alt Hacker NewsThe US desperately needs some competition in the EV motorcycle space.
There are several players but they still seem boutique and and way over what the price should be.
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My quick searching is finding that 3% of US vehicles are motorcycles.
Sure, more competition is good, but given their safety profile (terrible!) I suspect motorcycles are a secondary mode of transportation rather than a primary. Mopeds for intra city usage seems more high demand than highway speed vehicles that have to drive alongside SUVs.
An aussie player slowly building https://www.savicmotorcycles.com/
The US would rather pay off to tarriffs the competition than properly compete. Even the Ford CEO drove A Chinese EV for 6 months and he didn't want to give it up. Also indirectly he didn't think Ford could compete, calling it an "existential threat"
https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-ceo-driving-xiaomi-su7-...
It's really stupid because Xiaomi isn't making anything truly revolutionary. It's just a lot of consumer thoughtful ideas, not ones that try to shove ads and subscriptions in your dang car. And this is our "existential threat" to a century of manufacturing. Wonder how Henry would feel.
(and the tarriffs stuff isn't just 2025. That's been there through all of Biden's admin. Good idea... If they used those 5 years to actually ramp up production).
I'd argue the competition is already here: e-bikes. Regulation and safety concerns mean motorcycles will always be niche.
It is amazing the premium on EV in both bikes and motorcycles. I mean a honda Navi motorcycle is only $2000 somehow.
there's not that much of a US motorcycle market in general.
As for electric, I would guess it's zero? (maybe harley?)
It's interesting that japanese motorcycles have always been on the cutting edge... but not on the cutting edge as far as electric.
Nobody can compete against China today: almost zero regulation, massive subsidies, integrated supply chain (also subsidized), a lot of credit, and millions of cheap engineers (no unions!). And some companies can just pay suppliers with bonds/IOUs on future earnings (like BYD).
This is actually an area I am incredibly interested in, an area that I have pretty deep technical knowledge of (power electronics, my day job), and and area where I would _love_ to make products in. I'm a total ebike evangelist just ask anyone who has ever commented anything to me when I am on my ebike.
But I sadly know enough to know that doing hardware in the USA is nightmare level expensive and difficult. I could pull every string and empty every account into making an eBike with twice the cost and half the performance of it's Chinese counterpart. I'd much rather just make an app that takes a cut for connecting people with eBikes that fit their needs/desires.