pretty much as expensive as cars. This sort of blows the "cheaper to get around on" message out of the water and then you've lost a large part of the interesting newsworthy angle of motorcycles as useful or practical means of transport for a lot of people. The market has created these conditions by more or less making motorcycles too expensive in various ways, relegating them to toys.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Dacia Spring (https://www.dacia.co.uk/hybrid-and-electric-range/spring-city-car.html). Granted it's a bit of a crap car, but it costs less than a Zero SR, and its battery is nearly twice the size. Now that's newsworthy. If they can make an entire car with a much bigger battery cheaper than an SR, why can't Zero make bikes for half the price and still turn a decent profit...?
Cas :)
Fair enough, but when it’s a toy, there’s no point doing a cost-comparison against the primary vehicle. It should be compared to vacations or a nice home theater system, perhaps. Someone considering a two-wheeler for commutes to save money and already has a car is probably going to look at a 250-400cc scooter or something like your CB500F. I was comparing costs for people considering a two-wheeler instead of a car.
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I only have an Energica in my garage though I'd like to supplement that with a cargo bicycle. I get the bus/tram/train most places I can't walk to and keep the motorbike for doing fun stuff on rather than spoil it with boring daily stuff. I can't fathom why anyone who "loves driving" would want to ruin that for themselves by sitting in traffic all the time and the compromises it brings.
Also, the UK average for a motorbike is about 3000 miles. I've been averaging about 9500 so far with my Ribelle but I think this year might be less because the dreary weather has dragged on a bit long and thanks to <an entire rant about the investment world and its impatience and focus on number gaming rather than sustainable business> I've had to can all my trip plans this year.
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A lot of people don't really think of Motorcycles as vehicles it seems in the US anymore. They think of them either as
A. Those asshole kids at the intersections doing wheelies and waking the neighborhood up at 3 am doing 140 down the side streets. at 140 decibels
B. Those grubby bike gangs, hells angels, and all the dirtbags that ride harleys like you see in the hollywood movies.
C. Some kids toy to go ride in the dirt on.
As also mentioned, the generations today are a lot whimpier than their grandparents were. Oh that looks scary, not for me !!!! Let me yelp out on twatter that I got scared just thinking about it, it should be worth some likes !!!
When you do bring an electric bike around the groups that do appreciate motorcycles, a lot of them, well, never really heard of them, or just maybe heard about them, yah I heard those existed now, but never really seen one up close. I am getting this a LOT on the track. So many people saying, wow, this is the first electric bike I actually seen up close. It gets their curiosity, then after they actually see one in action, or after I let them take it for a spin, they are like, HOLY SHIT, that thing is crazy, I never had any idea they were THAT GOOD! I have had several people take pictures of my bike to show others, and pose with it, Hey look, THIS is an ELECTRIC bike! I guess they have never seen a real electric bike that was not ... scootery looking.
I let a few folks take my bike for a spin on the track, a few of them raced, one guy was racing a Ninja, the other a Ducatti. Their reaction was at first, oh WOW, there's no clutch? Umm nope, just gas and go baby, please be careful. After giving them the basic spiel, It's a motor, no shifting, it's top heavy until you hit about 7 or 8 mph, it's 600 lbs and it's VERY torquey, it can brake stupid fast, and finally, there is no kickstand switch, please press the kill switch when you stop it. After taking their 20 minute session, they were just blown away and wanted to ride it some more. I did not mind letting them ride it at all, I got to ride his race ninja, and THAT bike was stupid insane as well!!
Even when I am not at the track, but just hanging out with other bike groups, on my Ribelle, they are of course giving me the shit, it's an E bike, typical banter :) but then, oh wow, that's SWEET, and it's electric?? followed by the usual, how fast, how far, any problems with it etc. We'll go on a ride around town, after doing 120 miles or so, at the end of the ride / day, I tell them, yah I got another 80 to 100 miles left on it, they are like, wow, that bike CAN keep up with the regular bikes, I didn't think they were that good.
I really think the electric bike companies are doing themselves a dis service by NOT advertising more. People just don't know they exist. Given that Energica as an example only has what 4 or 5 dealers nation wide in the US, THAT is not helpful either. The guy who rode mine at the track, asked, where is the dealer at around here, I told him Orlando and he's like, I need to go check them out, I told him, you can goto their website too, which you will NEED to do, and talk to them personally if you are looking for a race bike, to configure it exactly how you want it. Whether he was serious or not, who knows, but the point being, there are so many opportunities that the e bike companies are missing out on, for advertising, often times FREE advertising of their products.
I'll be honest, I like showing off my bikes, and the more people we get to see them, the better e bikes are known, the better chances the companies are going to be around for more years to come, to service the bikes WE already have! Id like to see an Energica dealer in Jacksonville, and not have to drive 200 miles every time I need service.
I'd LOVE to see Energica rent the track out for the day, bring a trailer of their E bikes and let people romp em up and see what it's all about. Maybe bring the street legals too, slap a plate on them and let them take it for a ride around town too, to see what the road bikes REALLY are about. it'd be a great PR thing, something they could probably even get the local news stations to do a story about given the area. To be honest, the Energica dealer, who is also a BMW and Euro bike dealer, already DOES rent out the track one or two times a year for a shin dig. Maybe he could work a deal with energica to partially sponsor one of the race days, and have a hand full of Energica's to let people try out.
Again, anything we as a community can do, to increase public awareness of E bikes, helps us all down the road.
Aaron