alt Hacker NewsStreetfighter v4s has a 4 gallon tank and gets 25-30mpg. It’s what I’m most familiar with, but all my friends with different bikes are in about the same boat as me. https://www.reddit.com/r/Ducati/comments/wlw98q/v4_fill_ups_...
It’s more common among the sporty bikes. A lot of these bikes didn’t even have a fuel gauge until that long ago. Just a fuel light. Tons of guys say they go about 100 miles for fill ups. Maybe that’s cause of the history of the bikes, you want a number that’s easy to remember cause you were really looking at the odometer as your gas gauge. Even a Harley bob only has 165 miles of range according to the website. Assume you don’t go from absolutely full to empty, 1 gallon less than the maximum, you’re at 120 miles.
Yeah the live wire is real expensive. Where are you going to charge it? It doesn’t make sense. Compared to a car the battery is tiny, so you should be able to charge at like full DC fast charge rates on a level 2 charger. Except the original livewire had a super weak built in charger so it couldn’t charge at above 1.4kw? So you had to look for dc chargers. It failed for really good reasons. That’s the point I’m trying to make, it failed for good reasons. I think it’s actually rational.
Traditional motorcycles are a terrible use case for replacing with electric right now. But on the commuter side they are becoming insanely popular (although I think usually they are the illegal suron type bikes).
I’m not gonna defend harleys and cruising. I don’t get it. I’m just saying these things are mostly toys. The new bike buyer is buying a toy. But lots of people have lots of reasons for things. Personally I think sporty cars are about handling and power and stuff so I think sporty EVs are great. Most people disagree with me. They want noises and “character”.
So sure, you pick a high-test bike absolutely not intended for anything but urban hooliganism.
There are virtually zero bikes with an range of only 100 miles. People still joke about the VMax because it actually DID have that limitation. It's the exception that proves the rule.
The vast majority of bikes are good for materially more than that. Even my very staid, traditional Bonnville will easily make 150 on the highway if not farther. My BMW will double that.
My main point about the Livewire is that it's more than Harley failed IT because they're absolutely terrified of annoying their MAGA boomer base that is incredibly hostile to the whole IDEA of EVs.
Daily commuter bikes are a GREAT use case for electrics, IMO. I know a couple folks here in Durham who do it (one, in fact, on a Livewire). I haven't looked hard at electric bikes myself because I do much farther rides than that, so the utility isn't there -- but as an urban runabout, they're awesome.