Motorcycle.com (finally) reviews the 2014 Empulse

[Brammofan]

Some great stuff here:

The Brammo’s six-speed transmission had previously received our criticism. Apparently Brammo heard our complaints.

http://www.motorcycle.com/manufacturer/brammo/2014-brammo-empulse-r-review-video.html

[protomech]

I see the demo Empulse R is fitted with the carbon fiber fairing bits. Those have been dropped from the 2014 Empulse R, though you can purchase them for an additional $1500 from the Brammo accessory catalog. A nice perk for 2013 R owners : )

The motor is liquid-cooled, the controller is not.

The other big change Bostrom had a part in was improving the smoothness of the regenerative braking effect when letting off the e-throttle. Achieved via a firmware update, Bostrom says this new tuning also prevents any software faults that could disable the motor controller. All told, the diet plan and improved software are said to improve range by five percent. Not much, but every bit counts.

The Brammo’s six-speed transmission had previously received our criticism. Apparently Brammo heard our complaints. The six cogs are much easier to row through despite being mechanically unchanged from years past, even allowing for seamless clutchless upshifts. Bostrom says this too is due to the software changes made and some slight modifications to the motor.

I assume those software changes will be available for 2013 bikes. Has anyone updated their 2013 bike?

[Adan]

I watched the video and Troy (the Motorcycle.com reviewer) was going on about how improved the gearbox was, and how the previous version he rode "sucked," but he also said the previous version he rode may have been a 2012 (?). 

I did a very short test ride on a 2014 and did not notice a difference in the gearbox action, so I'm wondering if there really has been any change from 13-14 in that regard.  I only rode the 14 for less than a mile on city streets, so not a good basis for comparison, but nothing jumped out at me as different in the shifting.

[flar]

Not to mention that my 2013 just loves the clutchless upshifts which is something he thinks is new for the 2014 gear boxes.

I'm thinking he previously rode a test model that had been abused a bit...

[Brammofan]

The video review/ride with Eric Bostrom:

[Richard230]

The Eric also said in the video interview that there had been no changes to the transmission for 2014, just some minor programming revisions.  I rode an early production Empulse R and its transmission seemed to shift well, better than many other IC transmissions that I have tried, such as my Yamaha and F650GS, to name two.

[ttxgpfan]

Having followed reports here I suspect they had a brand new Empulse for their last test, and it seems this gearbox does indeed need to break in. So shocker, they ride a broke in transmission and they love it. But that is conjecture.