Electric bike’s not a hog

Enertia replaces noisy, gas-powered motorcycle with an efficient, less intimidating model

By Joseph Gallivan

Pamplin Media Group, Oct 9, 2007 (1 Reader comment)

Brian Wismann of Brammo Motorsports removed some features from the traditional motorcycle to create his electric version. The Enertia is quiet, has a comfortable seat, and doesn’t get hot.

SARAH TOOR / PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP

Car salesmen are classic consumption enablers, employing all their wits to say you need a newer, faster, bigger vehicle. So it’s strange being pitched on conservation.

That’s how it felt last week at Ecomotion, the new electric vehicle dealership at 1625 N.E. Sandy Blvd. Steve Sharer, the general manager, was giving a quick tour.

Although there are dozens of gas-electric hybrids out back (Ecomotion claims $2.5 million of inventory) most of the showroom is given over to plug-in-only vehicles. These run on traditional lead-acid batteries that can be recharged from a standard household electrical outlet.

Among the tiny trucks and electric ATVs was the little Zapino scooter, which gets 30 miles on a charge and does 30 mph. In pride of place on the turntable is a one-person kidney bean called the NMG (No More Gas), which can do 70 mph and travel 50 miles on a charge. It costs $30,000. Sharer says electricity costs less than 2 cents a mile.

In a world full of SUVs and pickups, these are wimpy vehicles with paltry ranges — and Portlanders are lining up to look at them. Asked what sort of people are interested, Sharer says, “People who want to make a difference.”

Sharer was most enthusiastic about the Vectrix scooter, a bulky, spacey-looking heap of plastic that does 62 mph tops and has a good range: 60 miles on a charge. You can slow down either by using regular disc brakes or by pulling another lever, which recharges the battery, as in a hybrid car. It costs $12,800 out the door.

But the glaring fact is, while step-through scooters might be good for the Italians or the Vietnamese, Americans hate scooters. Enter the Enertia, an electric motorcycle made in Ashland by Brammo Motorsports. It can be ordered at www.enertiabike.com (70 orders already have been received ) and will be at dealerships next summer.

No more jarring rides

The Enertia is strictly an urban commuter bike. On a recent media trip to show off a prototype of the Enertia, a modest jaunt around the cones in the parking lot at Portland International Raceway had to suffice.

The results were intriguing. On the plus side, the Enertia, like all electric bikes, is “zero emissions” and cheap to run. It costs 32 cents to recharge the batteries, and goes 40 miles on a charge.

That’s like a gas engine getting 350 miles to the gallon. It looks like a motorcycle, in that you straddle it and sit fairly high in traffic.

On the other hand, it only goes 50 mph tops, and has a range of about 40 miles, which puts it back in scooter territory. The bike looks different, too: The lithium ion batteries are arranged on an aluminum box frame, and the sides are covered in flat panels. The prototype has a seat covered in brown furniture leather.

The ride couldn’t have been smoother. You turn it on by pressing a flush, round button where the gas tank cap would have been. The only sound is the skitter of the drive chain (which may be replaced with a vinyl belt in future models), the whisper of rubber on road, and the breeze in your crash helmet.

In fact, it brings up that eerie feeling you get on a standard motorcycle when the engine cuts out and you coast to a standstill.

Bike designed on computer

The Enertia, the first in a series of bikes, was built by three men. For Brammo’s design director, Brian Wismann, it was his first motorcycle. (Previously he has designed computers, medical equipment and a Daytona Prototype, a class of race car.)

He and the mechanical and electrical engineers swapped files back and forth in computer-assisted design programs such as SolidWorks and AliasStudio (which is incidentally made in Portland by Autodesk).

The vehicle was virtually and digitally protoyped. That is, it was “assembled” and the drive-train was “run” inside computers. This allowed the designers to test an array of materials and designs to find a good combination.

“That enabled us to get the bike as small and nimble feeling as possible,” Wismann says. The Enertia costs $12,000, a price that should come down as batteries become cheaper. They ought to last 15,000 miles.

“I think in three years the Enertia will cost $6,000,” says Ted Spooner, president of Brammo. Today you can buy a 250cc Kawasaki Ninja motorbike for $3,500.

Bike good for first-timers

Spooner says the biggest challenge was writing the software to manage the lithium ion (as opposed to more common lead acid) batteries’ power supply.

“We went for range, speed and quick recharge time,” he says. “People want to have confidence that they can get where they’re going, keep up with traffic, and recharge it on their lunchtime, on 110-volt household current.”

“This was a study in what can be done today with technology that is available today,” Wismann says.

And the name? “It’s a play on electric,” Spooner says. “The word ‘inertia’ in Newton’s definition means a body in motion tends to stay in motion.”

The idea of a bike designed without the physical touch of craftsmen, and without the vibration of an engine, might prove alienating for motorcyclists, however green they are leaning.

There’s a reason many bikes designed now look like they did in the 1940s — certain sounds, smells and impressions are either comforting or thrilling.

“This bike was designed to appeal to somebody like me who has always loved motorcycles but perhaps was too intimidated to go out and buy one,” Wismann says.

Designing an enclosed bike with no hot or noisy bits was “an opportunity to make it really inviting to sit on,” he says. Hence the furniture leather seat.

Instead of targeting the traditional motorcyclist, the Enertia is aimed at female bikers and first-time bikers. And people who want to make a difference. You’ll know them when you see them.

josephgallivan@portlandtribune.com

Find out more

Ecomotion

1625 N.E. Sandy Blvd.

503-244-5658

www.eco-motion.com

Enertia

www.enertiabike.com