New fast German e-bike or motorcycle??

[Intex]

Grace
hand assembled in Berlin/Biesenthal. Grace boasts a water-tight / ultra-light CNC-Aluminum frame, a 1300-watt motor, lithium-ion batteries, a 40 30 MPH speed, a range of up to 31 miles, and a one-hour recharge time. Looks good enough for a Kraftwerk video, although you'd better steer clear of the Autobahn with this thing. The bike starts shipping in January for €5,877 ($8,760-ish).

 

[emissions-free]

Nice looking piece of kit. The batteries are mounted inside the frame?

 

[Barry Heaven]

It's legally a motorbike. Seems to me if that it would be better to get something that is 100% motorbike, such as these:

BRAMMO Enertia powercycle : 100% Electric Motorcycle : Home

50cycles Electric Motorbikes - Zero S Motorcycle Home Page

Vectrix DE :: Homepage: Vectrix 100% Personal Electric Vehicle, Electric Scooter, Zero Emissions::Vectrix.com

I think they are all cheaper.

 

[emissions-free]

You do have a point, but the electric motorcycles are all big and heavy things, some more than others. Whereas something like this is just a bit of a heavy bike abd if the batteries go flat you can still pedal to get home.

Bikes like this would be great if there was a way to legalise them without the full motorcycle treatment that is required at the moment. It could also do with being a fair bit cheaper

 

[NRG]

Daniel already posted about this bike:

http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/electric-bicycles/5034-expensive-e-bike-weird-geometry.html

 

[emissions-free]

Hmm.

It looks a lot better from the front than it does from the side

 

[Barry Heaven]

You do have a point, but the electric motorcycles are all big and heavy things, some more than others. Whereas something like this is just a bit of a heavy bike abd if the batteries go flat you can still pedal to get home.

Bikes like this would be great if there was a way to legalise them without the full motorcycle treatment that is required at the moment. It could also do with being a fair bit cheaper

That's true. I can see a role for them. As you say, it's very expensive for what it is.

 

[Patrick]

It seems to me that the pedals on this thing are mostly for show. If you kept withing the range of the batery then when would you use them?

 

[flecc]

http://www.50cycles.com/zero/zero-s.shtml#page=page-1

Vectrix DE :: Homepage: Vectrix 100% Personal Electric Vehicle, Electric Scooter, Zero Emissions::Vectrix.com

Vectrix have sadly gone bankrupt.
.

 

[emissions-free]

It seems to me that the pedals on this thing are mostly for show. If you kept withing the range of the batery then when would you use them?

I don't know about that. I reckon that even with a really powerful e bike pedals are still nice. If you've got really high gearing which this doesn't seem to have, you can still add something to the motor power or preserve the battery a little. Pedaling whilst accelerating makes a lot of difference IMO.

Even though this is quite powerful, it's still a bike IMO.

It's wouldn't be difficult or particularly expensive to add the necessary parts to an existing bike and obtain similar but maybe not quite so high performance for not so much money.

 

[Barry Heaven]

Vectrix have sadly gone bankrupt.
.

I'm no financial expert Flecc but they appear to have filed for 'Chapter 11' bankruptcy which apparently allows them to transfer to a new corporation called New Vectrix LLC as a means, I think, to leave behind bad debts. Not sure where they stand as of today though.

It is a real shame and no doubt a victim of the recession. However I believe they were a bit too early in this game and battery technology was not quite advanced enough. They used NiMH batteries with a limited range. I was looking forward to the planned new model with Li batteries and hopefully a more attractive range. Hope that have resurfaced somehow as they have a well engineered product.

 

[flecc]

I was hoping that too, but there's been no further sign of life and today's economic climate is far from ideal for them to restart. The technical problems they had were also damaging and are likely to discourage further investment.

As you say, they were too early on the market. The day of the pure e-vehicle isn't quite here yet, our bikes only rescued by their limited performance combined with our pedal assistance.
.