When it comes to electric vehicles, the Tesla Roadster and Chevrolet Volt get all the love. But there are other EVs rolling around, and they’re balancing on two wheels.
Since 2007, when Vectrix of Middletown, R.I., first rode onto the scene with its battery-powered Maxi Scooter, a growing number of U.S. start-ups have entered the plug-in two-wheeler market. They’ve invested millions of dollars in vehicles, many of which are poised for production within a year.
Like many EV entrepreneurs, North, 33, had looked into hydrogen and biodiesel as power sources but found them impractical. Hydrogen is abundant, but turning it into fuel and developing a distribution infrastructure are costly. Biodiesel can take more energy to produce than it generates.
It’s the power-to-weight ratio of existing batteries that is, in part, driving development of electric two-wheelers. Weighing less than 25% of a typical passenger car, two-wheeled scooters and motorcycles require fewer expensive batteries to bring them to speed. They are also simpler machines; they require fewer components and safety features and aren’t subject to the same stringent governmental requirements as passenger cars.
That makes two wheels a less complicated and less expensive entry point than cars for electric drivetrain entrepreneurs, which is why electric two-wheelers also are coming on the market much faster, and more affordably, than their four-wheeled brethren. Most currently available production electric two-wheelers cost less than $10,000.
Vectrix was the first company to manufacture a production electric two-wheeler. Since introducing its $11,000, 62-mph Maxi Scooter in August 2007, it has unveiled a second model and sold more than 1,500 vehicles globally. Though that isn’t a lot compared with the millions of cars sold every year, it represents a 300% increase in annual sales from 2007 to 2008. This year the company says it’s on track for 150% sales growth.
“Any time you bring a new technology to market, when you can horizontally grow that product, it validates to the consumer that it’s a real technology,” Vectrix CEO Mike Boyle said. This spring Vectrix will roll out a third scooter model, the $5,195, 30-mph VX-2.
Hundreds of bikes isn’t much of a return on the millions of dollars that have been invested so far in Zero, but Saiki sees a strong market. By 2011, he anticipates Zero will be in the black and doing $100 million in business.
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