Electric Motorcycles: Evolution or Revolution?

I chaired a fascinating Virtual Bike Shed Motorcycle Club Members' Night yesterday with Hugo Eccles & Adam Kay from Untitled Motorcycles live from San Francisco and London. Over the last couple of months I've chaired several of these members' nights and one theme kept coming up: Electric Motorcycles.

I think we all agree that petrol motorcycles have no future. While the power storage will likely move away from high density Lithium based batteries towards a super capacitor based technology or some yet to be discovered Vibranium or Unobtainium based technology, it feels that electric motors will still feature in the future.

There have been several attempts to launch a commercial electric motorcycle and sadly many of these businesses are no longer with us. Mission Motors made an exceptional and beautiful motorcycle in the Type R and never launched type RS. It looked like the best superbikes out there. Sadly they went bust.

Alta Motors showed real promise with their electric motocross style bikes, even featuring on an episode of Top Gear. Sadly they went bust.

Other manufacturers such as Energica are still in business and Oset does well as an intermediate 'junior' trials bike manufacturer. I have two of their bikes for my kids but they are very niche and again are a good take on traditional trials bikes.

Even Harley Davidson, who are known for their chrome, iron and petrol, has got in on the action with the Livewire. There are 'rumours' that the latest 'Long Way...' with Charley Boorman & Ewan McGregor will be on modified Livewire motorcycles. An early prototype was even in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

When I first saw and heard the prototype, I was struck by how different it sounded. Like a turbine whine. Something we are getting more used to through Tesla's Super Ludicrous Mode. That laid a nugget in my subconscious that's been bothering me since. And causing me to ask the questions many of my biker buddies have been asking: When (not if) I get an electric motorcycle, will I miss the visceral feel of my petrol motorcycle? Will my neurons mis-fire when I don't hear the engine revs go up and down and the clunk of gears? Will I continually mis-judge corners coming in too fast or too slow? Electric car drivers have come on a similar journey but arguably the transition from an automatic car to an electric car is less intrusive.

I listened to Adam talking about his Cake Motorcycle and reflected on why I was so drawn to it. He talked about stripping down all the things that aren't needed on his Zero FXS. Basically the things that imitate a similar petrol powered SuperMoto.

Then as Hugo talked about the design process for his Zero XP build and what wasn't needed any more (tank for example) and things that are needed (knee support) it finally hit me why I was so drawn to the XP and the Cake and custom FXS builds such as Huge Moto's X Zero build.

I've been trying to compare Apples to Oranges. Motorcycles were a revolution of a Bicycle! They were Motorised Bicycles. Electric Motorcycles are Electric revolution of a bicycle. On a related note, eBikes are an evolution of a bicycle.

Electric Motorcycles are not an evolution of Petrol Motorcycles.

They are a familiar but new way of transport! This is a revolution!

When a manufacturer tries to mimic an existing design, I don't like it. My brain won't let me accept it as a motorcycle! When I tell myself it's not a motorcycle, it's different AND the designer of the vehicle allows themselves to be free of 'make it like a petrol motorcycle', it works!

Hugo talked about imagining what a designer would have done if they started from scratch. What if we were designing an electric motorcycle at the turn of the last century? Remember that electric cars were about in the late 1800s - almost 140 years ago!

Inventing a new mode of transport is difficult and ultimately maybe the difference between an evolution and a revolution is the passage of time and 12 evolutions equals a revolution. Perhaps that's what happened to Mission and Alta. It's Darwinian. They had to die to allow the next generation of evolution to take place. It doesn't feel like we are quite at the evolutionary leap yet to be defined as 'different' but the Zero XP build and designs such as the Cake show we are getting there.

Hugo also talked about moving to dynamic designs that can change the layout of the bike with the needs of the rider and the riding style including moving the rear sets back and lowering the seat. Also, that autonomous riding and ownership models could mean that 'your' motorcycle is actually software and when you land in a new city and walk up to a bike it reconfigures to be essentially your bike!

With the move to electric, the custom scene will also need to evolve. It's likely that instead of new carbs, headlights, frames, a tool chest full of spanners and 10mm sockets that our tool chest will be a 3D printer/CNC machine and a laptop. Interestingly, this is likely to open up the custom scene to the next generation of custom builders. The console generation won't see themselves customising their bike but instead will be hacking their bike!

So, we're going to need a new name for Electric Motorcycles to break the connection to the past and create a new vehicle species. How about: Voltcycle (see my logo design below - I'm clearly wasted in my career in the corporate world)?