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The Future is Here; The Best Electric Motorcycle I Have Ridden

If not for the price, absolutely same here. It's just...you can get two brand new 2016 YZ450F's for the price of a Redshift, or a 500 EXC and like a Z125 or whatever. Tough pill to swallow. I'll be really curious to see how they depreciate. I can't imagine too many people will be paying five figures for a five year old dirt bike, so I think they're going to get hit pretty hard in resale, in which case that may be my time. Or, build something. Any which way, I reeeeeeaaaally want to ride one.
 
revnort said:
When your bike is almost silent, everything becomes an urban mx park. :laughing
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giphy.gif
 
Oh, another thing. They are not silent. You can hear what the tires are doing. It is a new feedback on what the bike is doing.
 
byke said:
Are you guys going to do a pay/ride deal out at Argyll? Thought I recalled something about that..
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That wasn't us... not sure who. We've had a lot of folks interested in the bikes for rental fleets, so maybe it was one of the folks trying to make a fleet purchase? Trying to stay on top of a fleet of gas bikes when you're doing 5 hour oil changes gets rough real fast...

We've done some special events for depositors, but off road demos are a huge effort because of locations, clean up, and high likelihood of crashing. So we've funneled everyone to supermoto demos. The SM has the exact same drivetrain, and we can get a lot more people on them with a lot less effort.
 
Ok you have finally piqued my curiosities on these electrical bikes.
Instead of saying no way I'm now inclined to take a closer look,ride and I hate to say this... maybe even purchase.
Only concern is I commute and 50 mi range isn't gonna cut it.
Help me out there Marc... sell this bike to me but I need 75 mi range, and the 80 mph power.
Also the whole non ICE thing that gets my goat.

Maybe if I put some playing cards in the spokes and make vroom vroom sounds. mmmmm Maybe?

IDK but this SM is a little sexy, and you can play rough with it. Whammy smiles. :)
 
Hey Whammy, glad we've cracked the door. The bike you're looking for will happen eventually. Some models from Zero will do that today, but if you're looking for that range in a proper supermoto chassis and sub 300lbs weight it's going to be a little while longer. The battery, and therefore range, is the heaviest and most expensive part of the electric equation. Our battery tech is mile for mile the smallest in the industry by a big margin, and even for us 80 miles on CA highways would mean another 50-70lbs in battery and around 20 grand for the bike. So for the time being, we're sticking to what we and electric are best at which we think is urban and off-road. The simple test we ask ourselves is if our bike can be the fastest and most fun thing in its category, gas or electric, if not that's the wrong category for us today.

If you charge at work and home, you could probably do it, but that isn't really the use case we were targeting. More the person living in the city than outside it, maybe doing some track days or sumo racing. I just spent a week in NY taking journalists out into manhattan traffic on two of our SMs, and it was insanely fun. Turns what is the worst traffic and roads in the country into a video game. This guy told me it was the most fun he's ever had on a review.

edit: on noise, I love the sound of a well tuned race bike. The full Yosh on my R6 (track) is glorious. Quiet is definitely different. Obviously, I'm biased, but I don't miss the noise on the Redshift. The front end feel you get from lack of vibe and hearing the sound of the tires for the first time more than offsets it for me. It's an individual thing, but I definitely recommend demoing the bike to decide for yourself. I'll bump this thread when Alta/BMW of SF gets their demo.
 
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I know this is prior to the name shift from BRD => Alta, but omggggg. And Ryan from 50 stunt playing in one of my favorite playgrounds :thumbup

[youtube]3robHRHhNHY[/youtube]
 
ctrvl said:
I know this is prior to the name shift from BRD => Alta, but omggggg. And Ryan from 50 stunt playing in one of my favorite playgrounds :thumbup

[youtube]3robHRHhNHY[/youtube]
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In that vid he has a left-hand brake lever.
 
How does it charge? we have car charging stations here where I work... is it a standard deal or????
How does it match up with other SM's?
Most are not built for the short statured like myself at 5'7.
id love to have one but I don't want to have to break out the KISS boots to ride it.
 
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Whammy said:
How does it charge? we have car charging stations here where I work... is it a standard deal or????
How does it match up with other SM's?
Most are not built for the short statured like myself at 5'7.
id love to have one but I don't want to have to break out the KISS boots to ride it.
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You can charge from the wall or from a car charging station :teeth

It kicks the teeth out of the mouth of other SM's from what I've read

One ride on one and you will sleep in your KISS boots I bet:laughing
 
I have thought about the MX I rode and how much fun it would be in a 251 pound motard. Big fun. I am smaller than most and light makes a big difference to me.

The tard has gotta be huge fun for the 140 pounds of me. And hey, what an awesome chick bike!
 
Butch said:
I have thought about the MX I rode and how much fun it would be in a 251 pound motard. Big fun. I am smaller than most and light makes a big difference to me.

The tard has gotta be huge fun for the 140 pounds of me. And hey, what an awesome chick bike!
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Does this mean that you're changing your tagline to preferably a 3 phase?

"and get a dirtbike! preferably a 2 stroke... " :teeth
 
Whammy said:
How does it charge? we have car charging stations here where I work... is it a standard deal or????
How does it match up with other SM's?
Most are not built for the short statured like myself at 5'7.
id love to have one but I don't want to have to break out the KISS boots to ride it.
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The MX can charge from standard 110V outlets (5hrs) or 220V outlets ("dryer outlet" 2.5hrs) via its off board charger. The SM has an onboard charger that is 110V outlet (5hrs) only.

Given today's infrastructure, and at our battery size and usage, we preferred the convenience/availability of standard outlets to automotive chargers. As charging infrastructure improves we may adjust that strategy, and should be able to retrofit/upgrade bikes if that makes sense for lots of customers.

For the SM, we felt like the convenience of being able to charge pretty much anywhere with only an extension cord was worth it, so we invented what might be the smallest 1500W charger on the planet. On the MX where you're already loading up a truck or charging in your garage, we felt like saving a few pounds and the fast-charge capabilities of a bigger off-board charger made sense.
 
Oh, another thing... The software has three settings for different conditions. I was on "torque" as described by Eric. More investigation is required. I imagine this effects battery range too.
 
Looks awesome and sounds like a lot of fun from your review. I didn't read all the replies, but does it have electronic traction control system? ABS?
 
I'm real curious about these electrobikes. What would the tire life be, with maybe a set of Q3s? Instant torque and acceleration and all, does it have a negative effect on tire life? That video of the BRD bike looks like a blast.

Since you aren't making any noise, do the police cut you any slack if you ride like a complete fool out there, like using pedestrian overpasses and stairways and such?
 
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