I read up on the 2012 Zero S ZF9 electric motorcycle (including a little blurb at Popular Mechanics and the companies web page). Then I compared it to the Chevy Volt. Finally I bumped into the less ready for prime time Lightning Motorcycle. (I’m not sure I consider this a “ready to buy today” vehicle so I’d take it with a grain of salt but I included it anyway because… it’s my damn blog.) I made this handy chart:
| Chevy Volt | Zero S ZF9 Electric Motorcycle | Lightning Electric Motorcycle | |
| Video Ad | “This isn’t just the car we wanted to build, it’s the car America had to build” (Are you shitting me?!?) | Electric guitars, pretty girls, fast driving, dirt driving, wheelies, stoppies, etc… (That’s more like it.) | – |
| MSRP | $39,145 (before tax credits) | $11,495–$13,995 (also before tax credits but I think it qualifies) | $38,888 (before tax credits) |
| Top Speed | 100 MPH | 88 | The world’s fastest production electric motorcycle with the SCTA official World Record of 215.960 mph. |
| Range | 35 (all electric). What? Did I read that correctly? | 114 | OEM claim is 100 miles freeway speed and 150 miles city/highway combined |
| Longevity | ? | 300,000 miles on battery | ? |
| For sale right now | Yes | Yes | In theory |
| Being manufactured right now | No | Yes | In theory |
| Chance that you’ll enjoy driving it | None. If you drive this your balls will fall off and your dog will reject your company. | Pretty high. Not the fastest bike out there but you won’t break the bank to have the newest toy on the block. It it looks fun, reasonably driveable, and specs out for a great daily commuter. | Yes but definitely not a daily driver. |
There you have it. For the money you’d flush on a Volt you can buy an electric motorcycle for a fun daily commute and have cash to spare for a new Honda Fit for when it rains. Or you can buy a quasi experimental racing machine that’ll go fast enough to detach your spleen. Given such wonderful choices, who would limp around in a (discontinued) sad sack Volt?
Now I want an electric motorcycle….but I still have no interest in an electric car….
As an engineering project, the Volt reminds me of a thank you note written by a 12 year old boy to his great aunt Mildred for the too small mittens he received for his birthday in July.
Oh, hell, a Volt doesn’t stack up well against the battery powered hotwheels Mattel put out in the 1970’s (the ones that wouldn’t work with about half your layout), and they were 3″ long and had a battery life of about an hour.
One of my major problems with electric vehicle is that people tend to think of them as clean vehicle, mostly because they plug into the wall. My question is where does your electricity come from? Mine is either from coal or uranium, and I don’t know which. But if it is from coal, then the volt isn’t some shitty electric car, it’s a shitty coal burning car.