Are electric motorcycles too crazy?

Electric motorcycle designers are able to come up with zany designs because the machines aren’t constrained by bulky fuel tanks and engines.

In fact, batteries can be made into almost any shape and electric motors are much smaller than an internal combustion engine, allowing designers much more flexibility with their creations.

Consequently, we’ve seen some crazy designs such as the bug-like Johammer, the Saietta that resembles a bull and the just-wild Zec00.

However, none of them is as crazy as the French e-raw with its uncomfortable-looking floating wood-laminate seat and iPhone instrument pod.

It’s made by Expemotion and because it doesn’t have any indicators, mirrors or taillight, it’s not ready for production.

In fact, it’s just a design exercise to see how far electric bikes can go.

While that’s very interesting, it won’t encourage riders to switch from ICE to electric.

Instead, the bikes that are most likely to win us over will be more conventional-looking machines.

The Zero electric motorcycles have been quite successful because they look normal.

Harley-Davidson also chose a conventional naked bike for their LiveWire prototype, although they are yet to announce when they will go to market. It seems Harley is waiting on battery technology to advance so they have more substantial range.

And the Victory Empulse TT goes out of its way to look normal, even having a six-speed transmission!