“Don’t you miss the sound?” What it is really like to own an electric motorcycle

I have a confession to make: I’m slightly obsessed with electric motorcycles.

I recently purchased my third fully electric motorcycle, which I have justified as the perfect way to celebrate my tenth year of electric motorcycling.

But how did this obsession come about? And what’s it really like to own an electric motorcycle which, after all, is a tiny niche within the already niche market that is electric vehicles, in Australia at least?

Like so many others, I got my motorcycle license the day I turned sixteen. Over almost 40 years I have owned a huge variety of motorcycles and raced two-strokes in the 1980s.

Cars are just utilitarian transport to me. Motorcycling, on the other hand, stirs the blood; it triggers every sense. Each ride is an exercise in survival requiring 100% commitment and focus. But the reward, if you work hard on a zen-like singularity between man and machine, is a sensation of utter freedom, almost like feeling that you can fly.

So, yes, I dig motorcycles. But why electric?

I “stumbled” into the solar industry 30 years ago. With a background in manufacturing, I knew how to make things, but the world of electronics and batteries was all new to me. In the early 1990s, every single solar system had energy storage, before grid connected solar was a thing, and Australia had a small but innovative off grid solar industry.

The learning curve is pretty steep in off-grid energy and reliability is paramount when you are utterly reliant on the energy stored in batteries. You get pretty short shrift from an owner if the lights go out or the toilet won’t flush.

Ultimately, learning how to make solar, electronics and batteries reliable combined with a passion for motorcycles and provided a perfect breeding ground for an electric motorcycle obsession.

Even today, I am at the cutting edge of technology, working for Australian solar software company Solar Analytics, who are the forefront of the democratisation and digitisation of solar and storage.

Today’s challenge is to enable the increased uptake of solar using advanced software. We can leverage more savings for owners, integrate increasingly complex battery and EV technology, centrally control systems and enhance grid reliability all at the same time, while we inexorably surge towards 100% renewables. The Luddites don’t stand a chance.

But back to motorcycles. In the early 2000’s, I went to the US on a regular trip to visit technology suppliers and it was then that I got my first ride on an electric motorcycle.

One of the senior technical guys was a motorcyclist and keen innovator, so he built his own electric motorcycle and gave me a ride. It was cumbersome, heavy and a homebrew, but I was immediately hooked. For the next 10 years, every time I rode my motorcycle, I daydreamed of how to get all the fun without the emissions.

But, while I’m handy on the tools, I’m no electronics guru, so building my own electric vehicle was too much of a stretch. Instead, I bided my time and studied the market for options, finally landing on California’s Zero motorcycles; a pioneer in electric motorcycling who were arguably among the first to achieve scale in manufacturing and sales.

At that point, the electric motorcycle gods smiled on me. By 2012, I was consulting to solar businesses and Zeros were available in limited quantities in Australia. One of my clients had one and we struck a deal that if I could help him, he would pay me with the bike. I never worked so hard in all my life and he made good on his promise, delivering me a 2010 model Zero DS.

With a tiny 4kWh battery and a DC brush motor these early bikes were a bit rudimentary and required a fair bit of TLC, but my commuting duties switched to fully electric. Limited to a maximum range of around 40km the bikes were strictly inner-city commuters and short duration off road, but renowned as fun and loaded with torque.

Two years later, I again found myself in the US and this time, bee-lined straight to Zero’s factory in Sata Cruz to test its newly released model featuring an all-new brushless AC motor and larger 11kWh battery pack. The company had made massive advancements and delivered a bike that could do almost 100mph, required virtually zero maintenance and with a range that had more than doubled to around 150km.

Around a year later I had swapped my vintage Zero for a new 2014 model, which I owned for almost seven years. I put almost 50,000 kms on my 2014 with regular commuting duties and even a bit of light long-range touring after the electric motorcycle gods smiled on me for a second time, with a deal that was too good to refuse.

Long distance riding on a Zero was possible but their brilliant mantra of “keeping things simple” meant that it utilised a low voltage battery pack, rendering the few fast charging stations that were available useless to electric motorcycle owners.

Australians are rarely daunted by such things and another local Zero owner developed a portable fast charger that could be carried on the bike. It was a bit clunky, but it worked – as long as you could find a 3Phase power outlet.

