I was talking to InsideEVs' Patrick George earlier today, hot on the heels of Donut Lab's and Verge Motorcycles' solid-state battery announcement. We were discussing the performance figures of the new battery. And, indeed, it's an impressive breakthrough, as the Verge TS Pro with the new solid-state battery claims that it offers a whopping 370 miles of range, and fast chargeups to 100% charge in under 20 minutes.
Basically, it's everything you could ask for in an EV motorcycle battery. But he asked me a particularly poignant question, and one that's important to the rest of the world; enough that it spurred this article.
"I wonder where they can succeed," George began, finishing with, "where other electric motorcycle makers really haven't?"
My response probably wasn't one that buoyed the hopes and dreams of someone who runs a site all about electric vehicles, and how they're the future of transportation, so buckle up. I responded that "I don't think they can."
And for those who've paid attention to my coverage on the all-electric Stark Future motorcycles, and how much I love them, that might seem like an odd hill to die on. But street motorcycle riding and dirt motorcycle riding are vastly different creatures, and there are a bunch of asterisks involved with obtaining those stand-out stats on the Verge that impact a motorcyclist's use.
Moreover, even the big dogs in the electric motorcycle space are, at this point, pretty much dead, as the vast majority of the riding public has said, "No, we don't like these. They don't fit our lifestyle." And I don't think Verge has the juice to change those opinions, even with a solid-state battery as good as this one.
Now I want to address those performance figures. Specifically, Verge's claimed 370 miles of range.
It's an interesting one, as the company has done these long-range tests before to showcase just how long you can go with its previous batteries. Last year, Verge and Donut pulled out all the stops and went on a media offensive, with videos, press releases, and a social media campaign that captivated a bunch of eyes and ears, and likely a few hearts by doing 193 miles on a single charge. Impressive sounding, right?
But that specific test was met with consternation by the motorcycling community, as Verge did it in London's city center at almost walking pace. No, seriously, the range test took a full day to complete and was finally accomplished with an average speed of 12 mph. The fine print on the Verge with the then-big battery pack was actually 119 miles of range at normal city speeds, and even less on the highway. For the life of me, after looking through the company's press release and on its site, where the new solid-state battery is available to order, I can't find a real-world range estimation. All it says is "Up to 370 miles."
So my guess is that, while this new solid-state battery is better than the previous long-range 20kW battery pack that Verge did "193 miles" on, it still isn't doing the claimed headline-inducing mileage. [At least, not the way most people normally ride their motorcycles.jj]
Based on real-world experience, along with Verge's estimation, however, you may be looking at the first 200-mile electric motorcycle, and that's pretty darn cool. Add the claimed 0-186 miles of range in under ten minutes of fast-charging, and you're beginning to be on par with a regular gasoline-powered motorcycle. But did you catch my emphasis?
Motorcycling is the last bastion of personal freedom in today's modern transportation landscape, and the ability to not have to plan out a trip is one of the great gifts of these vehicles. You just toss a leg over and head out. It could be for a short jaunt or an iron-butt that crosses three states. Even with a theoretical 200-mile range and fast charging capabilities, you still need to plan everything out. You plan your route. You plan your destination. And you need to rely on what is currently an unreliable charging infrastructure. You can't just be in the moment, which is the very purpose of a motorcycle, unlike a car, which has more washing machine utility at this point than anything else.
I really don't want to sour the mood, however. What Donut Lab and Verge have achieved is great work, and it's work that'll propel electrification forward. But not only is the range suspect, and the charging dependent on unreliable access and infrastructure, but they also face a public that's just not buying on-road electric motorcycles, even from the mainstays that've been around for decades at this point.
LiveWire, Harley-Davidson's EV endeavor, is on death's door. The group has a new CEO, and if that offshoot survives the year, I'll be shocked. Sales are abysmal, the motorcycles have been plagued by recalls, and even with price slashing and a handful of new motorcycles, no one cares about them, nor have I ever seen one out in the wild. And as Harley proper suffers under idiotic tariffs, an aging clientele, the economic downturn plaguing up-and-coming rider generations, and dealer issues, the experiment that is LiveWire feels like it'll be the first thing that Harley's new CEO will cut.
There's also Zero, which, at this point, is somehow in a worse spot than LiveWire.
Long thought to be the bright spot in the electric motorcycle industry, Zero's sales have collapsed, the CEO was ousted, loads of workers were laid off, and the whole company was moved to Europe at the end of last year. The last gasp to save the company, something I've long said would be the way forward for the motorcycling industry as a whole, as well as every EV motorcycle company, i.e., a set of electric dirt bikes, just launched, which is good news. But those two motorcycles, bikes that follow Sur-Ron and Stark's path, may be just too late to make the impact Zero needs them to in order to save the company.
And then there's Energica, which died last year, too. It's been somewhat resurrected, but to a much smaller degree, and it remains unclear whether or not they'll continue in any real way.
Suffice it to say, while Verge and Donut's new solid-state battery is cool as hell, pushes the technology forward, gets a real solid-state battery into the hands of consumers when EV technology absolutely needs a win, I still just don't think it's going to win the hearts and minds of motorcyclists. More range is a good thing. Ultra-fast charging is great when it works. But the stats still aren't good enough for the average motorcyclist. City folks, people who love the bleeding edge of technology, or EV wonks, are gonna like the Verge. And you're likely to see more automakers take notice of the technology Donut Labs has come up with.
That's all without talking about how the Verge TS Pro with the solid-state battery will cost consumers $34,900. I'll have you remember that Harley-Davidson wanted to charge folks about that price for the original LiveWire and then subsequently had to retreat and repeatedly slash its price for anyone to begin to even care. And that didn't even work out in the end, either.
In talking with George, I told him, "Cars are transportation. Bikes are freedom. It's easier to sway over the sect of car drivers who hate driving and would rather have public transit to convert to an EV. Bike owners aren't in it for that." Until companies like Verge and Donut can solve for that user difference, then, despite making breakthroughs in battery technology, they still won't sell EV motorcycles.
