Electric road motorcycles—the Zeroes, the LiveWires, the Energicas (RIP)—just don't work for the average consumer who goes on longer trips, brisker canyon jaunts, and overnight camps in the middle of the backcountry compared to their gas cousins. They just don't have the range.
I say this having sampled a bunch of electric motorcycles and finding that they really don't work in real-world conditions outside of one specific locale: a major city. But even that has to be further qualified as they don't even work there unless you're someone who has ready access to a home charger. Why? Because our nation's charging infrastructure sucks woeful, and so are the real-world ranges of most road-going electric motorcycles.
If you don't have a home charger, as well as a short commute, well, you're shit out of luck. Most every current electric motorcycle has under 100 miles of range in reality, though the manufacturers will claim otherwise, because an EV motorcycle's battery is particularly small compared to a car's. As such, the energy density isn't there which means range is trash compared to a gasoline-powered motorcycle. And for a lot of people, that's not enough unless you're just using your motorcycle to commute to and from work. Anything else and you're going to be searching for a charger every few miles, stopping for a prolonged period of time, and then only going a little bit further before repeating the process.
It's range anxiety, but the range is actually too low to work in the real world.
And that's why California's Air Resource Board's (CARB) new plan to accelerate EV motorcycle sales with new rules targeting gasoline-powered motorcycles, while telling motorcycle manufacturers they need to ratchet up their electric motorcycle sales by orders of magnitude that's sure to cause an uproar.
If you're unfamiliar with CARB, it's one of the many enemies of Fox News viewers, as well as regular Californian's alike. CARB is, essentially, California's own Environmental Protection Agency and came out of good intentions, as it was founded to help reduce pollution throughout the state when local weather stations were issuing smog warnings. It succeeded in reducing emissions, making automobiles cleaner, and California's air better. At least most of the time.
CARB is still fighting with automobile manufacturers to curb tailpipe emissions, but it has now apparently set its sights on motorcycles. According to the new proposed rules, CARB would adopt the same emissions standards as Euro 5 for all new internal combustion motorcycles, while also telling motorcycle manufacturers that they would have to sell at least 10% electric motorcycles by 2028, and 50% by 2035.
According to the filing, "The ONMC (On-Road Motorcycle) regulations were last updated to the current emissions standards in 1998. Since then, other jurisdictions around the world have adopted more stringent emissions standards, most notably in the European Union. These stringent standards have prompted industry to develop cleaner motorcycles than those currently certified in California. While current CARB ONMC evaporative standards are on par with many other jurisdictions around the world, other mobile source categories regulated by CARB are subject to much lower evaporative emissions limits. Because California has not enacted new ONMC emissions standards since 1998, allowable emissions rates for ONMCs are significantly higher than other vehicle categories that are subject to more recent and stringent regulatory standards. The goals of the ONMC Proposal are to reduce air pollution, protect public health, and minimize impact to the climate."
That's all well and good, but those new rules—outside of adopting Euro 5—are a steep order, especially given the state of electric motorcycle technology as detailed above.
There is a place in the world for electric vehicles and, more specifically, a place for electric motorcycles. But in my eyes, with the current technology available to the public, that's primarily playing in the dirt and, more specifically again, when you can cart your motorcycle to and from the dirt with the help of a pickup truck. And that's because the energy density is only really good enough for things like Stark's Varg or Dust Moto's dirt bikes. Lightweight motorcycles with short charge times and motors that eat electrons at about the same pace as you get tired of hitting jumps on a moto track or on some single track in the woods.
That's just not the case for on-road motorcycles. There's also the problem of electric motorcycle companies going belly up.
Cake, Energica, Damon (it ain't dead yet, but come on), Alta, and more are dead. LiveWire is looking down the barrel of a gun, though it's being helped by the federal government. That said, it still can't sell a motorcycle worth to save its life. Zero is also looking for another $120 million. The rest of the mainstream manufacturers have steered away from electrics, outside of a concept, one-off, or low-volume models altogether. And there's a reason for those facts, as while these companies' tech is cool, they just don't work as motorcycles. At least, not how most people use them.
There's so much more to pick apart from this CARB filing, as whoever wrote it clearly doesn't ride just based on some of the language within. Likewise, they don't understand the current reality of electric motorcycles, as you just cannot cram car engineering into a motorcycle and expect the same result.
What's really frustrating about this is that CARB could've just settled on adopting Euro 5 emissions standards, leaving out the EV mandates. If it had done that, I doubt there'd be much to talk about as Ducati just released an all-new Euro 5+ compliant Panigale V4 with more horsepower and torque. So reducing emissions can clearly be done without sacrificing performance. No one would've likely even batted an eye.
Yet, the board waded into EV mandates without understanding the current reality of electric motorcycle technology that's surely to make most riders, and companies, ask "Why are you doing this, California?" And, like so many other things, give folks more ammunition when they absolutely don't need any more.
