Would you ever buy an Electric Motorcycle?

[Toejam503]

Are electric motorcycles really Green?

[juzyHD]

Green? At this moment no and probably never greener than petrol ones...

[Stairman]

No, I will not buy one. How can they be green when it takes other energy to charge them? Think of all the pollution that will take place when all these batteries from cars, motorcycles, tools and all the rest of the new improved battery operated crap dies and has to be scrapped. They never go away.

[wedge]

Originally Posted by Toejam503

Are electric motorcycles really Green?

Originally Posted by juzyHD

Green? At this moment no and probably never greener than petrol ones...

Anything's possible given a rattle can and far too much time on your hands.

Would I ride one? "Over my dead and stinkin body", so it will have to be an out of body experience.

[sprink]

I voted NO, but while I would not buy one, if it was given to me I wouldn't mind.

I rode a Live Wire and thought it was fun. The acceleration was very good. The lack of clutch and shifter was really odd....The bike did not fit me well and the range is almost useless for me. I said almost, leaving the door open for that free one.

[xena]

No. I’m 60 and set in my ways and the sound of my Sportster is a huge part of the experience for me.

[rejeanprimeau]

I have a Chevy Volt, best car I ever own; at 2$ a liter I make lot of jealous people who spend over 150$ to fill their vehicule.

My Ranger Pick-up cost me 120 to 150$ a week and now I spend 25 to 40$ a week.
20$ a month more on my electric bill. The car pay itself.

The electric "motorcycle" should not be an electric bicycle. The price now are too much for a 100hp with a 100 miles autonomy today.

Give me one at 5000$ and I may think about buying one.

[Whitewalls]

Electric bikes, cars and chainsaws will be better accepted by the next few generations. If your first motorcycle or chainsaw is battery powered than you have no idea what you are missing.

[BKB]

What's the point? Half the reason to ride is the sound & the feel of shifting gears. Might as well be driving a model train, but outside, not in the basement. Electric tools are a whole different thing. Why would anyone want to listen to a chain saw or a lawn mower if they didn't have to? It just makes a chore a lot of us don't want to do anyway, more annoying.

[Tomcatt]

Originally Posted by rejeanprimeau

I have a Chevy Volt, best car I ever own; at 2$ a liter I make lot of jealous people who spend over 150$ to fill their vehicule.

My Ranger Pick-up cost me 120 to 150$ a week and now I spend 25 to 40$ a week.
20$ a month more on my electric bill. The car pay itself.

I looked at getting one. My daily driver avgs 25 mpg. At 12,000 miles/yr that's 480 gallons of gas per year. At $4 / gal that's $1,920 /yr, $160 / month.

New Chevy Volts are $32,000 to $35,000+. Typically around $20,000 used. That's quite a few yrs to just break even, even if I was putting 20,000 miles /yr on my daily driver. Plus with a realistic range per charge of 200 miles it's limited to fairly local driving so I'd still need my daily driver to actually travel anywhere. While getting 25 mpg around town my DD does get 30-33 mpg running down the road.

The technology isn't there yet for it to make economic sense for me, unless somebody gave me one.

As to electric motorcycles they're just too limited and heavy. It's hard to match the energy density of gasoline.