Electric Avenue in Rider Magazine

[Richard230]

The August 2012 issue of Rider magazine has a two page overview article describing the current production electric motorcycles (almost) available on the market. The article is titled "Electric Avenue" in their monthly "Kickstarts" section and starts on page 18 of the magazine. It features a large photo of the Empulse R and a smaller photo of the Zero street model range. There is no new information in the article, but some press is better than no press. It covers the Brammo and Zero products and mentions the KillerCycle drag racer and the Monto-Electric Norton (which was featured in their magazine last month). 

I continue to look forward to reading a Brammo Empulse R test in a major motorcycle magazine.   

[Richard230]

I forgot to mention the most interesting statement in this article.  The text starts with:

"Motorcyclists....will welcome a new type of electric motorcycle which is being introduced, and which, it is claimed, will run from 75 to 100 miles on a single battery charge, start instantly on the turn of a switch, and run absolutely without noise".  Thus began a news item in Popular Mechanics.....from 1911!

It appears that either vaporware is over 100 years old or the Empulse R was introduced 100 years ago.   

[protomech]

Link to the article in question.

[860]

At speeds of "4, 15, and 35 miles an hour" I would suspect the Empulse to greatly exceed the 75-100 mile range quoted in that article.

But could you imagine riding around with a top speed of 35 mph?  I don't count that as an electric motorcycle.  It's an electric bicycle.

[protomech]

Sure, but the fastest gas bikes circa 1911 were around 55-60 mph top speed.

Constant 35 miles per hour is probably about what you would need to get the 121 miles UDDS range for the Empulse.

[Richard230]

And don't forget that the "roads" in those days were not the greatest and neither were motorcycle suspension systems.  Four mph might be all you would want to ride at times on some of those roads.  Listing the speeds like that makes me think that the motorcycle (if it was ever actually built) might have had a 3-speed selector switch, instead of a rheostat, for a throttle.