Zero Motorcycles Drops Prices, But We Need To Do More To Expand Two-Wheeled EV Ridership
If you think about it just a little, it’s pretty obvious that electric motorcycles are about the cleanest form of highway-speed transportation. Even the most heavily-packed of electric buses and electric trains still use heavy vehicles. While the number of people moving per vehicle makes them cleaner than cars (and a lot more space efficient), the amount of weight that has to move per passenger is still a lot higher than a motorcycle, and more weight requires more energy to move.
But, despite the efficiency, they have trouble catching on in wealthier countries. Motorcycles outsell all other vehicles except for bicycles, at least on a global scale. But, in the United States, only a small fraction of homes have a motorcycle owner under the roof, and that’s even when relatively cheap ICE motorcycles are a lot more common. Common reasons given for driving on four wheels instead of two are comfort, weather, safety, and cargo or people capacity.
While we can poke fun at the reasoning all day (raincoats do exist, and people often drive alone to go to their cubicles, with no cargo), none of the reasons for getting an electric motorcycle matter if people simply can’t afford one. ICE motorcycles can be had all day under $3,000 (at least around El Paso) on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist, but electric motorcycles can easily exceed $10,000 and have a lot less range than their ICE counterparts.
So, it’s pretty clear that we’ve got to have some lower prices in the electric motorcycle market if we want to start seeing them more! Fortunately, the folks at Zero Motorcycles recently announced that this is exactly what’s going to start happening. Earlier this month, the company announced a permanent price drop for all MY23 and MY22 units sold in North America. The new pricing applies not only to bikes coming out of the factory, but any inventory that’s still unsold.
The company says this will put Zero motorcycles in reach of more potential buyers than ever before.
“This MSRP reduction is another example of how Zero Motorcycles continues to lead the charge,” said Mike Cunningham, Zero Motorcycles VP of Sales. “It enables Zero to leverage its scale and manufacturing efficiency to make EV motorcycles accessible to a greater number of riders as demand increases and the industry continues to evolve.”
The price drops range from $1,000 to $4,500, with more expensive models getting the biggest discounts. It’s important to note that the rest of the EV industry has been decreasing prices, too. High prices from 2020-22 were due to temporary market conditions (read: shortages), with dealers of all kinds of EVs adding on their own insane markups to take advantage of demand. So, this is a move that’s more about keeping sales and profits at optimum levels than any sort of social or environmental effort (but running an EV manufacturer is already largely an environmental effort at this point anyway).
Cheaper Motorcycles Are Needed, & May Be Sneaking In As E-Bikes
Another important thing to keep in mind about Zero’s announcement is that the price drops didn’t bring any of them below $10,000. But, the cheapest discounted 2022 models are pretty close (only over that by about $350). You can definitely find more expensive gas motorcycles, but you can also find new ones for half this price. So, the disparity between electric and gas is not only big, but can double the price in some cases!
Even if prices become comparable to ICE motorcycles, we also have to keep in mind that we’re still looking at a class of vehicle that isn’t very popular. So, we have to do more than just lower prices to get higher adoption rates.
One way manufacturers have found to increase the take rate is to avoid the regulatory barriers by selling high-powered e-bikes instead of motorcycles. Some of the fastest e-bikes are capable of top speeds that would work on the highway, but most are capable of city speeds of 50 MPH or less. However, the e-bike laws in many states top out at 28 MPH, so operating these bikes at higher speeds is going to catch the eyes of some law enforcement officers (who may or may not know about whatever clever legal loophole you’ve thought up for operating what’s essentially a motorcycle without registering it).
Regulatory Barriers Need To Drop
The other thing fast e-bikes accomplish is to bypass licensing requirements. Most people got their driver’s license and aren’t about to do driving school again. After all, if you know the rules of the road and you know how to ride a bike, you can fill in the gaps in your mind, right? But, there are valuable things to be learned in a motorcycle class about your safety on the road that you won’t know just because you know how to ride a bicycle. So, the time and cost savings of avoiding getting that M endorsement (or whatever they call it in your state) could be a lot more expensive than you think!
But, the lengths bike manufacturers and the public that buys them are going to just to avoid getting a license shows us that there’s some serious room for modernization in regulation. If states could start offering an electric motorcycle endorsement or something like a “Class 4 E-Bike” license that’s a little easier to get (perhaps up to 50 MPH and under 150 lb of bike?), we could seriously lower the barriers to adoption that are keeping two-wheeled motoring back.
Doing something to fix this situation and allow more electric two-wheel transportation to happen is important. Not everyone is willing to ride a bus or a train, and lose the independence of door-to-door control of their own transportation. Giving people a third option that isn’t limited to 15-20 MPH can go a long way toward providing for that need and reducing city congestion.
Plus, outside of the cities, you can’t take a bus out and ride on trails! Making electric motorcycles, especially dual sport models, more popular would lead to a lot more “dual use” transportation and fun machines. People do this all the time with SUVs and trucks, so doing this with affordable motorcycles and fast e-bikes would make a difference.
Featured image by Zero Motorcycles.
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