VIDEO: Brammo rides Detroit to Washington, 40 miles at a time
Brian Wismann on the Brammo Enertia - Click above for high-res image gallery
Earlier this week, Brammo's director of product development Brian Wismann along with Dave Schiff of Crispin Porter Bugosky, began a ten-day journey meant to take them to Washington, DC. The trip, which is being chronicled on the site shockingbarack.com, is intended to raise awareness of the company's new electric motorcycle, the Enertia, and electric vehicles in general.
The trek began at Zingerman's deli in downtown Ann Arbor, MI, which just happens to be a a few blocks from this blogger's office. Brian and Dave swung by the office for a visit to show off the bike – which they prefer to call a powercycle – and chat about what it can do. Along the route to the capital, they'll be making plenty of similar stops, partly to demonstrate the bike but mostly out of necessity. While the Enertia is undoubtedly a neat ride, it underscores two of the major problems with EVs. They are expensive ($11,995 for the Enertia) and have limited range. This bike only has a 42-mile range and then takes four hours to charge. That means plenty of short hops to cover the 520 miles to DC. On the plus side, it should only take about $4 worth of juice to make the trip.
Hopefully sales will bring volumes that help bring the cost down. In the meantime, check out the video after the jump.
Gallery: Brammo Enertia: Shocking Barack
[Source: Green Fuels Forecast]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Yaroukh 8:14AM (10/16/2009)
*yaaawn*
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Mr. Bill 8:15AM (10/16/2009)
It would be almost as cheap and infinitely more entertaining to attach a horse to the front of the bike an be pulled on it. Yes , the horse is slower, smells more, and needs food and water. But the horse can travel a lot more than 42 miles at a steadily paced stretch. With 4 hour lay overs every 42 miles on the 'bike', wouldn't the rider of the (lack of) Enertia consume just about the same, if not actually more, amounts of food and water per day as the horse? So, Americans would actually gain weight by riding an Enertia, thus further reducing the range. Additionally, the horse would be a lot safer due to the slower speed. And we know that a big part of being green is that we must also be safe.
Ridiculous demonstration of this new product.
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Level 5 8:18AM (10/16/2009)
Good cripes, who the hell would wanna make ANY TRIP besides to work and back or small errands in this thing. To prove a point? 42 miles, than a 4hr recharge? Christ man, over the course of 520 miles, he has to recharge this thing 12 times, that's 48 hours of downtime ALONE. So let's just say this guy needed no time to eat, sleep, etc, only travel, and that there was a place to charge the bike wherever he stopped.
He would drive for around an hour, then need to stop for FOUR hours, then repeat that cycle TWELVE times. It would take this guy 50 hours to reach DC from Detroit? Pass.
An electric bike, namely this one, is actually really awesome, but to use it on a long trip seems to highlight the shortcomings rather than its advantages.
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Level 5 8:20AM (10/16/2009)
Math fail, it'd be over 60 hours.
geo.stewart 8:34AM (10/16/2009)
520/40=13*5 65 hrs; which in turn means either hotel rooms (2) or cat naps in a booth at the truck stop. It also means I'm riding along at 8mph over the trip
for 12,000K, I can get a car that gets at least 25mpg on the interstate. and for $60 in gas, be there in a day.
OR 'for 8 mph, I can ride a bicycle and make better time.
yeah, it makes for a story but a very unflattering one for the EV company.
Dr. Greenthumb 8:19AM (10/16/2009)
This exactly makes the case for GM's Volt over ALL other EV's. In their current form, EVs are nothing more than glorified golf carts.
However, GM still a bit off the mark with the Volt. It could be made more efficient by ditching the heavy & expensive battery pack, and right sizing the engine for the job that it actually has to do. The current Volt ICE powerplant is more than likely over kill. I'm sure that you don't need a 1.4 litre engine to run that generator. Okay, they're using what they have. De-stroke that motor down to 1 liter and tune it for maximum torque, or mate the generator to a sub-1 lier motorcycle engine, to see if they are up to the job.
BTW: Nice bike.
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Kyle 10:54AM (10/16/2009)
meh... needs fairings
Bob Denley 8:35AM (10/16/2009)
Will be awesome one day when bikes like this can get a few hundred miles on a charge.
With battery and solar panel technology increasing I don't think it is out of the question that we will see huge leaps in EV's in the next decade.
