A hundred years after being overtaken in popularity by its gas-powered counterpart, the once-ubiquitous electric car looks set for a comeback as auto firms in China, India, and the U.S. demonstrate new, more practical models for release over the next few years. Less noticeable but similarly swell are the parallel advances that have been made in recent years within the realm of the electric motorcycle, which is quickly coming into its own as a viable option for urban transportation sans the gasoline.
In this case, the company to watch may very well be Zero Motorcycles, a California firm that’s shattering industry barriers with its Zero S model. Whereas many electric vehicles are still widely knocked for their less-than-ideal performance in terms of speed and acceleration, the Zero S goes from zero to 30 in less than two seconds, which is great for those occasions when you’ve just got to be going 30 miles an hour within two seconds of a given moment. The model’s atypical speed advantages derive in part from its equally atypical design; incorporating aircraft-grade aluminum frames and such things as cylindrical swingarm cross tubes, the Zero S weighs in at a relatively light 225 pounds. Nonetheless, it also features full torque across the board and exceptional throttle response.
Even as the bike manages a performance comparable to its gas-guzzling cousins, the Zero S is an electric through and through, capable of powering up at any standard outlet and making use of a lithium ion battery. As such, the bike produces less than one-eighth of the pollution per mile and only a hundredth of the nitrous oxide than does a standard chopper. It’s also extraordinarily quiet, which may upset purists of the sort who live to rev their engines and do whatever it is that makes the engine sound like a .243 going off next to one’s eardrum, but to hell with those people anyway.
Price-wise, the Zero S clocks in at just under $10,000. Zero plans to have demo models available in dozens of cities across the U.S. and Europe in the near future and is already shipping to buyers across the globe.