Luckily, the rise of the grey nomad scene meant that almost every show ground and many camping spots had these high-power facilities, so we quickly mapped out routes where we could charge for longer trips.

What followed was arguably the first electric motorcycle group tour in Australia’s history, with no less than nine electric motorcycling early adopting buddies making a 250km trip to Jenolan Caves and back.

For a petrol motorcycle, this is a pretty easy jaunt and a few hours ride with maybe one fuel stop. But for early adopters of electric motorcycles, it meant finding high power outlets at strategic distances, carefully managing energy consumption, patiently shuffling bikes around to charge and carrying bags full of cabling, adapters and homebrewed electrical equipment. It was slow, but it worked.

At one stop at a show ground, we managed to simultaneously charge all the bikes at once, pulling almost 90kW at one stage. I suspect that, despite our generous donations, the showground might not have welcomed us back after getting the bill.

Sitting at a bar that night with a fellow rider, we had the mutual realisation that we had probably just achieved something that had never been done before – a grand day out on motorcycles without using a drop of petrol. We felt like we were in the midst of helping make the future a reality by pushing the boundaries.

Still, my love affair with Zero was not with hiccups, including a relatively minor electrical issue that turned into an 18-month hiatus off the road, trying to get the bike repaired.

Zero had exited Australia and there was simply no one able to diagnose and repair the bikes for some time. An unfortunate turn of events, but also all part and parcel of being an early adopter – and Zero did eventually help, a service agent did eventually appear, and the bike is now running again.

Over this time, the number of electric motorcycle manufacturers and choice had grown significantly, although most were niche players. However, announcements and prototypes were starting to flow from well-known brands – KTM, Piaggio, Honda, BMW and more were all dabbling and even Harley Davidson were talking up the opportunity.

Even with the pain of early adopter glitches, ownership costs are astoundingly low; compared to my previous bike over three years I have saved more than $5,700 in fuel and ownership costs and avoided more than 6,000kgs of CO2 emissions. What’s not to like?!

Intriguingly, although onlookers are universally interested and fascinated, the single most common question I get is “don’t you miss the sound?”

And I get it, sort of. Growing up around bikes, I have a deep and visceral emotional connection between the sound of a motorcycle and the thrills that it embodies. We emotionally interpret them to be one and the same. But I have utterly re-learned this.

The conventional sound of a motorcycle remains evocative, but it’s become superfluous to how I get my kicks – along with heat, vibration and maintenance. Quiet is good. Just don’t fart while you’re sitting at the traffic lights.

In 2020, more love from the gods – I got a phone call from a friend, who also happens to be the editor of The Driven, Giles Parkinson, saying Harley Davidson had invited us to go to the Australian launch of their new all electric Livewire. Giles said he had assumed I might like to go, and RSVP’d for me.

After attending the launch, I raved to anyone who would listen about how far the technology had come and how Harley had, in my view not only delivered a big brand machine, but solved many of the challenges of electric motorcycles of years gone by.

The Liverwire looks pretty much like a regular motorcycle to the untrained eye and is gorgeous to start with. Its superbly equipped so it handles, brakes and steers beautifully. Then there’s the power – 0-100kmh in just 3 seconds is very, very fast. Equipped with the latest batteries and software it is sophisticated, clever and has the critical DC Fast charging ability I have been waiting for, albeit at a fairly hefty price tag.

After being given a generous two-week long period to ride and review the Livewire, which due to lockdowns in Sydney turned into almost three months, I put in more than 3000km on the bike before reluctantly handing it back.

Predictably, I was sleepless, restless and endlessly hoping to get my hands on one of my own. Once again, I found a way, and am now the proud owner of a Livewire.

I never thought I would own a Harley Davidson, they just weren’t my thing. But the experience of being off the road for so long had left a sour taste in my mouth. A big brand that would stand behind it’s products into the future justified a higher entry price.

Now, I have around 100hp on tap, can fast charge, and recently completed a 420km ride in a day, demonstrating the huge difference that DC fast charging makes as I prepares for a 2,000km road trip early in 2022 – because I can!

It may be a niche within a niche and electric motorcycles still have inherent limitations around range due to their limited real estate for batteries. But one thing is for sure – talk to one of the few hundred electric motorcycle owners in Australia and they’ll talk your ear off about how good it is being part of the future.