Transcript
My name is Kenyon Kluge. I’m from Santa Cruz, California. I’m a team owner and rider for K Squared Racing. I’m also the team manager and rider for Zero Motorcycle Racing. If you want to find out more information about me you can look at my website, ksquaredracing.com or for more information on Zero Motorcycles go to zeromotorcycles.com. And now I’m going to talk to you about motorcycles. I’m going to talk about some of the pros and cons of electric motorcycles. Electric motorcycles, some of their advantages are 1) that they’re quiet. More and more, the sound is becoming an issue with gas motorcycles limiting where and when people can ride. So electric motorcycles make very little noise not no noise, but very little noise. Electric bikes are also zero emissions, so they, themselves are very good for the environment. And they get their power from just the electricity you have in your home, which is a very efficient way of making electricity and there is a very low cost as well. One of the other advantages are, is I think that they’re a really good bike for beginners. They don’t have a clutch or gears. They’re a direct drive. So there’s less for you to think about as a new rider. All you have to do is think about the throttle and the front and the rear brake to control your motorcycle. They’re also very light weight which allows a newer rider to be more comfortable with them. Some of the down sides to electric motorcycle is that they are and emerging technology and that the range is still not up to where a gas bike might be. So between charges you can’t go nearly as far. One of the other down sides is performance and it’s not that they can’t perform like a gas bike, but you have to strike a balance between range and performance. So currently the performance of the bikes isn’t quite where a gas bike might be. And thirdly, a lot of it comes down to the technology in the batteries. The batteries are still very expensive. So gas, electric bike might start out at about the same price as a gas bike but that’s where your compromise comes in and you sacrifice a bit of range and a bit of performance for that same cost point. Conversely if you buy a very expensive electric motorcycle, it might have closer performance and range but will cost quite a bit more than a comparable gas bike.
