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Better Than You Think: Harley-Davidson Updates Livewire Details

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Harley-Davidson has been slow to release concrete details on its Livewire electric motorcycle, and to be honest, today is no different.

This is because the Bar & Shield brand remains mostly mum on the hard specs that we crave, but with today’s release, we do see that the Harley-Davidson Livewire is stacking up better than many had once thought.

The reason for this is two-fold. One, Milwaukee continues to finalize the specs on this highly anticipated machine. And two, Harley-Davidson is getting closer to its summer launch and is building its marketing momentum.

However you look at it though, today marks another garment removed in this two-wheeled strip tease. We hope you have your dollar bills at the ready. We still have a few months more to go.

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News

What Do You Call an Electric Buell Motorcycle? Fuell

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Erik Buell’s latest venture has taken another step forward, and gained a new name in the process.

What was once called the VanguardSpark motorcycle venture (a name mashing from Vanguard Motorcycles and SPARK Racing partnership) now goes by the name “Fuell” – a nod to the company’s other founding partner, Erik Buell.

The EV mobility company is still on path to create two machines on its first outing, a small-displacement equivalent electric motorcycle that is called “Flow” as well as a pedal-assist / moped bicycle named “Fluid”.

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Bikes

Up-Close with the Energica Ego Corsa Track Bike

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In a few minutes, I will be getting back on a plane to the United States, after having spent some time with the folks at Energica in Modena, Italy. There is a lot to say about this electric motorcycle company from Italy, so keep an eye out for those stories, but I wanted to whet your appetites with this machine, the Energica Ego Corsa.

The racing version of the company’s electric superbike, the Energica Ego Corsa is the consumer model to what the Grand Prix paddock will be racing in the new MotoE World Cup, which will see 18 riders from 11 teams battling it out in sprint races at 5 venues on the MotoGP calendar.

With some big names on the bikes (Sete Gibernau, Randy de Puniet, Bradley Smith, and more) the spec-series should have some close and hard-fought races. I think the electric series is going to surprise some race fans, and start making some petrol heads into EV freaks…but that is a different story.

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Bikes

The Zero SR/F Finally Breaks Cover

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It has been just about two months since we first got wind that Zero Motorcycles was bringing a new model to market.

Dubbed the Zero SR/F, we could make a joke about how adding an “F” to the name stands for “Finally” as Zero made a protracted teaser campaign for the new motorcycle, but you could make a similar remark on the progress the bike makes for Zero’s fleet.

As our Bothan spies predicted, cornering ABS is standard on the bike at its two trim levels, and power comes in at a reasonable 110hp and a bone-crushing 140 lbs•ft of torque, thanks to the new Z-Force 75-10 motor. With a 12.6 kWh (nominal) battery pack, the Zero SR/F is rated for 109 miles of mixed riding use (161 miles city, 82 miles highway at 70 mph).

The real beauty of the Zero SR/F though, and we are not talking the new body styling, is the bike’s fast recharge time. With modular charging units that come in 3kW, 6kW, 9kW, and 12kW capabilities, the onboard Level 2 charger can top off the bike in 90 minutes (95% in an hour) in the 12kW configuration.

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News

BRP Buys Parts of Alta Motors, Has No Plans to Restart Production

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In a terse press release this morning, Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP) announced that it has acquired select assets of Alta Motors’ parent company Faster-Faster, Inc.

Those assets include “certain intellectual property, patents and some limited physical assets from the former all-electric motorcycle design and manufacturing company,” to put it in BRP’s words.

BRP plans to use these assets as part of its ongoing research into electric and hybrid drives for recreational vehicles, and hopes that the technology will help jumpstart its own efforts for electric transportation products.

The Canadian company is very quick to point out, however, that BRP has no interest in restarting operations of Alta Motors and assumes no liabilities.

