A new ‘Made in America’ electric motorcycle is making its debut

Cleveland Cyclewerks, an Ohio-based gas motorcycle manufacturer, has announced that it is getting into the electric motorcycle game.

The company has produced a number of gas-powered motorcycles over the years through a combination of overseas and domestic manufacturing and assembling.

But now the company is preparing to launch its first electric motorcycle, which will also be its first-ever American-made motorcycle.

That would earn it a title that very few others can claim. There aren’t yet many companies building electric motorcycles in the US. The Harley-Davidson LiveWire is perhaps the best example of an American-made electric motorcycle, while Zero’s models and the new Lightning Strike are both largely built in the US, but still rely on overseas manufacturing for some critical parts.

From the Cleveland Cycleworks’ announcement:

A New Concept in E-Mobility, to be released live to the world 03-20-2020 @ the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum in Cleveland Ohio.

This will be our first made in the USA product, which is exciting in itself.

This will be the first bike we have ever run pre-orders on, which will come soon. The project’s code name Falcon Rising represents our brand’s rise in the E vehicle space. It also brings a new chapter to our company, looking inward and local to grow globally. We have wanted to product bikes ourselves, here in Cleveland for 10 years. The time is now, and we are seizing the opportunity.

This vehicle represents 10 years of consumer insight, feedback from loyal customers, and a unique take on the market, that Cleveland has always had.

We don’t have any teaser images of the bike yet, other than a blurry outline from the invitation, seen below.

That doesn’t give us much to work with, but we can still glean a few details. The motor can be seen just forward of the foot pegs, and the battery appears to occupy the main portion of the frame in a position similar to the Sur Ron Light Bee. A cafe racer-style bench seen can be seen, though the handlebars appear higher than the low bars or clip ons normally found on cafe racers.

While the image doesn’t shed much more light than that, I did a bit more digging to find additional clues. Check them out below.

Electrek’s Take

In past videos on Facebook, multiple models of electric motorcycles including bikes from Horwin, Sur Ron, and Kuberg can be seen in the Cleveland Cyclewerks workshop. The founder and CEO of Cleveland Cyclewerks, Scott Colosimo, has also mentioned in past videos that they have partnered with Sur Ron. “We formed a bit of a relationship with Sur Ron, and we’re working with them on some power systems,” Scott explained in a video.

Based on the shape of Cleveland Cyclewerks’ mystery e-bike’s frame, it looks like it could easily support a drop-in Sur Ron battery. And Sur Ron is no stranger to helping its components find their way onto other company’s motorcycles.

Then we get even more clues from other videos on Cleveland Cyclewerks’ Facebook page. In fact, we can even see what is purportedly the new bike, albeit still hidden under a blanket. From the parts that are exposed, we can see that it is fitted with street tires and sports an inverted front fork, and the rear appears to have a sprocket, albeit without a chain mounted, so this likely won’t be a belt driven bike.

There’s also a lever on the left bar end, meaning they either gave it a bicycle-style rear hand brake lever (something not possible to do on gas bikes due that space being occupied by a clutch lever) or they’ve actually put a manual gear box in the bike, with that lever controlling the clutch. Considering that the company is already known to be working with Horwin, which produces electric motorcycles with gear boxes, this is a definite possibility.

The mystery e-bike is also parked next to the Sur Ron Light Bee, which helps us get a rough size comparison.

It seems to be similarly sized to the Sur Ron Light Bee, making it a rather small motorcycle.

It’s hard to gauge any power information from the clues I could dig up so far, but my guess is that we’re looking at something in the 150-cc class, likely with a top speed in the 50 mph (80 km/h) neighborhood, perhaps a bit higher.

But for now we’ll have to continue speculating, unless the guys over at Cleveland Cyclewerks want to drop us any more teasers.

What do you think of the Rising Falcon project? Are you ready for a new made-in-America electric motorcycle? Let us know in the comments below!

via: EMN