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Sofa King Fast! 8:51AM (10/16/2009)
I could bicycle from Michigan to Washington in less than 10 days.
I am totally serious.
I could easily average 20mph which means I could cover 100miles in 5 hours vs 40 miles in 5 hours for this "powercycle". In the time it takes this power cycle to cover 200 miles I could cover 500 - and I'd be getting a workout at the same time.
Powercycle = FAIL.
Technology for the sake of technology is never a good premise.
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Tom Q 9:04AM (10/16/2009)
The eRockit seems vastly superior to this
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Visnick 9:17AM (10/16/2009)
+1
Eric Bandholz 1:12PM (10/16/2009)
How so? The eRockit costs $40k and you have to pedal. Granted you could probably get about 200 miles out of a charge, but you will be paying it off much longer. And while you are still paying for it - better technology will have come out.
HotShoeStudios 9:09AM (10/16/2009)
These green whack jobs really crack me up. Let's take something like a motorcycle that gets really good mileage to begin with and make it less convenient all so I can say it's "green".
How is all this e vehicle push any good if people aren't willing to accept and expand nuclear energy plants? If everyone drove an e car where would all the electricity come from? Aren't we just trading one devil for another? How about the nickel and precious metals mining for all these batteries?
Maybe it's something in the tofu?
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Silly Pickle 11:03AM (10/16/2009)
One word: V-Max. The Anti-Christ of electric bikes.
F electric. And who really wants an electric bike? Not someone who actually likes motorcycles (real men don't ride electric...that's for porn starlets and golfers). Do you have to put a piece of cardboard in the spokes so at least people can hear you coming? Or make you feel like less of an idiot...be a clown, at least act like one too.
Wonder what would happen if you showed up at Sturgis on one of these...could be comical. Guaranteed not to outrun anyone. For long.
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adrenalnjunky 9:19AM (10/16/2009)
I don't get it - buddy just bought a BMW G650-GS - single cylinder dual-sport bike for about $8k. He took it on a several-day road trip from Dallas to Nashville. Averaged well over 50mpg for the entire trip.
Do motorcycles in general - in any configuration, really need to worry about their ecological footprint? From a consumption vs. benefit standpoint, they're pretty much the best example we have of internal-combustion propulsion.
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mk15 9:23AM (10/16/2009)
Shocking Barack? At that pace, he'll have seen him coming a long time ago.
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Brammofan 10:05AM (10/16/2009)
Obviously, this bike is not for cross country trips, and was never designed to be that kind of vehicle. It's a commuter bike. Average commute for Americans is 29 miles, well within the range of the Enertia.
ICE bikes get better gas mileage than cars, but they're still 100 percent dependent on gasoline. Plus, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions of some bikes is greater than passenger vehicles - mainly because motorcycles are not as regulated as cars are by the EPA, and DOT.
I am amused at the pace these guys are taking. Sometimes, the journey itself is the destination.
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Greg 10:35AM (10/16/2009)
Greenhouse gas from a ICE is almost entirely CO2. So it's purely MPG. So most motorcycles (getting 40-60 mpg) put out less GHG than most cars (getting 25 mpg). There are of course exceptions, a 35 mpg motorcycle puts out more GHG than a 50 mpg prius.
OTOH, motorcycles generally put out more CO, HC and NOx than a car, as they do not have the same level of emissions controls. Most bikes pre 2005 don't have catcons for example. This exemption is allowed because motorcycles generally are not ridden that much in the US.
nomatta 11:07AM (10/16/2009)
NINJA 250R ABOUT 4K GETS ABOUT 64 MPG CITY. PROBALLY POLUTES LESS TOO WITH HAVING TO PRODUCE THE BATTERY AND EXPOSE OF IT.
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RAT911 11:11AM (10/16/2009)
While I agree that a long road trip puts the relatively low range of an E bike into focus, it's a good demonstration of reliability and a bike that is really ready for the market. I have no desire to recreate the long road trip that these guys are doing, but the bike makes perfect sense to me as a short commuter/scrambler/grocery getter. Around town, ICE bikes run loud, cold/dirty and (relatively) inefficiently. I really want to try one of these and as charging, motor and battery technology develop, I'm eager to see the advantage inevitably end up going to the electric bike...
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