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Bikes

This Zero FX Custom Supermoto by Huge Design Is Damn Tasty

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When it comes to attractive motorbikes, we have devoted some critical pixels towards the folks at Zero Motorcycles. Let’s be frank, the design side of the equation hasn’t historically been the brand’s strong suit. The company is making progress, however.

Now, when it comes to custom motorcycles, there has been a quiet resistance to using electric models as starting points for creation, though occasionally we see an electron-powered machine at a bike show that captures our attention.

Today though, we see the happy merger of those two thoughts, with this Zero FX custom supermoto by Huge Design, which debuted this weekend at the The One Motorcycle Show in Portland, Oregon, and was easily our favorite bike at the show. 

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News

Yet Another Zero Motorcycles SR/F Teaser

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It would be nice if the Zero SR/F would just debut already, as this drawn out teaser campaign is getting a bit tired, and the electric motorcycle company runs the risk of putting-off would-be buyers before the bike even debuts.

That said, Zero Motorcycles has another teaser for us.

This time around, we get some tech specs…sorta. The teaser video shows the Zero SR/F in a 14.4 kWh battery pack configuration, and it shows a motor labelled “Z-Force 75-10” on its side.

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News

Video Shows Harley-Davidson Electric Concepts in Action

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Harley-Davidson continues to push its new electric agenda, releasing this week two videos that show its electric scooter and electric moped models in action, just ahead of the X-Games in Aspen, Colorado.

The videos are interesting for two very important reasons. First, they show the two concepts running, just a few weeks after we saw the concepts in actual photos, not sketches.

Not exactly exciting two-wheeled video porn, nevertheless it shows that Harley-Davidson is hard at work bringing these bikes to market…though they do seem pretty rough and in the early stages of development.

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Rumors

Zero SR/F Continues to Be Teased…And It Looks Good So Far

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At the beginning of this month, Zero Motorcycles put the industry on notice, announcing its new Zero SR/F electric street bike.

Details were light at the time, with the California motorcycle brand saying only that the new model was based on a new platform from Zero.

It didn’t take long for our Bothan spies to leak us details on the Zero SR/F though, and what we were told was very impressive. Nearly 20 kWh of battery pack, a 120hp motor, and high-tech goodies like cornering ABS, a TFT dash, and quality components.

From some more biased sources, we have heard that the Zero SR/F makes some strong strides in the design department as well, and today we get some confirmation of that news, as Zero Motorcycles has released a new teaser image.

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Podcast

Brap Talk Podcast #7 – Blood Moon Rising

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Episode 7 of the Brap Talk podcast is out for your two-wheeled audio pleasure, and it is a marathon show. This is for good reason, as Shahin and I will be traveling the coming week, and thus will be a little late in getting Episode 8 out to you.

Don’t worry though, we have some good things lined up ahead, and this show is packed with some good motorcycle conversation.

In it, we get our hands on Ducati’s new models for 2019, and discuss what we like and don’t like about the Bologna brand’s offerings for this year.

Then, we head into some current news, starting with Harley-Davidson’s paid-for study about why motorcycles are so awesome.

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News

Ducati CEO Hints at Coming Future Electric Models

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The discussion about when Ducati would build its first electric motorcycle has been going on for quite some time, but the conversation reached a new height about a year and a half ago, when Volkswagen debuted its Roadmap E initiative.

The concept here is simple, all of the brands in the VW family would have a full line of electric vehicles by the year 2030. This set off speculation about how this order would affect the Bologna-based motorcycle maker.

Then a month later, Ducati’s Edouard Lotthé (Managing Director of Ducati Western Europe) was quoted saying that an electric model, as well as a scooter, are both in the works for the Italian brand.

Lotthé tipped that we wouldn’t see either before the 2021 model year, but time has certainly ticked by since then. Now in the 2019 model year, Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali has added more fuel to the EV fire.

Quoted at a student event at the University of Bologna, Domenicali stated that “the future is electric” and that Ducati was not far from starting production on an electric motorcycle model.

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