The Brammo Buying Experience > Wanting to buy
Jonesing for Enertia+ in Dull-Aware
webmost:
Ahoy
I long for an Enertia Plus. Been looking at the E for years, but 40 miles a day won't cut it even for my petite commute. Now that the Plus is almost here, it may become practical.
Here's the probs:
1) I am a lifetime year-round rider. I live in Dull-Aware. In Winter, it rarely gets below five degrees; but it does stay in the teens or below for weeks at a time. When it gets into single digits, my lead acid or AGM batteries have a hard time turning bike engines over. How much of that is thick oil and how much is cold battery? I dunno. So here's my question: Who here has personal experience with their Brammo batteries in sub-zero temps? Note that I am not asking for theory; I am asking specifically for experience, please. (Love my heated grips. I assume I would have to do without those.)
2) I have an 8 mile commute each way. Frequently, I may have to take a bank deposit or fetch lunch, which adds another 5 miles. Every other afternoon, I run to the Y to play handball -- that's another 12 miles each way. So daily I have a minimum of 16 miles, every other day 40 miles, and if there are errands, 50 or 60. No, in the real world you cannot safely go slow without inviting the brain dead cage drivers to run your silly butt over, so about half this distance must be run at 60 or 65, period. I weigh 210. My luggage is typically compact. The Dull-Mar-Va peninsula is basically a sand bar, so no hills to climb. Will an advertised 80 mile range reliably get me 50 or 60 miles under those conditions?
3) I have searched but I have been unable to find how many motorcycles has Brammo sold? I want to know whether there are enough of a sample on the road yet to know whether they are reliable etc.
4) I am an every day rider. I have a BMW R1200CLC for touring, a Kawi KLR650 for camping, and a BMW K75 for commuting and errands. The E+ would take the job of the K75. Since April, when I got her on the road, I have put 9k on the K75. So say an average of 45 miles a day. If I charge this thing up daily then I will reach the battery life of 1,000 cycles in less than 3 years. I read at brammo.com that the cost for a replacement battery array for an Enertia runs $3,600. Let's assume that the E+ pack will run twice that three years from now, considering it delivers twice the range. I just cannot see how having to pop seven grand for batteries on a used bike every three or four years makes the least goldang sense at all. My KLR gets 57mpg, my R12CLC gets 50, my K75 gets 45. Gas here is $3.30. So each mile costs me six, six and a half, or seven cents respectively. Battery costs alone equal that before you buy the Enertia or the electricity. Worse yet: The K75 cost me $1,500 to buy... the KLR $2,900. At nine grand for an E+, I could buy both of those rides twice. How do you guys make any economic sense whatever out of this thing? No, I am not impressed by gorebull warbling, so don't even bring that ridiculous farce to the table. Just on cost per mile, cost per ride, how do you justify the Brammo idea? I need something to convince the RedHead.
TIA
protomech:
Gavin, meet your long lost brother!
Shinysideup:
--- Quote from: webmost on November 01, 2011, 10:49:50 AM --- Just on cost per mile, cost per ride, how do you justify the Brammo idea?
--- End quote ---
My justification: Because I want one.
Now, I COULD dig deeper into my bag of rationalizations, many of which are probably even valid.
For example, I could declare that the cost per mile is not at all an adequate measure of true total cost.
If I were to broaden my basis of cost, then I could include the cost of destroying Canada for her tar sands, and polluting the Gulf of Mexico, and having my family and friends breathing carcinogens to the point that we're headed to 1 in 3 lifetime cancer incidence.
Then I could add in the cost of perpetual resource wars, both in dollars ($1.171 Trillion) and in blood (As of March 2011, 4,441 Americans have died in Iraq as have as many as 150,000 civilians, and another 4.5 million civilians have been displaced. In Afghanistan, 1,513 Americans have died and, although accurate counts are hard to come by, as many as 8,000 Afghan civilians have been killed and another 3.7 million refugees are internally displaced or living in neighboring countries.) Not to count the cost of missing limbs and closed head injuries.
Even if you're not enamored of Gore, you've got to guess that burning 3.5 billion gallons of oil each and every day is bound to heat up something!
So in addition to true broad costs, there's the feeling of utter smugness knowing I just brought home 6 bags of groceries on my electric bicycle, a distance of 12 miles, and used only solar electricity to accomplish the feat, and didn't even sweat! I can get downright insufferable in my righteousness, and THAT's got to be worth something! ;D
And welcome, fellow life-long year-round everyday rider.
- Bill
webmost:
Yabbut... Electricity does not come for free either, Shiny. Once you have dammed all the rivers, then you have to either burn coal, oil, gas, or pile up nuclear waste that has a 10,000 year half life. All while the majority of power gets dissipated in the grid as heat before it even gets to the plug. The tail pipe is only half the story. So you can go round and round with all of that. There is no free lunch, though there are seven billion of us elbowing at the free lunch counter. Proponents focus on the strongest link while opponents focus on the weakest link of any chain. Both can reap "utter smugness", to use your phrase, only by picking and choosing their links.
One other question I had in mind but forgot to ask: To be safe on a motorcycle you need to get out of the way. Sometimes, that means being light enough to literally jerk the machine by the handlebars into the next lane. Other times, it means twisting the throttle and getting the heck out of there now. Bikes in general are grossly over-powered, and that's a good thing when you need to escape that texting brain dead cager and go find the open spot. So how much zip do you have with one of these lectric bikes? When you are doing 40 and you twist the grip, how quickly do you jump to 60? The answer to this question requires experience of different motorcycles. My R1200CLC is powerful enough to get up and get, but too heavy to jerk. My KLR is light enough to jerk, but too anemic to get up and get. My K75 is in between. What's the Enertia compare to?
Gavin:
year round rider also...
I can't answer all the questions...I can say that I too have solar panels...so no emissions and no gas stations is a huge plus for me...
on top of that, 1000 charges is to 80% capacity...so even if you ride to near empty and charge everyday, at 3 years you will still have 80% of your day 1 range. (i doubt anybody will charge everyday..vacations, sick days, days on your other rides--which I would suggestion you do on those days you are going 60 to 70 miles, much of it at 65 mph. The Plus has a range of 80 miles in the city, 60 in Suburban riding patterns and 40 at highway speeds...so plan accordingly. 70 miles at a mix with some highway? well the Plus isn't going to cut it for that, so you will have to use one of your other bikes. I too will be keeping a long distance ride to go along with my Plus...my Plus WILL be my daily rider, but there are times I want to go 100 miles on a nice mountain trip and the Plus won't do that...at least not for a few years yet :) )
now even if at three years from date of purchasing your Plus (2012?) and your range has dropped to where you want new batteries; well batteries are getting both better and CHEAPER...if you still want 80 miles of range in 2015, that will likely set you back half of what it costs today...if you want 200 miles in 2012, well that will likely be right around what Brammo is stating as the replacement cost now...
Gavin
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