electric bikes

Confederate Motors President Matt Chambers says that they reached the limits of what they can do with internal combustion engines in their crazy-looking mechanical design motorcycles.

So they are changing the name to Curtiss Motorcycles and going electric with the help of leading electric motorcycle maker Zero Motorcycles.
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Electric powertrains are already quite common in two-wheel vehicles – thanks to electric scooters, which are already extremely popular in Asia, somewhat popular in Europe, but less popular in North America. Now a relatively new segment of electric mopeds is coming and should make two-wheel electric vehicles significantly more popular.

We could argue about the differences between motorcycles, scooters, and mopeds, which can also be different with an electric powertrain, but generally speaking a moped will look more like a motorcycle than a scooter and it will have weaker powertrain which generally results and less stringent licensing requirements and therefore, it makes them more accessible than motorcycles.
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Zero Motorcycles, a maker of battery-powered motorcycles, is at the American International Motorcycle Expo in Orlando, Florida today to unveil its 2016 lineup and announce 2 new models.

On top of the new models, the company is also presenting a new motor design, a faster charging infrastructure, a new lithium-ion cell chemistry for more capacity and efficiency, and it will lower the price on two base models while adding more features and performance throughout its lineup.
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[kickstarter url=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flykly/flykly-smart-wheel width=704]

It is hard not to like this idea: You replace your rear  bike wheel with this special FlyKly wheel which houses a motor, a controller, and some batteries. You set the speed with a smartphone or Pebble app.

On the downside, you are also replacing your rear gear sprockets and shifting mechanism and it doesn’t seem like you can have too much control with a smartphone for changing speeds while biking.

Estimates look like the product will hit production late next year.