Honda has released its roadmap for the transition from gasoline-powered to electrics and that includes saying goodbye to your gas bikes.
How about making an electric motorcycle first before making an outlandish promise?
An electric Grom would be adorable and highly approachable. I want one.
CSC City Slicker is exactly this. I’ve had mine for 2 years and love it.
What range do you get, and under what sort of driving conditions? I occasionally want to do the quick jaunt to the light rail station that’s 20 km one-way.
I only take it for short rides so I haven’t been able to test the range thoroughly. I also keep it under 30 mph as I just use it to zip around the neighborhood to go shopping.
Yes please.
Feels too slow to be honest, but it’s a start. Although I understand that making motorbikes electric is more challenging at least.
I’ve made multiple 1,200 mile trips in under 24 hours on my Goldwing. I don’t think we are anywhere near the battery tech required for anything close to that, and I’m worried the technology limitations will prevent batteries from ever reaching that.
I don’t think catering to people who want to adopt that kind of risky behavior should be a priority to manufacturers and I say that as a rider who’s done long days… It’s fucking stupid to brag about riding distances long enough in a short enough time that you’re putting yourself and other road users in danger.
I appreciate your point of view, but I think it’s kind of reductive. Anyone taking on a road trip like that needs to understand their physical fitness and their limits. I wasn’t bragging. And there are plenty of people out there who have done what I have so there is no reason to think I’m treading new water. I learned from others who ride. You keep yourself physically fit, Get a good nights rest, stay hydrated, but most importantly you know your limits and know when to stop if there are signs. You do you, and I’ll do me.
Sorry but you can’t deny the fact that you’ll get tired over long distances and 1200 miles in a day is an extremely long distance even by car.
I know about iron butts, there’s nothing new about what you’re doing, but just because others do it doesn’t mean it’s wise to do it. I can’t believe I have to say that to an adult, that’s something you’re supposed to understand as a kid.
Hell, truck drivers do that for a living and they have legally imposed maximum driving time for this reason and riding a motorcycle is much more taxing than driving in an insulated cab.
I love it! We went from battery tech to being me getting scolded like a toddler. We are going to have to disagree here. If you can’t stay awake and alert for 19 hours, fine. Good on you for recognizing your limits, but you have to concede there are people out in the world who can do it, safely. Probably more than you think. Yes there is a reason truck drivers keep logs and take lawful mandatory rests. They do it as a job every day, and they get exploited to keep a schedule. Mulitple days of sleep deprivation will have consequences. Were are talking about 1 recreational day on a motorcycle with plenty of preparation. Believe or not it’s not hard. Especially in perfect weather conditions.
Just like there are people that swear they ride better after two beers, it’s just people unable to admit they’re human like anyone else.
Grow up before your hurt someone else.
the chinese has successfully produces semi solid battery and it has insane range and quick charge, still not as fast as gasoline but with robust electric charging infrastructure you may not need charging station. the tech is so close rn
Not just China IIRC and the range isn’t exactly insane, but it seems to more or less on par with the best lithium batteries we have (a little better perhaps), so that’s still pretty great. They might be a little lighter too.
All things considered, that’s pretty amazing for first generation tech and hopefully it will mean battery fires will pretty much become a thing of the past all over the world (eventually).
I would agree. I bought my first bike last year and weighed the electric options, but it’s just not there yet. If the battery tech and charging time are good in the future, I would consider it more seriously. For now, I also live in a very rural area and nobody is setting up charging stations up in the mountains.
Agree. But who knows what tech they might have by then.
I don’t see it happening, but you never know.
Most bike riders I know are weekender, who ride anywhere from 150 to 400km a day. Hard riding. I don’t know if electrics can even do that yet? Not sure.
That’s optimistic and I like that, but a company like Honda doesn’t make decisions based on optimism. They’re confined by government regulations and bottom line profit. I heard last year that they had planned to discontinue the Goldwing soon due to JP environmental regulations, so this announcement doesn’t surprise me. The Goldiwng is a 6 cyl with a 5 gal tank that estimates about 300 mile range. I do hope that at some point in my life we will see comparable range performance in EVs. The pessimist in me is worried we’re going to be limited in the distances we can travel in a day. The last time I made a trip across the US from California to home it took 3 days. I can’t imagine how long it would have taken if we had to stop to charge every 200-250 miles. I haven’t even heard of an EV cycle with anything near that range yet. 15 years isn’t that far away.
Let’s not rush things, Honda.
