Electric motorcycle kit and poll
 

I've come a long way with my electric motorcycle and I want to gather more info, I have a thread on the build of my Electric Honda CX500, so if you want the scoop on the history and build of it check out that thread!

I've spent about $3,500 on my current motorcycle, it's not legal yet so my estimated range is around 50 miles at 65mph and 70 miles at 45mph, it has lithium batteries and dry weight is about 40 pounds under stock dry weight with a gasoline engine, so weight wise and space wise there is room for more batteries, it's just a matter of cost.
What I want to know is more about who my market is and what people think about the specs and price point so I get a better idea on the direction to go, like should I stick with lithium batteries or drop it down and run lead acid batteries that are cheaper in the short term but give reduced range and need to be replaced more often.
At this time I'm still a ways off from having something to sell, I need to set up an LLC, get bids for the parts I can't make in the home shop and of course further test what I have already made to make sure it's something that I'd want to put my name on.

I enjoy doing the work and I'd probably like to at least tweak a thing here or there to suite my tastes. So, if I were to do it I'd only want the hard parts to make, and leave the rest up to me.

Another potential business venture, eh?

I don't need an EV bike, but I like the modular ideas in yours.

So it is about a electric only bike ?

I know there are a lot of different ways to do it but my dream setup is :
Up to 35 mph electric only operation for up to 10 miles
Electric regen on braking
All of the above on top of a regular gas engine (say a 250) within a 80 pounds kit.

Is it possible ?

(3500$ sounds OK)

A basic parts kit would be my choice, since my ideal ev would be an enclosed trike, and used golf carts are fairly easy to come by in my area.

My ideas include making and selling just the parts that connect a low cost golf cart motor to a shaft drive Honda motorcycle, that is the $300 low cost kit allowing you to build up an electric motorcycle using a $100-200 used golf cart motor, a much more powerful motor then the Mars or Etek motors and with a total motor + kit cost of about the same or less.

The $1,500 kit or full motorcycle would be with lead acid batteries, so reduced range and short battery life, I haven't priced out bulk prices on lead acid batteries yet but my hope is that with an assembled motorcycle the bulk prices would allow me to sell something at slightly above combined retail price of all of the parts and still pay my self for my time.

The $3,500 version would be with lithium batteries, very close in design to what I currently have put together, bulk prices on batteries can bring the cost way down but it'd also be a decent sized investment.

The AC20 motor and maybe even some of the larger brushless 3 phase motors bolt on the same way a standard golf cart motor does, 4 bolts and 2-3 wires and the motor is swapped out! so upgrade options are nearly endless with pretty much any of the parts.

I'm not interested in putting a gas engine on this or making it a hybrid, the added cost and complexity is to much for me to want to deal with, however if someone really did want to put a gas engine on I think a trailer would be the way to go, a 10 mile range at 35mph could easily be done with a 48v 20 amp hour battery pack, not really possible with lead acid at that voltage because of the high discharge rates so a higher voltage would be needed, but it could be done, but at that point a very small lithium pack would work too of course the lithium cells are cheap enough that putting a larger lithium pack on is not going to add that much cost because the big cost in a small pack is the charger and battery management system so the only real savings is in space and weight.
I also don't want to bother with a hybrid because I don't ride more then 30-50 miles per day on a motorcycle and batteries store plenty of energy to do that, if I want to go farther then I want to listen to the radio, take other people along and be enclosed inside of a vehicle.

Can you post a link to your build thread? I can't find it.

Thanks.


Jay

You mention that the kit would be for honda shaft drives, does that mean it would fit a goldwing swingarm?

The adapter shaft I have fits the splines of the Goldwing, I've only done test fits on other peoples Goldwings as I don't own any Goldwings my self, so it would be more work to make the adapter plates that bolt to the Goldwing frame, but that could be done with a drill press in a home shop, but the splined shaft that connects the drive shaft to the golf cart motor is a hard part to make in the home shop.