The advantages of riding an electric motorcycle

The romantic idea of a motorcyclist forces us to imagine him dressed in leather, riding a robotic motorbike, a vibrant torpedo with which he cuts through the air, space and time.

Dirty with dust and grease, it smells like petrol and smells like adventure. His muscles are designed to counteract the air and vibrations of a powerful and compact mechanics that shakes the atmosphere and emits a scream that is speed and power. It even seems careless of everything else, concentrated in its own expression of freedom.

What if we told you that things in the world of electric motorcycle, at least in part, could change in the coming years? That the motorcyclist of the near future will arrive, clean and fragrant, always on a missile, but in silence and without burning a single drop of hydrocarbon?

Electric motorcycle: silence is the new black

For many motorcyclists, noise is still a fundamental component of the riding experience. For over a century, it’s been natural to consider the exhaust an element of aesthetic design and sound worthy of customization. It is easy to see how they can be reluctant to consider silent electric propulsion as a plausible alternative to what for them is one of the pleasures of driving. This pillar, however, began to creak when high-performance electric motorcycle, American, Asian and Italian, arrived on the market.

As long as they were small scooters it was rather easy to rob the phenomenon as suitable only for urban movements, for those who are not a true motorcyclist. Since, however, technology has made it possible to make bikes that spurt from zero to 100 kilometers per hour in three seconds, reach over 200 and have a range of more than 200 kilometers with a charge, it has become increasingly difficult to ignore them.

As a result, some people who are sensitive to environmental issues have let themselves be tempted by the new technology and, at the test of facts, have had to change their mind. Riding a bike that emits a hissing sound, does not vibrate, does not heat, does not smoke and does not smell, but goes strong and offers all the fun of a traditional bike is simply... beautiful.

Like driving a flying carpet, a magic broom, whizzing down the ground. And it has the charm of intelligence: it's cool. We are at the beginning of a new era, a new market niche is opening up and is destined to change the very image of the motorcyclist.

Brief history of the electric motor: efficient, clean but losing

The premise that the electric motor is more efficient than the endothermic one has been recognised since the time of its invention. Just think that at the beginning of the twentieth century it was easier to establish a speed record with an electric vehicle than with gasoline, and that in New York there were more than a hundred electric taxis (the first services were introduced in 1897!). Yet, due to a variety of causes and events, the evolution of motoring has led us, for personal mobility, to nonchalantly burn the derivatives of oil instead of fluttering electrons.

Although this involved greater technical complications, greater accessory consumption, and a greater number of components and passages. This is certainly not the place to address in due detail the reasons for such a choice, but we can certainly say that playing heavily against electric has been its main limit, namely the storage of energy.

Like the great revolutionaries, however, electric has been able to wait and has made patience a virtue: today we have batteries that can ensure long distances and shorter charging times, and we have brushless motors that are even more efficient and compact. And the research is optimistic for the near future: electric is ready to take revenge.

Hasta la victoria!

Electric motorcycle 2019: getting out of the niche

In all this time an undergrowth and a subculture of electric have developed also for two wheels, but without obtaining, if not in very rare cases, the honor of the chronicles. Electric motorcycles with interesting performances have appeared sporadically over the years, without however having the possibility of a real market and for this reason they have been archived as toys for eccentrics. Curiously, just as it happened with the first motorcycles in the late nineteenth century...

Since then, however, the big players in the automotive market have sided in favour of electric. In the last decade the products have had a remarkable development, becoming more and more comparable to the best traditional motorcycles on the market.

Compared to their four-wheeler colleagues, however, the big two-wheeler brands are still cautious and let the small circle of new companies totally focused on the new technology do the dirty work. This year, however, will mark the turning point with the arrival of heavy artillery: the electric Vespa and Harley-Davidson are already a reality and we can follow the FIM Enel MotoE World Cup, the first world competition that will be run with electric bikes built in Italy by Energica, on the same tracks and with the same teams involved in MotoGP.

4 advantages of the motor with electron propulsion

In many quarters, therefore, 2020 is indicated as a goal, the year of the real beginning of mass electrification. There is no doubt that the main reference is to the car market, but the motorcycle market, as we have now understood, will follow... closely.

In the next two years we will see more and more models for each category, and more and more brands will take the field blazoned no longer being able to run the risk of arriving late.

The motorcyclists to the idea - not without reticence, it is clear - will begin to get used to as they experience for themselves the advantages of the engine with electron propulsion, easily summarised in:

• maintenance
• consumption and operating costs reduced to almost zero
• greater practicality
• performance that will become better and better over time.

If we know how to combine an attractive design not only in the aesthetic aspect, but be able to involve all the senses, we will have the good fortune to witness the birth of new icons.