With rising petrol prices and the release of plug-in electric and hybrid cars, the auto industry (as well as this blog!) have given the electric car revolution significant attention over the past two years.
However, with all of the attention on the electric cars, a smaller adaption of the technology may have been overlooked – electric motorcycles.
A new report by Pike Research, a clean technology consulting firm, predicts that the worldwide number of electric motorcycles and scooters will skyrocket from 17 million today to 138 million by 2017. The report predicts that electric motorcycles, in particular, will be popular in North America – not just in China.
The benefits of electric motorcycles and scooters lie in their (potentially) relatively low capital cost, they do not take a lot of space and are easy to maintain, therefore making them attractive for city dwellers. Unlike an electric car, one could conceivably charge an electric scooter in one’s back yard.
Whilst the mainstream technology is still several years away, there is already a product on the market for the early adopters – the Sora, being developed by Lito Green Motion. However, at US$43,000, it’s anything but ‘low cost’ for now!