It’s about time an American sportbike company jumped into the eMoto scene, and if you thought Erik Buell would be the guy to do it, think again. Roehr is the new champ in all-American motorcycles, and it isn't kidding around with its electric bike. If it looks and performs anything like the Roehr 1250sc, we are in for a real treat.
With racing in his blood and experience working with the likes of Jimmy O’Donnell to win the Battle of the Twins, Walter Roehrich took his passion for racing and put it -- and a whole lot of money -- where his mouth is. He started Roehr Motorcycles about two years ago and launched the Roehr 1250sc (pictured above) not one year later. It’s a power-drunk two-wheeler that weighs 432 pounds, produces 180 hp and offers enough go-fast goodies to fill a grown man’s toy store.
Now Roehrich has his sights firmly fixed on a wicked battery-powered brother to the 1250sc and wants to race it in the TTXGP motorcycle green grand prix. The cleverly nicknamed eRoehr is slated to hit the market this spring and cost one-third as much as his closet competitor, Mission Motors and the slick Mission One.
“We don’t want to be $60K to $70K. So cost had a lot to do with it," Roehrich said. "We want to sell these to people."
Roehrich used mass-manufactured parts engineered and tested for full life-cycle reliability to assemble a package any two-wheeled junkie would want to throw a leg over.
The 35-kilowatt AC motor made by Hi Performance Golf Cars provides 45 horsepower at 96 volts. The beauty of the AC motor means no brushes, no commutator to resurface and no arcing. Translated into lay terms, it's 100 percent maintenance-free and the company claims it ran for 10 years nonstop in testing. Running them at slightly higher voltage, Roehrich ekes out 48 horsepower at 8000 rpm and 105 pound-feet of torque in the eSupersport.
Not enough for you? Opt for the eSuperbike with dual motors pushing 96 horsepower and 210 pound-feet. That’ll fit the bill.
The eSuperbike gets twice the motors, twice the power and twice the price, coming in at $29,995 to the eSupersport's $14,995. That undercuts the Mission One and the $40,000 Mavizen TTX02 by a big margin. The eSuperbike doesn't skimp on the hardware, either. There's talk of Brembo four-pot radial calipers, Marchesini forged aluminum wheels and Ohlins suspension components, but you might see all that eye candy only on a race-ready model to keep these bikes from being some rich man’s garage art.
The batteries in the prototype are Chinese-made Headways lithium-iron phosphate large-format cylindrical cells. The eSupersport will have a 6-kilowatt-hour pack while the eSuperbike gets twice that. Roehrich is considering lithium-iron phosphate cells from A123 Systems, but that would double the cost of the pack so he might offer that as an option on the race-ready machine.
Roehrich claims both models will deliver 130 to 140 miles of range at 30 mph, which translates into a more realistic 60 to 70 miles at highway speeds. The recharge time with the on-board 10-amp charger is four to five hours for the eSupersport and five to six for the eSuperbike. A larger home-based charger obviously will cut down on those times.
What about the “real” figures? The eSupersport hits a claimed top speed of 95 to 100 mph with a zero to 60 time of about 5.0 seconds. The eSuperbike can go head-to-head with modern 600cc bikes with a 3-second sprint to 60 mph, a quarter-mile time in the low 11s and an estimated top speed of 150 mph. And how’s it feel?
“The bike is effortless," Roehrich said. "No clutch. No gear shifter. Once somebody gets on a bike like this, they are gonna come back with a big smile on their face. The performance and range may not be there yet, but it feels like it is.”
The coolest part of the bike is its modularity. Want to start with an eSupersport because the eSuperbike is too much power or simply too expensive? Roehr motorcycles do away with the headache of selling the old ride and buying another based on “necessity.” Just buy an upgrade kit and make your eSupersport into an eSuperbike in your garage.
Roehrich hopes to have the bikes in showrooms by April and make its racing debut at the TTXGP race in California the month after that.
“We hope to sell 50 in the first year,” he said, “But we are very flexible. We can expand rapidly to adjust to the sales demand.”
As for the journey from gas to electricity, Roehrich said, “It’s really cool."
"Early on, I shunned it like everyone else," he said of electric motorcycles. "What I see is the future rather than the product as it stands right now. It’s acceptable, unique and gives a really different feel of riding. It has a future and that’s the exciting part about getting involved. You don’t have to be a multimillion-dollar engine manufacturer to make a competitive vehicle."
Photo and rendering: Roehr Motorcycles
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