Kawasaki is now the first of the big 4 to sell electric bikes

It's official, They're here, now I already made a post about why they shouldn't have used the Z name, I wished they kept it exclusive for only 4 strokes, but I guess the Z name is for all the Naked bikes kawasaki sells.


We'll apart from the name they don't look like bad bikes, I just hope they don't discontinue their other smaller internal combustion bikes in favour of these.



To be honest about my own views on electric bikes is that they don't make any sense, electric scooters and mopeds do because those are supposed to be limited only to commute in the cities and most of their range allows them to do that, but to me and most people motorcycles are meant to just start up right away and go anywhere as long as there are petrol pumps within the distance that it takes to empty the tank, on electric bikes, there really isn't that much charging station you can find once you leave the cities in most countries like mine in India, and even then you'd have to wait like 6-8 hours to charge 


Edit: they suck, and can only go like 70 km before needing to charge for 6 hours again, so they're basically glorified mopeds that look like Ninjas and Z bikes, 
top speed of only 99km/h  which is even slower than the ninja 125 which they used to sell in Indonesia, even that did like 120km/h, this is horrendous


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www.kawasaki.com/en-us/motorcycle/z/supe...CLES-_-VEHICLEBUCKET
www.kawasaki.eu/en/Motorcycles/EV.html

Go woke go broke 

I'm guessing most of us would have the switch on "e-boost" all the time and then have to push it home!  

Garbage. Max speed 55 and a 41 mile range. 

Is this progress? Like going from metal to plastic, or chrome to paint and then try to convince us its cool. I'll stick with my 70's and 80's bikes.

I'm not anti-electric motorcycles, but I have to agree that the technology just isn't there yet. The disappointing thing for me here is that Kawasaki was teasing a bike dubbed "Project Endeavor" that was an electric Ninja with a gear box and now they're finally out with an electric motorcycle and it doesn't have a gear box. Gear boxes have extended the range and fuel mileage of the internal combustion engines all this time, and you're gonna give me something that's already more limited on range, and not put a gear box in it? Bummer. 

It makes perfect sense too. In theory you could take off in any gear on an electric and it wouldn't stall, you'd just wear out the battery faster. But if you know how to ride and how to keep a bike within an optimal range, a gear box could seriously improve your battery's range. Not to mention the benefits of regenerative braking or super capacitors. 

Stereordinary wrote:

I'm not anti-electric motorcycles, but I have to agree that the technology just isn't there yet. The disappointing thing for me here is that Kawasaki was teasing a bike dubbed "Project Endeavor" that was an electric Ninja with a gear box and now they're finally out with an electric motorcycle and it doesn't have a gear box. Gear boxes have extended the range and fuel mileage of the internal combustion engines all this time, and you're gonna give me something that's already more limited on range, and not put a gear box in it? Bummer. 

It makes perfect sense too. In theory you could take off in any gear on an electric and it wouldn't stall, you'd just wear out the battery faster. But if you know how to ride and how to keep a bike within an optimal range, a gear box could seriously improve your battery's range. Not to mention the benefits of regenerative braking or super capacitors. 
 

I agre but still even though the technology just isn't here yet, what ever it is here, kawasaki just spit on it's face.

In India electric scooters are selling well because they're cheaper to run than petrol scooters, and I've been leasing the most popular one, it's called Ola S1 and it's made by a flipping Tech Start up whose previous experience was an online cab app, like literally a Uber clone, but still they made this bike

www.bikedekho.com/ola-electric/s1-pro-1st-gen.html?amp=1  

Which can still go 180 km on a single charge and a top speed of 116 km/h and the craziest part is it only costs a little over 1500$ as compared to kawasaki's 7000$

ckahleer wrote:

Is this progress? Like going from metal to plastic, or chrome to paint and then try to convince us its cool. I'll stick with my 70's and 80's bikes.
 

you can't compare your 70s and 80s bike to this, that's like comparing a Corvette to a Chevy Bolt 

Mikaw wrote:

Garbage. Max speed 55 and a 41 mile range. 

 

exactly, electric mopeds that are 7x cheaper can beat them in max Speed, and range by a big margin (I'm leasing one which has 110 miles range and a top speed of 72 mph and costs a little over 1500$) 

sf4t7 wrote:

I'm guessing most of us would have the switch on "e-boost" all the time and then have to push it home!  

 

Or be better off just riding a bicycle 

I'm sure Kawasaki has done market research and targetted their EB (Electric Bike) to that market.  It clearly isn't intended for the North American market.

With respect to the lack of gearing....it isn't required on an electric motor and would not add anything except more weight.  EV's are far more energy efficient than ICV"s...about 2 to 3 times for passenger vehicles.

My useage is mostly day trips of up to 500 km on well travelled highways.  I would need to stop and recharge several times, which would be a downer.  Until they increase the range I'm not a buyer.  Maybe when solid state battery technology is sorted out, but by then I'll be too old to ride anything except an electric wheelchair!

hardrockminer wrote:

I'm sure Kawasaki has done market research and targetted their EB (Electric Bike) to that market.  It clearly isn't intended for the North American market.

With respect to the lack of gearing....it isn't required on an electric motor and would not add anything except more weight.  EV's are far more energy efficient than ICV"s...about 2 to 3 times for passenger vehicles.

My useage is mostly day trips of up to 500 km on well travelled highways.  I would need to stop and recharge several times, which would be a downer.  Until they increase the range I'm not a buyer.  Maybe when solid state battery technology is sorted out, but by then I'll be too old to ride anything except an electric wheelchair!


 

I'm not even from North America and still it's a really bad deal, in Asian and Indian markets electric scooters like the one which I'm riding now the Ola S1 pro has 2x the range and way more top speed and these are made by companies relatively smaller than kawasaki and 1/7th the price,in the European market BMW and Piaggio are already making far better electric scooters which can put these bikes to shame too for the same price. In the African and South American markets Indian and Chinese manufacturers already have a strong hold and can easily launch the far better electric scooters which I mentioned.

So who  is even gonna buy these bikes?


​​​Electric scooters are more sensible than electric motorcycles, and somehow kawasaki is the only one of the Japanese big 4 that has never made a scooter, if Honda or Suzuki had launched these bikes, then it'd have made sense but kawasaki just doesn't